Brian Wildish just caught the biggest brown trout of his life! Congratulations to a fellow die hard Trophy Trout Hunter on a hard earned catch. Here's the whole story.....

 

“WE DID IT!”

Dan,

I had a trip planned with my good friend Ryan Daniels and his friend Chad to go hit Wickiup Reservoir for some trophy brown trout fishing.  We’d meet at the Oregon State Beavers Football season home opener on Thursday evening and then head up to the Cascades for 2-1/2 days of fishing.  I asked my dad if he’d be able to go on Friday as I knew he had plans for the weekend and he said he’d fish until noon.  From there, a new friend of mine, Mike Scott, would take the torch and fish from Friday evening until Saturday evening.  Mike is very avid and savvy outdoorsman, hunting varieties of species of big game and quite the steelhead, salmon, and big Rainbow fisherman at Klamath Lake.  He’s now gotten the bug to become a crazy trophy brown trout addict.  I couldn’t wait to try and get him a fish over the 5 lb mark.

As my dad and I were at the game, we talked that we were going to be so amped after the Beaver game to go fish, we might as well just head straight to Wickiup from there.  As we trophy trout hunters tend to have few screws loose, we talked about it and said why not?  We headed up there, leaving Corvallis around 10:30 pm.  We stopped by my parents house in Eugene briefly to pick up a few things for my dad and off we headed into the Cascades. 

The drive up there was very indicative and symbolic of things to come for the weekend.  I know that Dan McAllister relates the type of wildlife he sees on the way to a fishing excursion for how the trips success would be.  Well, around Pleasant Hill, I smelled something a little off.  It was a skunk!  Well that’s not good at all.  A few miles later, I saw a couple deer on the side of the road.  Okay, a little more promising.  Then I saw lighting streak across the sky.  I thought to myself, “Hmmmph, wouldn’t that be nice if lightning struck a couple times this weekend.”  How little did I know how all these experiences were going to play out to fruition.

Dad and I got up to Wickiup around 2:30 am.  After a couple hours of very restless sleep, we hit the lake bright and early and headed up the Deschutes arm.  15 minutes into it, I got a nice bump on my rod but nobody home.  We trolled back and forth up the arm, spotting several fish and schools of kokes, but no takers.  I tried several techniques from casting to flatlining to rip-trolling to downrigging.  Nothing was working.  After 6 hours with one more bump, a bunch of kokanee fishermen blocking my trolling lanes in the channel, and $47 worth of lost lures to the stumps of Wickiup, Dad and I decided to take a break.  We were getting skunked (foreshadowing from the early morning drive?).  I felt really bad because I knew this could be a great shot for Dad to hook into a big brown.  Dad and I talked and he said “Maybe you should head up to East.”  I told him, “Well, I KNOW we can catch fish there.  If we can’t catch fish there, then the fish just aren’t biting.” 

RD and Chad rolled up about noon.  Dad took off and RD, Chad and I discussed our fishing options as things were looking grim for Wickiup.  We ran into Chuck Jones on the shore and chatted him up for about 15 minutes.  He’d been there for his standard 2 weeks and he told us this was the first time in the last 8 years that he hadn’t caught a fish over 10 lbs and he was averaging only 3 fish a day.  Wow!  That’s to be expected in trophy brown trout fishing, but not during a time when Wickiup is at it’s prime.  If Chuck Jones, the best trophy brown trout fisherman in Oregon (if not in the nation) isn’t doing well, that will not bode well for us.  After about an hour of deciding on a plan of attack, we decided we’d go head up the road and hit East Lake.

On the way up the Newberry Caldera, it began to rain.  Then it began to pour.  Then it began to hail!  Then it began to hail REALLY HARD!  Then lighting struck.  Just as we came upon the SW corner of East Lake, lightning struck right in the Pumice cone, about ½ mile from us.  Whoa!  With a low pressure system hitting, could this screw up the bite?  We hoped not.

We found our campsite at the first campground when you’re heading into the lake.  A gorgeous lake view was 50 yards from our site, perfect for launching our boats from.  We got right after it with high hopes.   I had called Mike Scott to let him know the change in plans and I picked him up later in the afternoon.  We fished until dark.  RD and Chad had landed 5 browns (but all dinks) and we landed, of all things, a 8 inch chub.  Not one of my finest trophy brown trout fishing experiences.   We fell asleep and awaited the rising sun.

