The next morning I was ready to go with time to spare. With short winter days approaching fast the legal fishing hours provide for only 11 ½ hours per day which leaves plenty of time for eating and sleeping around camp. I trolled the shallows down past Simax Beach and turned around to hit the run again. In an hour I was back where I had started and finally got bit. It was another small brown, and it was nice to shake the skunk off. I continued on my mission and it was a couple of hours before my next strike. When it hit, my rod loaded heavily and line peeled quickly from the reel as the strong fish headed for the the middle of the lake. I turned the boat into deeper water and gained control of the fish just as I was getting dangerously close to the bottom of my spool. The fish then went to the surface and pretty much gave up the fight. A minute later I slipped the net under a smaller than expected laker of 5 lbs. This little guy fought like a fish twice his size. I saw that it was almost time for Jordan to arrive so I trolled back towards the dock. Within a few minutes I got hit hard again, but just as it started taking line it all went limp and the fish had thrown the lure. I grabbed Jordan and we got right back to this hot mid-morning bite. As we approached Simax I hooked another good fish and this one was flashing some nice butterscotch color. Jordan did the net work and we had a 5 ½ lb brown aboard. We shot a video of the release of this fine fish and got back to the game. It was pretty slow for the rest of the day and we only managed to scratch up a couple more small browns. The stormy conditions had helped the fishing but by noon the clouds had cleared and the wind died to nothing. These glass like conditions are never what you are hoping for, but anything is possible in trophy trout fishing so I always continue with confidence.

The next morning was more of the glassy conditions. Jordan was hooked up with a good fighter in the first 5 minutes which put a 4 lb brown on his scorecard. It was dark and we were in a hurry to get the lures back in so no pics of this one. The morning proceeded to be slow with a couple more small browns caught and no lakers were biting at all. This was the tone for the day and by the end we felt a little beat up. We knew that the next day would be more of the same tough conditions, but we were convinced that cranking out the long hours gave us at least some shot of hooking a trophy fish.

Saturday morning we were well rested and ready to go. It would be important to hit it hard during the lower light levels so that is exactly what we did. The air was cold and brisk, surely in the low 20’s and there was a heavy frost covering the boat and its contents. Still not even a hint of a ripple on the water. We were working our way towards Simax once again and it was near the half way mark that my Bomber got hammered. The fight was on and I was working for this one. Lots of give and take finally gave way to a very stocky and pregnant female brown of 25 ½ inches and 7 lbs. This really made the trip an immediate success for me. We tossed her into the live well for safe keeping and got right back to the drill. Nearly 2 hours passed without a bump, but the monotony was finally broken as my rod folded over in the holder. I quickly took it to hand and I was into another powerful fish. It took an easy 100 ft of line before succumbing to my pressure and then it bulldogged its way towards the boat slowly. I love the wondering that goes along with every big trout you hook into at Crescent. Sometimes you have some good indicators by the way the fish is acting during the fight, but I can by no means tell with any certainty whether it’s a brown or laker. Most of us have a slight moment of disappointment when we catch the first glimpse of a forked tail or the white tipped fins of a lake trout. I love this mystery and love to catch nice lakers, but this was indeed a case of seeing the signs that this was not a trophy brown trout. It was a nice sized laker of 11 lbs. The sun was now fully up and we shot release clips both the brown and the laker before continuing on our mission.

That fish marked the end of our action for the next 9 hours. As the sky grew dark we were loosing hope for landing one more good fish. We were in the last 20 minutes of legal daylight and were trolling in the bay right in front of the resort when I hooked up again. At first, the fish peeled a little line and gave some pretty solid tugs, but then it just started to come in slowly but steadily. Soon enough I could see the big white alligator jaws coming straight at me in the dimly lit water and I knew this was good hookjaw potential. It was an easy net job and indeed I had capped the day with a handsome hookjaw of a bit over 5 lbs. With almost no time left we quickly dropped that fish in the live well and got the lures back out. Then with only 5 minutes left my rod went off again. With a tug, tug and an aggressive surge of my drag the fish tossed my lure and I was left with disappointment. It was surely another good one.

