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One of my favorite lakes here in Central Oregon is East Lake. I guided there several years ago and was also very fortunate to be able catch a beautiful 10 LB. 3 oz. hookjaw brown back in June 2011 and then put my Grandson, Colin, onto a 10 Lb. 8 oz. hen later that same summer. It is obviously a lake that is dear to my heart! It is perhaps the best lake to catch sheer numbers of brown trout here in Central Oregon in the summer....at least in my opinion.

Thus past Fri. was a perfect example. I didn’t bust my butt to get up there really early because I had learned from my guiding years that the bite was often better when a little light got on the water. Anyway, I did get out around 7:00 a.m. and it was a beautiful morning without a cloud and only a light breeze.....perfect conditions for summer browns in my book!

It was a scouting drill to see who was where to start with. I spun some laps just watching the graph for bait and fish. I was running riggers most of the day until really late, when I switched over to a double flat line drill...more on that later. I think it was around 8:00 a.m. when the bite heated up. I actually had 4 doubles during the day and let me tell you, that is exciting to say the least when you are by yourself. A bit of a “Chinese fire drill” with both rods loaded. Ever since Oregon allowed 2 rod fishing a few years ago, I take advantage of it often.

By noon I had caught and released 15 browns with the biggest weighing around 3 Lb. Not any hogs like I was hoping for but tons of fun anyway! I went in at noon to visit with Dave and Kathy Jones, owners of the resort, to see how the season had progressed so far. Dave had mentioned Mike Scott from Klamath Falls had been up the week before and had top brown of the season so far at 8.5 LB. Mike is another big brown aficionado that visits our lakes when he can. We meet a couple of years ago at East.

After some lunch and a nap in the bed of my camper shell, I got back out for the afternoon/evening drill around 3:00 and worked much of the same areas I did in the morning. Though I didn’t catch as many browns, I did get a couple like I was looking for. One was a beautiful hen around 5 LB. and then the best of the day came around 7:00 that evening when I was slammed by what I thought was a really good fish the way it fought. It turned out to be a 5.5 LB. hookjaw that had the heart of a 10 LB. brown! I ended the day switching over to flat lining until around 8:30 and caught a couple of smaller browns and had one really hard hit that didn’t stick.....really wondered about that fish! Final tally for the day was 22 browns, 1 rainbow and 1 kokanee that hit my plug and was hooked in the mouth....that doesn’t happen often. It was a fun day with tons of action and I am thinking about heading back up this coming week.

Check back for more reports. I will be fishing our area lakes all summer and don’t anticipate any trips out of our area until Fall.

Tight Lines,
Rick