Saturday morning lead into what was probably the most frustrating, patience-testing fishing experiences I’d ever had.  Mike and I got on the board with an 18 inch brown in the first hour.  That was the only bump that we had for the next 12 hours.  The day was fulfilled with losing lures, tangling lines, getting hung up in other people’s downrigger cables (kokanee fishermen), and no bites.  However, every cloud has it’s silver lining.  Mike stated that we were in “Bizarro World” today.  He couldn’t have been more correct.  RD and Chad had lost a 5+ lb brown earlier in the morning right by the boat.  They then lost that same lure that got hung up on the bottom (or so they thought).  A few hours later, they got a monster hit, or so they thought.  Come to find out, they ended up catching the very same lure they lost that was caught on an abandoned  anchor.  Mike’s line ended up also getting busted off during the afternoon.  At the end of the day on the last run,  Mike got a hit.  I popped my line out of the release of my downrigger while he fought his fish.  He then got the 16” brown to the boat and we looked at it and we noticed our lines were tangled.  Then I noticed “Hey, that’s my lure on the fish, not yours.”  What?  This was crazy.  So we then started to find what I thought was his line that was tangled with mine.  I started reeling it in by hand while Mike worked on reviving the fish and I noticed a lure.  As I began to pull the lure in, I looked at it and went “Hey Mike, this isn’t your Excalibur, I think it’s an AC Plug.”  Mike took one look at it and said “No…. it’s my J-13 Rapala I lost earlier today.”  Sure enough it was.  We couldn’t believe it.  Out of all the area in the lake and the chances of us going over the exact same spot was incredible.  What a crazy end to a crazy day.   I felt bad that we couldn’t produce more fish for Mike, but that’s fishing.  As he was getting ready to leave, he said “Those big arcs that we were marking are going to have to eat sooner or later.  Sooner or later, the lake is going to have to ‘pop’.”  In hindsight, how true was his statement.

Sunday morning came, and RD and I headed out together in RD’s boat as Chad only had a 2-day license as he lives out of state.  RD and I had been talking the evening before and I said “Man, this will be the first time since February where we’ve fished together.”  He replied “Yeah, and it seems like every time we fish together, something special happens.”  This coming from the guy that got me hooked on trophy trout hunting.  This coming from the guy that got me hooked into a 9 lb hookjaw my first time ever pursuing brown trout.  As I pushed us off from shore RD made the remark, “Time to go make ourselves legends.”  I smiled and laughed, not realizing that there was more truth to this then we knew.

The next couple hours, we got into a pretty good bite.   We landed 6 fish, with RD landing an 18” rainbow to boot.  We even landed a double, but nothing very big.  The sun was coming over the hills on the east side of the lake and I said to RD “The bite’s probably going to slow down.”  He was sticking with his trusty Excalibur as I was experimenting with a variety of different lures to see if I could tempt something a bit larger.  It seemed like the rainbow pattern was working well so I tried a rainbow patterned lure that I hadn’t given much thought to.  After 5 minutes of having it on the downrigger, I got a bump.  Nobody home.  We turned around and made another trolling pass.  RD and I were chatting about an 8 lber that I had landed about 2 years ago and that we were in about the same spot.  That’s when it happened!

 

I heard a “zinging” sound and looked over at my rod and it was bent over with the rod tip fully submerged in the water.  RD reacted fast and kicked the boat into neutral as I went and jumped to release the rod from the downrigger.  The amount of pressure was so strong it was pinned into the rod holder.  Finally, after I dislodged the rod, the fight began!  The fish was fighting like a freight train.  Line was stripping like crazy and headshaking ensued from the beast that was on the other end of the line.  RD’s rod was rigged with a left-handed reel which made it a bit awkward.  RD told me to tighten the drag but since my reels are all right-handed, I didn’t want to screw anything up.  RD then tightened the drag as I was still keeping pressure on the fish.  5 minutes had passed, and the monster I was fighting was still going strong.  I actually started shaking because I thought to myself “My God, could this finally being the one?  My first over 10 lbs?”  RD said, “Hey, this will be the biggest fish of the weekend.”  I commented “Man, I don’t want to count our chickens before they hatch.” 

After 10 minutes, I finally saw my line come to the top of the water and the fish revealed itself about 150 feet away.  I looked at it with my lure embedded in it’s mouth and I told RD “It’s about a 7 or 8 lber.”  We were both pretty stoked because that’s a great fish in anyone’s book.  It then took a run by diving deep and started headshaking like crazy.  Not gaining much line, RD said “Brian, I think I’m going to kick the motor on and drive towards it.”  I was nervous because I didn’t want to give the fish too much slack if I couldn’t reel fast enough.  RD and I went back and forth for a few seconds when I finally said “Okay, just be careful.” Duh, I knew RD would be as careful as anyone.  So  he started the boat and ever so slightly, we eased towards the fish.  He killed the motor after a few seconds and now it was only 50 feet away, but staying deep. 

