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One of the cool side benefits from my guiding days was meeting some great guys, some of whom have become good friends. Vince Cacciottoli is one of them. We did a few bull trout trips years ago and then started fishing together for browns when he could get away from work. This past spring, we had a fantastic trip to East in late May and caught a ton of browns. I was fortunate to catch a beautiful 11 LB.+ hookjaw on that trip.

This was the final weekend of the season for the East Lake Resort and Vince had reserved our favorite cabin for the long weekend. Many thanks to Bruce, Rob and the crew at the resort for the great accommodations and food!

We hooked up at the cabin late on Thurs. afternoon and did get out for the evening. Since Vince now logs every fish we catch, only he knows for sure but I think we caught at least 5-6 before we got off at dark....nothing on any size though.

On Fri. morning we got out at sunrise and worked some my favorite areas. The highlight of the morning was a beautiful, fat hookjaw that came off the riggers at 30 feet. It was much slower than the spring trip overall and we were catching what I call mostly “Schoolies”in the 17-20 inch range. I was surprised that the thermocline seemed to still be in effect. The surface water temps were right around 56-57 degrees each morning. Most of the browns were coming from 30-45 feet and when we did do some flat line trolling, we only hit a few. The evening drill produced some browns but nothing significant.

On Sat. morning, we had a quick cold front pass through and the wind came up enough just to make the trolling a little more challenging. By noon the wind dropped and most of the rest of the day was mild until that evening when the wind came up again. We had a good bite that evening but most were Schoolies.

On Sun. morning we had perfect conditions and a good bite before we had to get off at 10:00. I caught a nice 7 LB.+ hookjaw that got into the air twice before we got him in for a few photos. I also had a big bite that took the line out of the release and loaded quickly before the drag started singing......unfortunately, it didn’t stay hooked!!

I think we ended up with close to 45 browns for the outing with 5 and 7 LB. hookjaws anchoring big fish honors.

I am not sure if I will make it back up into the Newberry Crater again this fall but look forward to next spring as always!

Screamin’ Drags,
Rick