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The 2014 trout opener got off to a good start for many anglers. I have to begin with one fantastic day at Crescent Lake for my good buddy, Eric Cole. Though Crescent is open year round, Eric decided to hit it on the Friday before the opener while waiting for his dad, Allan, to make his way up for the opening on Wickiup the following day.

I first got a call late that morning with Eric excitedly telling me he just popped a big laker near 30 LB. Though not his biggest laker (he had caught one just over 30 LB. at Flaming Gorge years ago) it wasn’t far off. It was caught on one of his dad’s A/C original’s in a 7 in. model. If that wasn’t enough, he calls again about an hour later with news of a 26 LB. laker he just landed. The story doesn’t end here. Less than two hours later, the phone rings again.....guess what? He stuck another laker going 24 LB.! That is one of the best days for big lakers I have ever heard about coming from Oregon waters!

Wickiup turned out to be a hot spot for kokanee and they were nice sized! They averaged around 13 in. for the group I heard from with some pushing 17 in.! There were many limits and that was not easy as the wind came up and made it tough to troll for some of both days. On the brown trout front, I heard from my buddy, Bill Amerongen, that a friend of his caught a nice brown around 13 LB.while trolling for kokanee....go figure! The biggest brown I heard about weighed in at 16 LB. and is probably the big brown of the opener, I would guess.

I talked with Jody Schatz from Crane Prairie and she said the opener went well there. Lots of limits of rainbows with some to 24 in. Good numbers of brookies showed as well with a few good ones pushing 20 in. The biggest kokanee they saw were close to 17 in. and that is big for early spring!

News out of Odell Lake was mostly about the kokanee and lots of limits. Some hitting the 13-14 in size range. The lakers were a little slower and a few legal (30 in.) were caught but not many. Same for rainbows......not many as most anglers concentrate on the kokanee this time of year! East Lake and Paulina don’t open until May 3 so nothing to report there yet.

Trophy trout news from California came by way of one of my Brownbagger buddies, Dan Stewart. He nailed # 10 on the BB list with a nice 12 LB. 12 oz. brown from Lower Twin Lake out of Bridgeport. He later stuck a 8.75 LB. brown for two nice browns in a few days.

I just came off some time this past week with good buddy, John Werwie, and we managed to stick a few nice browns over several days. The count for larger browns was a couple at 4 LB. and (3) around 6 LB. John got this nice 8 LB. hen and I popped a long and lean 29 in. hen in the 8 LB.+ range for my best of the outing. After the disastrous weather we had on the last trip in March, it was so nice to have some sun and temps near 70 for part of this trip.

Look for more reports to follow as all the lakes are open now and I will be hitting many over the next few weeks.

Tight Lines,
Rick