I kept reeling and reeling and then caught my first up-and-close glimpse of the fish.  It was HUGE.  Both RD and I were silent, as we knew that this fish was well over 10 lbs.  Surveying the fish, we noticed the fish wasn’t hooked nearly as good as we’d originally thought.  If RD and I were going to get a chance to land this, it would have to be in the next couple minutes.  It was 20 feet away.  It would take a run and I’d back off the drag.  When it stopped, I’d re-tighten the drag and softly reel it in.  Now it was 10 feet away.  It made a final desperate run to the depths.  I backed off the drag because I knew this fish was spent.  It stopped and started to come to the surface.  8 feet away!  6 feet AWAY!  4 FEET AWAY!!!  RD lunged underneath the fish with one swoop off the bow and it was netted.  He heaved the fish into the boat, and we just screamed and hugged each other.  The first words shouted out of our mouths was “WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE DID IT!”

After screaming and hollering for what seemed like an eternity and announcing our victory to the entire lake, we tried to settle down and get our senses back.  We admired the fish and felt so blessed and grateful that we were able to catch such a beautiful creation.   We realized after taking several pictures, we had no idea how much the fish weighed.  We knew darn well it was over 10 lbs, just how much was the question.  With both of us still shaking from the awesome accomplishment that had just occurred, we weighed and measured the fish.  The beautiful brown trout hen tipped the scales at 12 lbs 9 oz and was 30-1/4” long with and 18-1/2” girth.  This is what it was all about.  This is what we have literally spent hundreds of hours chasing.  With all that we have learned from other fisherman, trial and error, and the “school of hard knocks”, we had accomplished our goal.  A brown trout over 10 lbs!

We ended the trip after that because, honestly, we were emotionally exhausted from such a tremendous fish.  I want to thank everyone that has given me knowledge to help pursue these amazing fish.  Jimmy Lewis, the godfather of Trophy Trout Hunter, thanks for all your help and willingness to help a newbie along.  Thanks to Dan McAllister for all the helpful information and conversations we’ve had about strategy in pursuing these fish.  And a very, very special thanks to Ryan Daniels (RD).  He’s the one that got me started into this type of fishing.  He’s spent far more years than I have in pursuing browns and deserves this fish more than I.  The catch of this fish is attributed to his skill of fishing for brown trout that he was so willing to share with me.  I’ll just finish this report by stating the 3 words that RD and I just couldn’t help but say.  “WE DID IT!” brother!  “WE DID IT!”

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While Brian Wildish and I were smashing big browns at East, RD and his buddy John were working another lake and got into some great fish of there own. Here's his July 20-22 report:

