Less than two weeks had passed since my last outing, and my brown trout fever was already taking over. I knew that access to a small lake with big browns was just around the corner, and Jordan and I had devised a plan to get us in a little early. As we were rounding up the final details on Thursday night, I got a call from Jake Bunio (aka Luke Brownstalker) who was up fishing East on a big brown excursion form Folsom California. Jake is the owner of Trophy Sticks, a killer new stickbait company which is blowing up the fishing world by taking the classic wooden Rapala style minnow to a whole new level. I have become a bigtime believer in his lures and highly recommend them to all trophy trout hunters. Anyway, back to the phone call, Jake was totally fired up on his best day ever for big browns. I’ll let you read his report for the details, but I will say that his day ended with an incredible buck brown that was near 32 inches and over 11 lbs! This report caused an immediate change in plans and we were now bound for East Lake. Every trophy trout hunter dreams of that magical day on the water when the stars are in perfect alignment for the big fish to feed with wild abandon, and Jake’s dream had just come true. The big question in my head was, would we be a day late and a dollar short?

I left my house at 2:00 am Friday and made record time. Including my stop in Bend to grab Jordan and gas up, we had lines in the water in 4 hours time at 6:00. It was cold and foggy, but we are both wired like a couple of walking GPS units and we knew just where we wanted to troll. As we trolled along the still flat water, the cold air began to have it’s way with the surface and a thin skim of ice began to develop. As the ice got thicker, we ran our rods down into the water to protect our lines from getting torn up be the sharp edges of the ice. Here’s a clip to show this technique.

A half hour passed with no action, and the image of another boat began to appear thru the thick fog. As the image became more clear, I saw that there was a guy hunched over the side of the boat and he then stood up shaking water from his hands. “Dan?” I heard a voice shout. “Jake?” I sounded back. “I just did it again!”. I could feel the burn already as he shouted back “another eleven and a half hookjaw!!”. We had just missed the release of another monster brown by less than a minute. He showed us the photos and we bowed in disbelief over the lightning that had just struck twice. It was an honor to meet Jake and his buddy Mike on such a monumental occasion. Thanks again for the grip of Trophy Sticks you laid on us, Jake!

Okay, we were ready for our turn, so we went back to the game at hand. We picked up a couple of small ones and they only rubbed the burn. We wanted a good fish really bad. The ice had gotten thicker and it was too much for our rods to handle, so we set up the downriggers to let the cable cut a path for our lines to follow. We were not going for major depth, but this works well for these icy situations. Bam! Jordan’s rod tipped buried into the water with the pull of a better fish. Out of the clip, and it was big fish on. We worried a bit about the line plowing thru the ice as this fish did it’s thing, but we soon had an incredible golden hookjaw in the net. East Lake produces the best looking browns of any lake I fish and this 6 pounder could be a poster fish for East. We took a few moments for photos and shot a nice video clip of the release with the use of my sweet little Pentax Optio W30 underwater camera. Have I recommended this camera before? For under $250, it is an excellent all around 7 mp digital that is waterproof rated at 10 ft deep for 2 hours.

The rest of the morning was slow. It seemed that we had indeed missed the magic window that had produced do many big trout for Jake and Mike the day before. Leave it to Jordan and I to beat the water relentlessly to earn our fish thru hardcore efforts. I had a plan in place to call Jimmy Lewis by 10:00 to give him a report. We stopped in at the resort to use the pay phone, but they were both out of order. I debated loading up and driving down the road to Paulina to use the pay phone there, but figured it was likely down too, and didn’t want to give up that much time just to deliver a report of average fishing. We got back in the boat and continued on our mission.

We picked up a small fish here and there. The bite seemed to come in short waves and we even had a couple of double hookups in between the hours of no bites. Jordan broke up the small fish pattern with a sweet looking buck of 4 ½ lbs and this got us revved up with the realization that the big fish were still attainable. We shot another clip of this trophy-to-be swimming back to his underwater haunts.

Jake had mentioned that there was a red hot bite that came on around 4:00 the day before, and I was hoping to get on the board with a fish over 5 as that time was approaching. Like clockwork, at 3:50 my rod began to dance and sing under the weight of a strong fish. Boy, did it feel good to do battle with this strong and aggressive fighter, and the battle ended with another sweet hookjaw in the net. This guy was over 5 ½ lbs and took great joy in watching him swim away to eat some more kokes, chubs, and rainbows to put on more weight.

