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I met Chuck "ZZ Top" Jones back in the late 90's while I was pursuing trophy browns on our Central Oregon lakes. We hit it off right away with our mutual zeal for big browns and dedication to catching them. Since he doesn't own a phone and hasn't for years, it has been hard to keep in touch. We would periodically meet up at different lakes by chance and always enjoyed sharing photos and stories of our latest exploits. He is "hands down," the most prolific trophy brown trout angler in Oregon with a count of 32 brown trout over the 10 LB. mark.

I ran into Chuck the week before while fishing with a friend from California. We agreed to hook up the following week while he was on his annual late summer vacation. I got to the lake on Mon. evening to find all the launch areas completely out of the water. We decided we would work out of his boat that was already on the water. We scratched up a few smaller browns that evening and looked ahead to the following morning for a full day on the "Wick."

Little did I know that this would turn out to be one of the most prolific days of brown trout fishing I had ever experienced. I was glad it was shared with Chuck. It was not the type of day you would expect to be catching quality brown trout with 90 degree heat and no breeze, but that is fishing and you never really know what to expect. Without going into a full blow-by blow account, I will simply report that we landed 24 browns for the day but more impressive than that, we landed 15 over the 5 LB. mark!! Chuck has established his own standard of success for a day of brown trout fishing and that is counting browns of over 20 in. length. I personally measure it by browns over 5 LB. We broke his old record with 15 browns over that 20 in. mark that he has kept track of for over 30 years now. I was astonished that I was lucky enough to land 12 browns over the 6 LB. mark myself. I give a lot of credit to Chuck who was putting us into fish with his knowledge of the intricacies of the channel.

Our best two browns were his 8 LB. male and my 9 LB. hookjaw. The real standard that matters most to us both are browns topping 10 LB. Though that didn't happen, we were simply amazed at the number of quality browns that we did manage to catch. I will add that all were released to fight another day. The next day wasn't even close in numbers or size but we did manage 8 browns with Chuck landing a nice 6 LB. hookjaw and I finished up with a 7 LB. hookjaw right before we got off that evening. It as truly a trip I will never forget!

I should have another report soon, as I will be out with the Dinkster next week.

Screamin' Drags,
Rick