Hookjaw,
Invited my childhood buddy, John Luhrs, to go on his first trophy trout hunting
adventure with me to a lake he's been going to since he was probably 6
years old.  He'd always fished with the bobber and bait routine, but
had never tried the ways of the trophy trout hunter.  After asking John to go with me, he was eager to see if "my" drill could pull out browns bigger than
the way they did it.  I grinned at the opportunity and deep inside I
knew this was my chance to get a good friend into the best trophy
trout fishing of his life.  Nothing against you bobber and bait
fishermen out there, but if you want to catch the big boys on a
regular basis, that is not the way to do it.  Certain times of the
year you can catch them with that type of setup, but in the heat of
the summer you have to go deep!
JohnBoy (John's high school nickname that I still use today) and I
arrived at the lake around 3:30 p.m. and quickly setup camp.  We were
on the water trolling by 4 p.m. and quickly went deep to the 30 to 40
foot mark with the rigger to try and drum up an old hookjaw.  Three
hours went by quickly while talking about our childhood days and
catching up on old memories.  Finally around 7:15 p.m. while ripping
my rod, BOOM, a solid hookup.  FISH ON!!  I laid the ugly stick to him
and he quickly stripped off on a short run.  I thought, Alright, we
might have a good fish on here.  John got in his gear just in time to
net a Chunky 23", 5lb. Hookjaw German Brown.  Sweet!  The skunk was
off, and we'd already met the goal of one brown over the 5lb. mark for
the weekend.  Damn, this could be an awesome weekend, but I've had
this happen before with the rest of the weekend slow.  After some good
photos, I showed JohnBoy the revive technique and we watched the
beauty swim back to the depths.  JohnBoy hasn't released a lot of big
trout in his lifetime, and I could tell from his body language that he
thought that was a very special and powerful feeling.
A couple hours passed with a few more dinks caught and released, and
then around 9:15 p.m. the downrigger rod started the old bob and
weave.  "Downrigger Rod", I shouted!  He grabbed the pole just in time
to have it release on its own.  Wow, I thought.  This could be a dandy
if it released out of the clip on its own.  After a solid fight, a
battle scarred 22"; 4lb. hookjaw came to the net.  John was elated as
this was his biggest brown trout ever.  Once again we snapped some
pics and sent him on his way.  We fished until legal with one more hit
and a miss, and then called it a night.  What an evening with 5 browns
total including a 4 & 5 pounder!
Saturday morning came early, and we were greeted with a cloudy
overcast and a nice breezy chop on the water.  Something felt very
peculiar about this morning.  The weather seemed perfect to give a
veteran hookjaw the courage to let his guard down, and boy was I ever
right.  Right at 5 a.m. while ripping the ugly stick over 80 feet of
water, JohnBoy hollered "Whoa..........Fish on, BIG Fish on!"  I
looked up just in time to see line rippin' from the Penn reel, and
quickly got my rod off the downrigger and into the boat.  By the time
I got the ball up and the net in hand, the fish was about 20 yards
from the boat and holding his ground.  JohnBoy did a great job of
working the fish in towards the boat, and I was anxiously waiting with
the net in hand.  It was still plenty dark outside, and I had my
headlamp still on.  Finally, we got a good look at this Beast as he
swam up to the surface about 10 feet from the boat.  I can still see
him now in my mind.......Big Spots, Thick Chunky Body all the way from
his Massive Hookjaw head to his Adipose Fin.  This guy was easily 28"
long and I'd have to guess 8+ pounds.  After a second pass the fish
looked worn out and lay over on his side.  I told John to gently slide
him right over the net, and I'd scoop him up.  Just about the time the
fish was over the net, he erupted into a fury like I'd never seen.
This old boy knew his card was up, and he wasn't going down without a
fight!  His body kicked and thrashed, and he was headshakin' like an
80's hair band lead singer.  Between the splashing of water and the
dark of the morning, I could not tell exactly where my net ring was
below the fish.  I quickly pulled the net back so as to not get
tangled up in the lure and prematurely knock this beast off to
freedom.  John kept the line tight on the fish, and I tried to yell at
him to give the fish some line so that he would go deep again and tire
out.  Too Late!  The next thing I hear is "S@#%, GET IT, GET IT!!"  I
saw the fish swimming off and took a desperate stab at him with the
net, but he was just out of reach.  The monster slipped back into the
depths of darkness with my emerald excalibur still buried in his
hookjaw.  I looked at John not really knowing what had just happened
and he quickly told me the 15lb test leader broke.  I never heard it,
but sure enough it broke and it wasn't at the knot.  We were both
heartsick because it doesn't happen too often when you can fool an old
coyote brown trout of that caliber!  We both smiled at each other and
tried to shrug it off.  I guess it was meant to be that way.  That
will just be another memory we'll always have together between two
good childhood friends.  If landed, I have no doubts that fish would
have been the second biggest brown to have come to my boat this year.
That's fishing!
We pressed on and within and hour I landed a pretty little 3 pounder.
The rest of the day was painfully slow.  We worked deep, then deeper,
and then stopped trolling to try some casting which landed some dinks.
 This killed the monotony of trolling for a while and gave our asses a
break!  Around 1 p.m. we took a two hour break off the water to grab
some lunch and catch a cat nap.  The evening bite was slow, and I was
beginning to think it just wasn't going to happen.  Finally around
8:15 p.m., JohnBoy yelled "Fish On", and I breathed out a sigh of
relief.  This guy was a real scrapper and fought better than the big
guy we'd lost first thing in the morning.  I was excited to see what
would appear from the depths, and then a beautiful 22.5", 4-1/2 lb.
brown came to the surface.  He wasn't done though, and quickly
stripped off drag from the Penn reel.  I gave a little "whoop", and
JohnBoy got a big GRIN on his face.  He was loving it, and who
wouldn't!  This was his second brown over the 4lb. mark in 24 hours,
at a lake he'd been fishing ever since he was a little kid.  Nothing
like this has ever happened at this lake for him!  We took some great
pics to capture both the thrill on John's face and the beauty of the
brown he'd just landed.  John quickly revived the fish and got a kick
out of watching him swim back to his home.  That would be it for the
night as there were no other takers.
Sunday we hit it bright and early again, but the fishing was slow!
Finally at 7:30 a.m. John set the hook on a fish that quickly took
some line.  I got in my gear, and watched him fight the fish.  With
only about 20 feet of line to go, the line stopped in the water and I
thought the fish might be holding tight or something.  To my surprise,
John hollered "The reel won't reel!?!"  I said "What!"  He said "Yeah,
I can't reel anymore.  The handle is stuck or something".  I hastily
looked at the reel with him, and sure enough it felt like we were
reefing on a torch wrench trying to reel in the line.  Now this Penn
reel has less than 20 hours on it.  I couldn't believe it!  What the
Hell is going on?  In the meantime I see the fish boil about 10 feet
or so from the boat and it looks like a 4+ pound brown (even though I
couldn't see it's whole body).  Finally it donned on me to try and
hand crank in the fish, but to no avail.  Too much slack to an old
brown trout, and they will find a way to get off EVERY time.    I felt
the fish for a brief second, and then nothing.  Dammit!!  The fish
came off, and my Penn reel setup was flyblowed!  I felt like tossing
the whole some bitch into the lake right then and there, but sanity
prevailed.  That setup was done for the rest of the day.  We fished
until noon with only a few dinks caught, and called it a weekend.
All in all, 14 browns were caught including a 3, 4, 4-1/2, and 5.  We
lost a BIG one at the net which busted 15lb. test leader, and another
good one to faulty equipment.  We were on the water for 27 hours and I
was pretty pleased with our results.  JohnBoy had a great time and was
buzzing with the "fever" on the ride home.  He quickly called his Dad
once we were in cell range to let him know that I knocked a HUGE Brown
off with the net at the boat, and it seemed like we were back in high
school again.  I hollered over the conversation "BULLS@#%!", and we
started laughing hysterically!  Good Times with Good Friends and
Summertime Browns........
Later Danny,
R.D.
"Browns - Coyotes of the Fishing World"

