I launched into the Deschutes Arm of Wickiup and began fishing my way upstream, dredging the channel with my kokanee pattern stick baits. It wasn’t long before I felt a tug followed by the wiggle of a small brown trout. This was the only fish that I caught in the 2 ½ hours I fished before dark and with no big fish seen on the graph or boiling on the surface, I decided to go home to East Lake. I drove up the hill and crawled into the back of my truck for a short nights rest.

I woke up charged at a quarter to five, and busted the boat into the water. Once again I found myself ahead of schedule and waiting for the legal bell to ring before lowering my lure into the depths. The first hour and a half passed without a strike and I was starting to worry a little, but as the sun broke over the hill, the bite began. I worked my way around the good ridges and deep holes and was picking up small browns here and there, and no real location was proving to be the hot spot. By mid afternoon, I was up to 10 fish, but had not been hit by anything large. I threw on a “chubby” looking lure, dropped it on the downrigger, and within 15 minutes it got hit hard and my line popped from the release. The fish gave up a nice fight, and eventually came to the net. He was a nicely colored male of around 4 ½ lbs. I tossed him in the live well and set up the camera timer for a self portrait before returning him back to the lake. That lure took a couple more browns in the 3 lb range before I went in at 5:00 to meet up with my buddy Brian. Unfortunately, there was no evening bite, and we fished till dark without a strike.

The next morning it was clear skies and very cold. It was as if fall had moved in overnight and the air felt quite different than the day before. Was this to be a good thing or a bad thing? There was a good breeze blowing and the wind chill was 20 degrees at the most, biting through the thick layers of winter attire we were sporting. So uncomfortable and yet so comforting at the same time to the serious trophy trout hunter. The morning bite didn’t happen, but as the sun rose over the hill we hit a quick run of action that yielded a few small browns. Then it was a boat ride for a few hours until my lucky chub lure got hammered. Another strong fighter gave me hope for breaking the 5 pound mark and meeting the goal for the trip. The handsome buck made it to the net and weighed in at 4 ¾ lbs. Such a nice fishy. We hit another short bite at around 4:00 that afternoon and that was it. Another evening with no bites at all and we finished the day with six hard earned browns to our credit in the 15+ hours we fished.

That night we were joined by my older friend, Wayne. We have been trying to connect on the water all year, and we finally made it happen. This is his first year as a trophy trout hunter, and has been doing extremely well with many nice fish under his belt already including a killer hookjaw that was around 8 pounds. It was nice to have his company and we all crashed hard with dreams of big hookjaws tail dancing in our heads.

Sunday morning was calm and again in the low 20’s. With our rods blazing, we ripped and probed that lake head to toe. It begrudgingly gave up a fish in the morning and then gave us a long lesson in patience. Oh yes, and the wind began to blow. It was coming from the north and it seemed as if it was delivered via the Polar Express. It never let up all day and even brought some scattered dustings of August snow with it. At least the fishing was good. Oh wait… it wasn’t! The hookjaws were lock jawed, and the day passed slowly with 6 small browns to the boat at the end for our 45 rod hours. Wayne had had enough of these frigid fishing conditions and drove home to Prineville, but Brian and I had another day ahead of us. We could only hope for some better conditions.

Labor Day morning was cold, but not as cold. There was no wind and we prayed it would stay that way. Happily, it did. The fish took some time to start biting, but once again by the time the sun came over the hill we were catching fish. They had started biting by the time we rolled into a nice deep bowl near the white slide, and though the numbers were coming there was nothing of size showing on the graph or on the line. We stuck with the rule of “don’t leave fish to find fish” for a couple of hours but it began to feel like the big boys were not feeding in this area today. So with some good numbers of fish to 3 lbs under our belt we set out in search of the one fish we had come for. The bite came to a halt as soon as we left that hole and after a few hours of searching and coming up with nothing but a blank screen we found ourselves back again. We started catching fish right away, but the clock for this trip was running out quickly. On the way back to the dock we ran a line down the middle of the lake. We had pretty much given up the battle when my rod gave a quick bounce. Nobody was home, but a few seconds later, another sharp bounce. Still nobody home, but sure enough, a few seconds later it started to dance for real. I set the hooks and I was into a strong fighting fish that gave me another ray of hope for a fish over 5 pounds. He put on quite a show for the 4 pound buck that he wound up being, and his colorful scales made him a very fine brown indeed. What a nice fish to end a great trip of trophy trout hunting.

We ended the long weekend with 48 browns to the boat. We worked our butts off for those fish and were proud to boast those numbers in the tough conditions we were dealt. The hottest lure was the 4 ½ inch Tasty Tui Trophy Stick. I am really liking that lure and it has been keeping pace nicely with some of my other all time best discontinued lures. I am taking the month of September off from fishing, but plan to hit the water hard again come October. Crescent, Paulina, and Wickiup will all be on the table, and I can’t wait for another shot at meeting the brown trout of my dreams….