I asked my good friend, Ruben Reeves, if he'd like to give summertime, trophy brown trout fishing a whirl. Beautiful scenery, great weather, potentially great fishing. What more could a person want, right? Ruben had joined me earlier this spring at Paulina Lake and got his first taste of what type of fish could be produced. So Ruben met up at my house on Thursday afternoon and we made our way up to Newberry Crater. Our fist stop was Cinder Hill Campground at East Lake. We set up camp quickly at a spot that Jimmy Lewis (a.k.a. "The Godfather") had kindly reserved for us. Jimmy arrived back an he had a pretty good report of a lot of #'s of browns, but not any big ones yet. You and RD arrived shortly thereafter. With anticipation of what the next morning held in store, we reluctantly went to sleep for a very short slumber (as indicative of the long summer days and short summer nights.).

Friday morning, 4 am arrived WAY too quickly. We loaded up our boats and began fishing at 4:45 am. We trolled for a good two hours without a bump. Finally, we got the skunk off as Ruben reeled in a 19 incher. 5 minutes later, I got in on the action with another 19 incher. This trend continued on until about noon as we boated and released 19 browns. Unfortunately, all were in the 16 to 19 inch range, with the exception of a short and chunky 3 and 4 lber that I caught.

Later that afternoon, Ruben and I both got slammed at the same time as we were trolling past a rental pontoon boat from East Lake Resort. My fish was fighting pretty hard and then it just stuck it's ground within the vicinity of the pontoon boat. I then thought to myself "Crap, it's the pontoon boats anchor-line." I yelled to the guy on the boat as he and his kids were watching Ruben and I fight these two fish "Hey, I think I hooked your anchor line!" He said "I don't have my anchor out! We're wind drifting!" HOLY CRAP, this was a fish!!! After he said that and both parties realized that it was in fact a fish on, it did (3) tremendous head shakes and then slack. I got chewed off! Ruben was still fighting his and then he said it went from swimming and head-shaking to dead-weight. As he reeled in, he had a bunch of weeds. CRAP! I lost one of my favorite lures and Rubes got weeds.

We headed in for a short break at around 3 pm. We were graciously welcomed back to our camp site (sarcasm laid on THICK) by our lovely camping neighbors. Let me say this. I am not a parent but plan to be someday. I have several friends and family that are parents and I have witnessed enough of their techniques and how their kids behave to give me a good sense on how I would parent my own children. I was appalled and mortified about how rude, crass, and profane these people were to their young children (which ranged from infant to 10 years old). They did not have respect for their children, any of the other people that were camping around them, or themselves. It was disgraceful and needless to say, it was even more motivation to keep us on the water fishing. Unfortunately, the evening bite yielded 5 small dinks, a missed big one, but we did end Friday with 24 fish to the boat (all were released).

Saturday AM arrived. Ruben wanted to sleep in so I had the pleasure to play "guide" and take "The Godfather" with me. We had never fished in the same boat before so I was looking forward to it. I'm proud to say I got Jimmy into some fish, but unfortunately, all were in the 16 to 19 inch range. We boated and released 9 browns by 7 am. I then went to shore, dropped Jimmy off and met up with Ruben. We had some quick breakfast on the shore and went to pursue some more browns. We caught and released 7 more browns (yet again, all the same size) until about 7 pm. We noticed the bite had come to a screeching halt. In chatting with you and RD, we decided to pull the boat out and put in at Paulina Lake in hopes to catch something bigger over there.

Sunday Morning - Ruben and I headed out right at legal and began trolling the depths of Paulina Lake for that elusive, monster brown. After about a half-hour, I got a bump, but it came un-buttoned. Two minutes later, I had another hit that yielded a nice 18 inch brown. During this time, I noticed that you and RD were doing a photo op with a fish which can only mean one thing. You guys boated one over 5lbs. We trolled by and saw that massive hookjaw as RD was releasing it. Way to go RD!!! Over the course of the next 4 hours, we caught 5 dinks in the 12 to 14 inch range. We decided to call it a trip.

In summary, my boat caught and released 46 brown trout. The average size was about 18 inches and 2 lbs. We came very close to boating 100 lbs of brown trout for the boat. Nothing big this time but we still had a blast and felt very fortunate to put #'s like this up. We noticed these browns had been feeding very well. East and Paulina Lakes are some of the most beautiful lakes I've had the privilege to go and fish. We also had a great time meeting up with Joe Moritz (a.k.a. Fish-on-Bend from iFish) and his wife. We also had the pleasure to meet up with Mike Scott (who has a 4-leaf clover attached to him somewhere), his lovely wife Niki, his son Tyler, and friend Zach. It just makes it that much more enticing to get up there and go again. Can't wait.

Until Next time,

Brian Wildish (a.k.a. B-Wild)