__________________________________________

I had the privilege of sharing the water at East Lake this past weekend with Brian Wildish and some of his family. They cleaned up on the browns for the time they put in, with some great fish to show for it. Here is his report from July 21-22  -

Hey Dan,

As you well know, I love to fish for trophy trout (and especially browns).   However, this last weekend I had to harness my excitement for these tremendous fish as I was in charge of setting up a "Siblings Weekend" up at East Lake from Friday Evening until Monday morning.  It was myself and my fiance' Anna, my oldest sister Wendy and her husband Darin, and my middle sister Katey.  I tried taking Darin out on a trophy trout excursion earlier this spring to a lake we had never fished before and got skunked.  As I love East Lake and have done well there in summers past, I figured this would be as good of opportunity as any to get a couple more people into trophy trout fishing.  But my main goal was to spend time with my family, and I was at their beckon call in terms of fishing, regardless of how much or little it would be.  However, when we were going to fish, I was going to bust my butt to get my family into some quality fish. 

The first time we got to get out was Saturday very late morning, around 11 am.  The women wanted to go to Bend to meet up with my cousin who just recently moved up here from CA and go do some shopping.  So Darin and I got a "Get out of Jail Free" card to fish until about 5 pm.  So we started marking fish around the 30 to 40 foot depth, so I put our lures out to that depth.  Within 30 minutes, I had a fish on.  Nothing huge, but hey, skunks off!  About an hour later, I got another fish, but same result, just a dink.  The wind started to kick up  and was making it really difficult to steer the boat so I laid off of ripping for a while but Darin was still ripping like he was on a mission.  With my face getting wind-blown, I hear Darin say "Okayyyyyyy….".   I responded back without turning around "Okayyyyyyyyy what?!"  I then turn around and go "OH $#IT!", he had a fish on!  I put the boat in neutral and got my gear in and asked him how it felt.  He said "I think it got off".  I said do not stop reeling and keep your rod tip up, he could be swimming at the boat.  After a few seconds he said, "Yep, he's still there, but I don't think it's that big."  We then saw the dorsal and part of the back of the fish surface about 50 feet away and I went "Hey, that's a nice one, maybe 4 or 5 lbs".  Darin began to horse it in and I was trying to get the net ready.  The release button that locks the handle into place with the net was stuck and Darin had the fish at gunwale's edge.  I told him to hang on, but the fish was going ballistic.  Finally after what seemed like an eternity, we landed the 25-1/2", 7 lb hookjaw!  Darin's first trophy trout and it was just an absolute pig!  After pictures, we got him back into the water to swim and feed on the school of kokes we just put our lures through.  We caught a couple more dinks and then we ran into Dan and he showed us his beautiful 7 lb hookjaw.  I've honestly never seen such a beautiful brown and I told Darin that he'd be lucky to see something like that in our lifetime.  Incredible, middle of the day in the heat of the summer and (2) 7 lbers had been landed.  Everything from here on out is just gravy.  Little did I know more gravy was in store!