The bite continued to treat us well for another hour with quite a few fish caught in the 16- 20 inch range , but no more connections with big fish. Then, just as a trophy brown hunter would expect the bite to pick up, it totally shut down. The last 2 hours of daylight produced one 3 lb fish which topped off the number for the day at 30 fish. We called it a wrap at 9:40 and went in to crash for a few hours. As we drove into the campground, I saw Jimmy’s rig and we stopped. He had shown up late in the afternoon and experienced the same as us. One good fish of 4 ½ lbs right away, and then dead for the rest of the night.

Saturday we were on the water at 4:25 am. Again, the fish were not biting during this time that many consider “prime” brown trout fishing. Jordan and I were not swayed, as we knew that so many nice fish had come aboard on Friday right thru the middle of the day with the water flat and blue bird skies. We fished on strong and slowly racked up numbers of smaller but feisty browns in the 14-22 inch range. As 4:00 hit, the action picked up, but we were still hungry for something bigger. I switched lures to try my trusty 4 inch Lyman plug that Jordan had painted rainbow. In less than 5 minutes, my rod doubled over and a good fish was shaking his head in resistance. To no avail, as I won another battle and yet another killer East Lake hookjawed male slid into the net in defeat. No worse for wear, the 6 pound buck swam away with a minor poke in the jaw.

The fishing slowed after that and another “prime” passed with little to show. The day ended with a count of 24 browns to the boat. We got right to sleep and were back on the lake again before 4:30 on Sunday for our last attempt at the fish of a lifetime. The action was slow for the first hour and then I broke through with a nice male of 4+ lbs. Then it was dead again for a couple more hours until I put another 4 lber on the board. We picked up a couple 3 pounders and Jordan stepped it up with a gorgeous 5+ fish. We took some sweet underwater stills of this fish before sending him on his way. Another 2 hours of slow fishing passed and Jordan was running his downrigger in deep water out from the cliffs. All of the sudden his rod bounced heavily and the line popped from the clip. By the time he had the rod in hand, the fish was already off on a smoking run and we watched with excitement as line continued to spool from his reel. It took over a hundred feet of line fast and then held it’s position for a few minutes as Jordan struggled to gain some line. The give and take ensued and eventually we saw the shape of a large brown emerge from the green depths. The tired old buck finally gave up and we brought him aboard. This was not only the biggest fish of the trip, but just an awesome specimen. With a huge head, great color, and killer spots, this was one amazing fish to behold. It’s always fun to catch a fish like this in front of a live audience, and we had 5 other boats around us for this catch. It was cool to see the reactions of the other guys, most of whom have likely never seen such a dandy brown in person. It felt great to demonstrate the choice to release this killer fish and set the example for others to do the same when their turn comes around. Away he swam…

That fish sent us into a long run of no action. The afternoon was going by fast and I was feeling that there was still a good shot at one more over 5 for the trip. It was my turn and I was totally focused on the game. I was finally rewarded with a mean tug as the 4:00 bite turned on as it had the 2 days before. It was more of the same good stuff, and I was on the board with another fish that just hit the 5 lb mark. Here's the release clip. This made 6 over 5 for the weekend and put the icing on the cake for another incredibly successful weekend for Jordan and I. We still managed to pick up a couple more nice fish in the 2-3 lb range before calling it a trip at 7:30. This day produced 15 browns and 5 of them were 4 lbs or better.

As I said earlier, the water temps were around 37 degrees. A wide range of lures were producing fish. Best ones were Excalibur Minnows in Emerald and Silver, 6 1/2 in Trophy Sticks in Baby Bow and Silver Platter, and Lymans in rainbow. Jordan's big one was caught on the good old Rapala F18 in rainbow.

On the way out, we stopped by Paulina Resort to see if any big fish had been posted over there. On Friday, Newberry legend and friend, John Hofford had stuck his 11^th brown over 10 lbs with a killer 14 ½ lb hen. On Saturday, some lucky guy scored a true fish of a lifetime with a 17 ½ lb hookjaw buck! I dream of a fish like this. Maybe someday…..