Hey Dan,

The weekend finally arrived for my highly anticipated bachelor party up at East Lake.  I’d been looking forward to this trip for some time and it finally arrived.  I had big hopes in store for the fishing to be “off the hook”, but more importantly I was looking forward to spending some time with some of my best bros.

I headed up around noon on Thursday with my sights set on busting a 5 lb brown.  The sky was gorgeous, temperatures were great and I was amped to arrive at East Lake around 4 pm.  As I was awaiting two other fellow trophy trout hunters, you and Jordan, I checked into the “Brown Trout” camping room that the resort had to offer.  I shot the breeze with a fellow Trophy Trout Hunter, John Nelson from St. Helens, and from what he was telling me, the fishing was less than stellar.  It sounded like he had gotten into a couple, but nothing of huge size.  It was great chatting with him as we exchanged some info, tips, and tactics. 

You and Jordan showed up and within 5 minutes, we were off fishing our hearts out.  The water color was way off from the stereotypical crystal clear blue water that is so indicative of East Lake.  It appeared an algae bloom had been going off and there was a distinctive up-welling of the lake.  This concerned us as this 1) could affect the visibility of lures and 2) would spread nutrients throughout the water column, thus spreading out the fish and making it difficult to target where the fish were feeding.  Sure enough, the graph was sparse with a few fish being marked on the bottom, near the surface, and everywhere in between.  We fished all evening with only one strike to show for our efforts with 2 minutes left of legal fishing.  The Trophy Trout gods were going to make us work for them hard this weekend.

After 4 hours of a short-lived slumber, we awoke fairly easily on Friday morning.  We got dressed and within minutes, we were voyaging out onto the glass water of East Lake in hopes of better fishing than the day before.  3 hours later, my rod finally got bounced in the downrigger.  After a short-lived fight, I landed a 16 inch brown.  Nothing to write home about but it was at least nice to be reminded what a brown trout looked like. 

Although we weren’t seeing the amount of fish on the graph that we liked to, we began seeing more fish on the graph the closer we came to the White Slide area.  We set out our artificial offerings to various depths as the fish were spread out all over the place and began our trolling pattern.  30 minutes later while you, Jordan, and I were shooting the breeze, I heard the sound of line rubbing against rod eyelets.  I glanced over to where the noise was and your rod was just going off.  Since I was the closest to the rod I quickly grabbed the rod to set the hook.  FISH ON!  And it felt decent.  Quickly I handed you the rod and Jordan I cleared the gear.  After a nice scrappy fight, you landed a fantastic 5-1/4 lb, 24 inch hookjaw.  After it was revived in the livewell, we snapped a few photos and video taped the release of the gorgeous fish back to the depths to gain some length and weight.

It wasn’t until 3 hours later Jordan hooked up with a nice 20 inch, 3 lb brown.  After that, it was dead.  I had you and Jordan take me back to the dock where I was awaiting the arrival of all my friends at “The Honker” Cabin.  I sat down, cracked open a beer and toiled over the tactics and game plan of how I was going to get my friends into some quality trophy trout fishing. 

Everyone started showing up, slowly but surely.  I was explaining to everyone that the bite was really slow and that not to expect much.  For the evening bite, I took out my friend Dave Phillips and Brady Metzger.  Dave I’ve known for almost 8 years now and Brady is the first friend I made when I moved back to Oregon back in 1990.  We met in hunter’s safety course when we were 12 years old, went to the same middle and high school and played soccer and baseball together.  Both of these friends are now good duck hunting and fishing buddies.  Both Dave and Brady are very accomplished fishermen (i.e. Tuna, Salmon, Steelhead, Bass), but I really wanted to get them into a nice brown.  30 minutes into our first pass, my rod got hit in the downrigger.  A short-lived battle awarded us with a 16 inch brown.  Nothing huge, but it’s nice to have caught something.  We got one more bump that evening and that was it.  Oh well, maybe things will get better for Saturday.