We headed back in, ate some dinner, and I gave my fiance' and middle sister a chance to go out for some trophy trout.  My fiance', Anna, thinks she's a jinx and said "If we don't catch any fish on this, I'm obviously a jinx and shouldn't be fishing."  As I was listening to her, I was quietly praying that I get Anna at least a 3 lber.  5 minutes later, my prayers were answered with Anna picking up a beautiful 23-1/2 inch, 4lb hookjaw.  She fought it great, and my sister responded "Guess your not a jinx, huh?"  Anna was thrilled and I was so happy to get her to catch a quality brown.  A few minutes later, Katey caught her 1st brown (a dink).  She was happy, but she wanted something bigger.  How true that was going to hold up in less than 24 hours.

The next afternoon, we were in the middle of a hike and my oldest sister, Wendy, stated she really wanted to go out fishing (as she hadn't been yet).  Then Anna and Katey said they'd really like to go out too.  Darin was all about fishing more after busting a 7 lber, and I'm in seventh heaven that everyone's pumped about going trophy trout fishing.  Talk about your "win-win" situation.  So it was about 4:30 pm and I decided we'd do two shifts.  Katey and Anna for the first 2 hours and then Darin and Wendy for the last 2 hours as I wanted to give Wendy the best chance to catch a big brown during "prime-time".  So the first shift of Anna and Katey headed out with me and we started fishing right away.  Towards the end of our first pass, with Anna's rod in the downrigger and Katey ripping away, I hear Katey scream "FISH ON!".  I turn around, and her rod is bent over hard!  I put it in neutral and cleared all the gear.  It looked like Katey was struggling with the rod and I kept saying, "Keep your rod tip up and keep on reeling!"  She was slowly gaining line, so I thought maybe I had the drag set too loose.  I checked it and nope, drag was set perfect.  Holy cow, she might have a nice one on!  After about a 8 minute fight, the fish showed itself and it was a fatty.  We scooped it up and Katey landed a 24 inch, 6 lb hen!  Way to go, Katey!  After it caughed up a 12 inch kokanee, and a slight SNAFU with the lure, the fish swam off to fight another day.  On the next pass, we missed one off the downrigger and then Anna landed a nice 3 lber.  It was so great that everyone was getting into some quality fish.

Now for the second shift and Wendy's first crack at trophy trout fishing.  Five minutes in the first pass, Darin yells "Hold the PHONE!"  I turn around and he's fighting a scrappy brown!  I asked how big, and he said it's fighting much harder than the 7 lber he'd caught earlier.  I told him it could be just a real scrappy fish.  Sure enough, Darin landed a twin to Anna's fish, a 23.5 inch, 4 lb hookjaw.  After a few pics, we got back at it and it was Wendy's turn.  On the next pass, Darin's rod got hit again and he handed the rod to her.  After a short-lived but exciting battle, Wendy landed a nice 3 lb hen.  About a half hour later, Darin landed another 3 lber.  Holy cow, the quality and average size of fish we were catching was incredible.  Near the end of the evening, the downrigger rod went off and popped out of the clip.  I grabbed the rod and tried to reel in the slack.  After one turn of the reel, my rod was already bent over and the fish on the end of the line was HEAVY!  It fought for about 10 seconds, pulling, shaking and then slack.  DANGIT!!! That was a good one but that's fishing. 

For the weekend, we fished only 10 hours, but we caught 12 fish.  Of those 12, we caught (3) 3 lbers, (2) 4 lbers, (1) 6lber and (1) 7 lber (and all were released).  All the dinks, except one, were caught by yours truly.  Darin broke an Owner hook off of the shank on one fish and I broke one off.  Also, much thanks to the folks at East Lake Resort for, again, wonderful accommodations and friendly service.  I HIGHLY recommend staying there if you don't want to "rough it" camping.  Sometimes it's nice to have a beer fridge rather than coolers.  All around, it was a great weekend and I'm so thankful that I could share this with my family who are very dear to my heart.  It was great and even though I only fished for about 4 hours of the total time, I'd do it again in a heartbeat to share these kind of experiences with the ones I love.  Cheesy, I know, but family and friends are a very important thing to me and will always jump at the chance to spend time with them.