Sunday morning was more of the same conditions. If only we could reap the same hard earned rewards as the previous day this trip would be fantastic. We trolled our way into the darkness with high hopes and low expectations. Once the lures were out, Jordan had placed his rod in the holder to get a little more set up. Suddenly we both heard the sounds of a drag giving up line and sure enough Jordan was in the hot seat with a big fish. That sucker really took some line before settling down for the second half of the fight. It was still pretty dark so it wasn’t until the last minute that we were able to rule out the big brown potential. Once the nice laker was aboard I hooked the net with the scale and calculated his weight at 10 lbs. Wasting no time, we slipped the big guy into the live well and got back to the fishing. I know that some people would frown on this live well practice, but I use it with confidence that in almost all cases it is good for the fish. Jordan’s boat has a very nice live well which is nearly 4 feet long a foot wide and over a foot deep, and it has a timed pump that keeps fresh oxygenated water dumping in regularly. After a stay in the live well the fish are always strong, rested and looking healthy. The biggest problem is that they can sometimes be a little too hot to handle when going for the final release. It also serves the fish catching potential well too. Many times there will be a short but very hot bite in this game. You might catch 3 big trout in 20 minutes and then nothing for the rest of the day. If you spend too much time gawking, weighing, measuring, and photographing each fish as it is caught, you will at some point certainly miss out on a very good opportunity.  If you don’t have a live well in your boat, it is a good idea to use your net. This allows you to at least get the fish back in the water after being unhooked while you get the camera and scale ready to do there job. Always weigh the fish in the net and subtract the weight of the net to figure true weight of the fish. If you have as big of a net as you should have for this type of fishing then there is no reason not to and it is WAY easier on the fish… Anyway, back to the fishing, no more morning bites were to be had that morning. At around noon my lure got hit hard but a couple of headshakes are all it took to throw the hooks. Then Jordan picked up a small brown, and a feeling of hope had us riding high. The trip was winding down and we took a few minutes to regroup for the final few hours. Nothing would be more satisfying then to pick up a good sized brown in the middle of the afternoon with these conditions. We decided to stick to our program. Flatlining had produced all of the fish, and the shallow depth downrigging had beaten a ton of fish over the head with no takers. We continued towards the Boy Scout camp while “riding the rim” of the lake in 15-30 ft of water. I told Jordan that I was really feeling potential to hit something good and he agreed that things were feeling very positive. Not ten minutes later his rod bounced in the holder once and then nothing. A moment later the fish came back for the kill and things were looking good for ol’ Jordan. The fish quickly blew up on the surface and we both knew that this certainly upped the odds that it was a big brown this time. Soon enough the fight was at the boat and it ended with a 27 inch, 7 lb female brown in the net. We exchanged some high fives as most would have given up on a big brown in these conditions. We rolled the camera for the release and she seemed to swim off nicely, but a minute later we saw her slowly swimming along the top. We followed her for a bit and shot some more video which turned out pretty cool. That cheap little Pentax underwater camera really does a nice job.

That fish capped the trip off nicely and we drove away feeling like we had done what we came to do and more. Sure a 10+ lb brown would be nice, but reality says that you just are not going to tangle with a fish like that very often. Jordan has been going at this game hard for years now and has still not found his first over 10, while in the last couple years he has netted two over 10 for me. I hope I am there to see his turn come and return the favor as his net man.

Total numbers for this trip were 12 browns and 3 lakers. The bigger browns went 4, 5, 5 ½, and the two 7 pounders. This will likely be my last trip of the year. It was a great season for me with many browns over 5 lbs caught with the biggest being a killer 9 ½ lb hookjaw from East Lake in late August. I can only hope for more of the same next year. I am very pleased with the state’s management efforts on the lakes that I fish and see a bright future for the trophy trout hunters of Oregon.