Fall is a special time to me... the end of summer and a shot at the big browns during their pre-spawn and spawning cycles. When you do tag one, they are usually breathtakingly beautiful in their best fall colors. The younger trout are often still feeding as nature triggers them to put on weight as the colder water and slower metabolism period of winter will eventually put them into a less active mode in general. The bigger spawning size trout will be mysteriously drawn into their instincts to propagate and produce little trout and sustain the species. They will quit eating for many weeks but will often strike lures out of aggression. Several of my friends have a long list of giant browns to their name that have succumbed during the fall months.

John "Dinkster" Werwie and I love to camp and fish together. Both of us, being retired and semi-retired, have been fortunate to put together several trips a year in the pursuit of chasing after big trout. We both love the solitude and challenge that trophy trout fishing provides. It is in our blood and we both have to "scratch that itch" periodically.

Last year was memorable because a buddy, Dan Stewart, had caught (2) monster male browns ( 13 and 14 LB.!) two weeks apart while up at Paulina Lake. I was there both days and I can tell you for a fact that browns that size make you "weak in the knees". In my book, they are at the top of the list of prized trophy trout.

We had stable fall weather with high pressure in control. The lake was pretty much ours as so many guys here in Central Oregon are hunting during this time of year. We hit it early each day and couldn't keep the smaller browns off, even when we jumped up in lure size. Some of the dink browns would hit lures much bigger than them. We probably caught and released 60 plus trout for the 4 day stay with the biggest going between 4-5 Lb. We didn't weigh it but did get this photo before releasing him to do his thing this fall.

As usual, we always enjoy trips like this even if we didn't score on the bigger browns we are looking for. When you get conditions like we had you have to be grateful for the opportunity to just partake in such a beautiful place with a good friend!

I hope to make it up to Crescent soon so check back for a report within the next week or two.

Tight Lines,
Rick