Take care,

Brian

 

 

I met up with my good friend and T.T.H. founder Jimmy Lewis on Friday
evening to do some brown trout fishing. I was hoping for a better out
come on this Friday the 13th trip than our last. I was hoping to catch
something large. my largest fish this year while trophy trout fishing
had been under 20". Jimmy and I were on the water shortly before 7:00 PM
That gave us a little more than 2 hours before what we call prime time
for catching big browns. After about 20 minutes on the water my hopes
turned to reality! I had a strike that hit like a freight train. FISH
ON!! The fish gave some big head shakes, took a little line and the
fight was on. Jimmy could tell by the smile on my face this was a decent
fish. After a short fight the fish came to the boat fairly quickly. Just
as Jimmy got the net under the fish the hook was out. Thanks to a great
net job I had a 27" 8 lb.. hen in my hands. After a couple photos the
fish was back in the water. This gave me a lot of confidence we were in
for some good fishing this weekend. We looked forward to prime with
great expectations. Our expectations faded to reality as the black of
night set in and we had put nothing more in the boat. After some quick
dreams of what was to come we were back on the water at 4:00 AM. We
fished through prime with only a couple of small fish under 20". Around
7:00 AM I decided to try down rigging because there were some fish
showing up on the finder around 40' I ran the ball to about 40' and had
barely settled back in my seat when my line was hit so hard it brought
the rod holder down. I grabbed my rod and set the hook. Again I was met
with some serious head shakes and a nice bend in my rod.A short fight
and the fish was to the net. For a second time in as many fish the hook
came out just as Jimmy netted it. This fish was 25" and 6 lb.. I was
thinking that the 7:00 hour was to be my hour - only 12 hours and I
should be into another beauty. It didn't work out like that though.
Fifteen hours later we didn't have any more fish in the boat. Another
short 4 hours of sleep and back on the water. Sunday morning the only
fish in the boat were 2 healthy but small browns under 20".
 I am very happy with 2 nice browns over 5 lb.. It's nice to be able to
report in pounds rather than inches this year. As for Jimmy, I can only
say he has put in a ton of hours on the water and is still looking for
some sort of large payoff. The rewards are great for those with patience
and perseverance.
 On a side note all 5 of my fish were caught on the emerald excalibur.

 

 

 

 

 

I recieved this report from my good friend RD from his May 17-20 trip to East Lake.

 

