Crescent Lake 4-22-05 through 4-23-05

Hating to fight the crowds at Paulina, Wickiup or Crane, I have opted out to fish one of my favorite lakes for the opener for several years now. Even though Crescent Lake is open year round, I look forward to going there because there are very few people up there in the spring.

Steve Kelly and I decided to hit it and John Matkowski joined us to fish Fri. We met at his Cafe around 5:30 a.m. and then headed to the ramp. It was drizzling and a lot cooler than Bend. Kelly hooked a real dink of maybe 8-9 in. right off the bat. Unfortunately, that was the only fish we would land all morning. John had to work in the afternoon so we had him back to the ramp at 3:00 and then Steve and I decided to put the downriggers out for Macks.

As soon as I hung up on a phone call around 6:00 p.m. my rod bounced a few times and I looked at Kelly and said something like "it is about time." I had only managed a couple of missed strikes in the morning, so this was the first fish for me. As it turned out the 21 lb. laker was to be the big fish of our trip. It hit on a 6" Lyman plug in the basic blk/slvr pattern that represents the kokanee so well. Of course I had attached an EChip to the front for added attraction.

It wasn't over yet as we decided to work the shoreline for browns until dark. Along a favorite stretch of shore, Kelly hooked up on a nice 4.5 lb. male brown dragging the famous Excalibur Minnow. Minutes later I was fast into a 4 lb. laker. Steve and I added 2 more browns in 10 more minutes and then someone reached up and flipped the switch and the bite was over. I'm using my old Minolta 700 again and will post photos when I get a little deeper in the roll.

The next morning I fished with Dan McAllister and his friend Andy. We spread 5 dink browns throughout the morning then switched to chasing lakers with the riggers. By the time we headed back to the dock, the browns were the extent of our success that morning. With only 8 hours of sleep over the last two days I elected to head home and miss the evening drill.

I found out later that I should have stayed. Jimmy Lewis fought an 18 lb. laker into submission while flatlining for browns on Sat. afternoon. He had caught a 6.5 Lb. brown earlier in the week for biggest brown of our group. He also had some nice lakers in the teens. Dan McAllister caught and released a nice 11 lb. Laker during the day Fri. The highlight of the whole trip was Max Maurer and Jordan Whitten nailing 6 lakers in about 3 hours Sat. afternoon. Their biggest two went 16.5 and 21 lb. Congrats you guys! They caught them downrigging mid lake on Assassins.

I'll close here as I have to get up at 4:00 for a guide trip tomorrow at LBC. Look for a report later in the week.

Tight Lines you Fish Heads, Rick