I stayed up for almost 24 hours and decided at 2 am after playing some Guitar Hero 3 in the cabin, I decided I was not going to be fishing the early morning prime.  Brady and Dave took my boat and although they didn’t catch anything trolling, they did catch a couple small rainbows with their fly rods.  Fellow TTH’er and best friend RD took one of my other best friends, Jason Harris (a.k.a. Harry), out for the pursuit of trophy brown trout.  Harry is the one responsible for fine-tuning and making the Trophy Trout Hunter Logo a reality.  I know Harry was so excited about getting the chance of donning the hooded sweatshirt with the logo he made while holding a trophy brown.  Harry did break in the sweatshirt in earlier this spring with a nice spring Chinook with Dave Phillips, but yet with a quality trout.  RD did a fantastic job of guiding him into a beautiful, 19 inch, 3 lb hookjaw brown.  As you can tell by the smile in the photos, this is what trophy trout fishing is all about.  Good times with good friends.

After getting some food and water into my stomach, my brother-in-law Darin and I decided to get after it. RD did a swap with Harry for another one of my best friends, Ruben Reeves (a.k.a. Rubes).  Ruben has fished a lot in his life and has pursued trout quite a bit, but never really much of this type of trout fishing.  I was just praying that RD would be able to get Ruben into a quality fish like he had done earlier with Harry.  It had been an hour since Darin and I had been trolling a favorite lane of mine on the lake when RD’s voice over the radio says “Rubes is on the board!”  Ruben had caught his first brown trout, a beautiful 16 inch male.  Way to go, Rubes!!! 

In the next hour, Darin and I both got good strikes, but nobody home.  RD also got a big strike on the new jointed Rapala X-rap.  Nice to see that lure has some potential.  The weather then changed very dramatically.  When we first started out, it was overcast with a slight breeze.  This changed quickly into rain, heavy wind, and 2 foot whitecaps.  After getting tossed for a few minutes, we decided it best to head back in.  Good thing too.  The wind kicked up even worse then when we were out there.  Then came the thunderstorms that would come on and off for the next several hours.  We decided that playing horse shoes and drinking beer in the rain on dry land was safer then holding a lightning rod… er… uh… I mean… fishing rod in the lake during a thunderstorm.  So much for fishing a lot on Saturday.

Sunday, I awoke to crystal clear skies with a pristine lake set before me, just begging to be fished.  I awoke yet another one of my best friends, Chris Pucci (a.k.a. Pooch), to give him a shot at some trophy brown trout.  Pooch lived in Minnesota for a while, and had fished for pike, walleye, and bass, but never for brown trout.  With the clear skies, it froze hard and my boat was covered in 1/8” sheet of ice.  We headed out and within 30 minutes, we had a fish on!  Pooch reeled him in to land his first brown trout, a beautiful 16” specimen.  An hour later, my rod went off and I landed another 16 incher.  As we had to check out of the cabin by 11 am, we headed back to the cabin around 9 am so we could get some breakfast and pack up all of our gear. 

It wasn’t the best fishing I’ve ever had at East lake in terms of quantity and size of fish, but it was fantastic in the sense I got to share this with so many of my close and dear friends.  The commoradarie was great.  I hope we didn’t scare you and Jordan too bad with the myriad of stories back from my college days.  I also want to thank East Lake Resort for the quality accommodations and service.  Dave, Kathy and their staff are always so polite and fantastic.  If  anyone that wants to stay at a great resort in one of the most beautiful lakes in the world (IMHO), I highly suggest staying here. 

As for fishing techniques, we couldn’t narrow it down to a pattern of what depth the fish were at, what lure they liked, or even what speed to troll.  Fish were caught flat-lining and downrigging.  Rip trolling (a.k.a. rip-jigging by some ol’ timers) was not effective at all.  The lures we got bit on (not necessarily landed, though) were Lymans in the kokanee patterns, Excalibur Minnows in 4 different patterns, Rapalas of 4 different models (i.e. F13’s, Jointed, Husky Jerks, etc.) in kokanee, chub, and rainbow patterns, and Yo-zuri Crystal Minnows in the kokanee pattern. 

Take care,

Brian a.k.a “B-Wild”