Hookjaw,

Just wanted to send you my latest fishing report from the waters of
Beautiful East Lake.  What a special place!  I met up with my dad,
Kim, on Thursday morning around 10:30 a.m. in Pleasant Hill.  My wife
and family would be joining my Mom and continue south to our small
ranch in SW Oregon.  Dad and I switched the boat from my truck to his,
threw my gear in, and we were off for the High Cascades.  Nothing like
fishing with one of your heroes, and spending quality time with one of
my best friends.  I always look forward to taking Dad on fishing trips
and East holds a special place in both of our hearts.  My Grandpa used
to fly fish these waters back in the forties and fifties and would
catch HUGE Rainbows.  Some of the fish they'd hook simply just took
off, and Grandpa said you just had to clamp down tight on your reel to
break them off before all line was stripped!  The good old days....
I was hoping to get the "old man" into some good action with one brown
over the 5lb. mark.  Well, we only met one of those goals.  Most of us
know that scoring on a brown over the 5lb. mark out of East is a
pretty tough task, but is definitely achieveable.  Dad and I put up
some pretty impressive numbers quantity wise, but finding that "Big
Guy" just didn't happen on this trip.  We met up Thursday mid
afternoon with good friend and fellow OTTH Brian Wildish and his Dad,
Gary.  It was sure a pleasure getting to meet and know Gary better.
As you have read from Brian's report, his Dad was just thrilled to
death with their success, as he well should be.  Brian did some nice
guiding and got his "old man" into some pretty nice East Lake Browns.
Way to go, Bwild!
Thursday was a descent day of it on the water for Dad and I.  Right
off the bat, Dad scored with about a 2-1/2lb. little hookjaw brown.
We skipped the pics and went right back at it.  We ended up with 5 on
the day and looked forward to the morning prime.  Unfortunately,
Friday was one of the tougher days I've ever had on East.  We only
ended up with 4 browns for the entire day.  I believe Brian and Gary
were having decent success and we tried to mimic what they were doing,
but Bwild had the "hot" boat!  I was definitely baffled and feeling a
bite confused at this point.  Dad and I were sort of out of the game,
and I was struggling with not only getting on the fish, but locating
them as well.  The water temperature really threw me for a loop.  Back
in '05 when Bwild and I were at East in May, the temps were running
between 41 & 45 degrees F, and this time they were 47 to 49 degrees F
(I don't think my brand new Humminbird Fishfinder is reading wrong??).
 This really frustrated me!!  With supposedly the ice just off the
lake like a week ago, and the temps running this high, I was stunned
by this.  We focused on 15 feet of water for a lot of the time running
caliburs with minimal success.  As time went by, we moved out deeper
running diving rapalas, then switching to the riggers, and even tested
the lead lines.  We nailed some nicer fish in 25 to 35 feet of water.
They seemed to like the black/silver and blue colors the best.  At
times during this trip, we mapped HUGE arcs around the 15 to 20 foot
depth marks.  I continued to pound the piss out of these fish with all
of the above techniques with minimal success.  We scored on a couple
fish in the 2 to 3.5 pound class, but just not any "big" guys.  I
guess there are just days when the old hookjaws have LOCKjaws!
Saturday we hit the early morning prime and were at it by 4:40 a.m.
During a one hour stretch, we nailed three browns in a row, and felt
like this could finally be the day.  Then the bite was off, as was our
attitudes.  I tried to remain positive, but could tell Dad was growing
discouraged with the small number of bites and the increasing speed of
the snow filled chilly breeze blowing quickly off Paulina Peak.  By 11
a.m. we were chilled to the bone and frustrated by the three dinks
we'd caught.  We took a break from the water to regroup and refocus on
the task at hand.  Dad and I strategized and determined we needed to
work the deeper water with the deep diving rapalas we'd found success
with Friday afternoon.  Working diving lures is pretty sweet, as you
don't necessarily have to let out as much line, and you don't have to
mess with the riggers.  (Mine are the hand crankers, which get to be a
pain in the back!)  Around 3 p.m. we were working an area in the
middle of the lake running East to West.  Just like the day before, at
3:30, Dad popped a nice 3lb.+ brown from the diving lure.  We thought,
well this is either going to be a jinx and end up like Friday, or we
are really going to start to get into them.  Well, as it turned out,
it was the later.  In a 6 hour span, Dad and I caught 22 browns!
During this "streak", Dad landed one of the most beautiful browns I've
ever laid eyes on.  It was around 17" with a rosy colored hue along
it's lower sides.  Just a gorgeous brown.  Dad finished off the night
with a 21", 3-1/2lb. hookjaw around 8:45 p.m.  This was another
beautiful brown, and probably the biggest of the trip for Dad and I.
We snapped a couple pics and put him back to get bigger.
Sunday was a 5 hour day on the water.  We started early, but found the
bite to be fairly slow.  Within a couple hours, the westerly wind was
howling and snow flurries were abundant.  Wildish's voice came over
the Motorola Talkabout radio singing "It's beginning to look alot like
Christmas".......  We laughed and stuck with it.  A few dinks were
landed, and then finally around 8 a.m. I got to show Dad a hit off the
rigger.  I was towing a black/silver lyman lure 8 foot down on the
ball.  A sweet looking golden hookjaw of around 20" and pushing 3.5lbs
was the prize.  He had a glowing RED adipose fin and should make a
fine trophy in another year or so.  Checkout time was at 10 a.m. so we
had to quit around 9:30.  Dad and I had a great time and enjoyed the
facilities in our East Lake Cabin room.  David and Kathy Jones are
great folks and I highly recommend staying in one of their cabins.
They have little fridges to keep the beer cold, and a microwave for
the "lazy" camper!  I believe Dad and I tied Brian and his Dad with a
total of 37 brown trout caught and released for this trip.  This is
the most browns I've ever caught in my life in one trip.  I guess I'm
just a little surprised/disappointed that neither us or the Wildishs'
could get a brown over the 5lb. mark.  Either way, it was time well
spent with Dad and I had a great time.  I hope one of these days I can
pay back the man that got me into 12 to 16lb. steelhead on the
Coquille River on a regular basis while growning up, with the brown
trout of a lifetime.  It may never happen, but I'll definitely keep
trying!
Can't wait to hit another lake as soon as I can.  Not sure when that
will be, but I'll be sure to send you a report, Dan.
Take care Buddy!
R.D.
"Browns - Coyotes of the Fishing World"