Fishing Report, Week of 5-13-05

I'll back up to include the previous week to mention that I did catch a nice 6 lb., 25.5 in. hookjaw brown last Fri. night while fishing with Chuck Jones at Paulina. It was right before dark and we didn't mess with the camera in order to release him successfully. It is always a treat to fish and visit with Chuck.

My buddy from Santa Rosa, Cal. John Werwie was up at Paulina for a 10 day stay and I had the opportunity to stay and fish with him and his cousin for several days this week. With a front moving out, it looked like excellent conditions for Tues. and Wed. The only problem was the recent bloom of some type of algae that was upwelling from the bottom and making it super difficult to fish without picking up the stuff.

Steve Kelly joined me on Tues. evening and we made a few laps around the lake before dark. Nothing bigger than a couple of pounds but we caught and released 6-7 dinks in two hours. Wed. morning was about the same results except Steve caught and released a nice 4 lb. hen that he caught on our old standby, the excalibur minnow. Wed. evening didn't produce anything noteworthy and the usual 6-8 dinks to 2 lb.

On Thurs. morning, we decided to do the morning drill at Paulina and then head over to finish the day at Wickiup. While waiting to put my boat on the trailer I was approached by a fisherman from Cal. that asked if I had a scale. We weighed his big female brown on my Rapala gripper scale and it hit the mark at 9.75 lb. He said his digital scale was fluctuating between 9.75 and 10.10 when he weighed it on his. It officially weighed in at the Paulina Lake resort at 10.12 lb. Congrats my friend, sorry I didn't get your name, but I was holding up traffic at the boat ramp.

Steve and I finally got on Wickiup around 10:00 a.m. What a difference in the lakes. Early that morning we were registering 35 degrees on top at Paulina and skim ice over in front of Little Crater campground. On the other hand, Wickiup was 53 degrees and almost full of water and as clean as she ever gets. This was pretty much a hunting expedition as I have not been out on Wickiup in a few years now. We decide to put the downriggers to work and fished the main channel out front of the ramp and then moved over to fish up the Deschutes Channel. We were working an area where Kelly caught some browns last year, when my rod bounced. Turned out to be a very healthy 3.5 lb. hen. Later on I managed a beautiful 5 lb. hen off the main channel in 30 feet. Both fish came on 4"Lymans in blk/slvr. The evening rippin' run only produced a strike for Kelly and nada for me. We did mark several nice fish and plan to hit it again soon.

On the way home, my phone started ringing. Looking at my watch and only recognizing that it was long distance, I wondered who would be calling at 9:45 p.m. It was Kathy Bringhurst calling to let me know that her husband Jim had just caught a 16 lb. 5 oz. monster female brown from Lower Twin Lake, Cal. That was Jim's 32nd brown over 10 lb. in half a lifetime of chasing trophy browns. With at least 5 fish over 10 lb. from Cal. so far this season, it looks like things are starting to turn on for bigger browns. There have been 3 confirmed browns over 10 lb. from Paulina Lake so far this season. I think things will pick up even more when the water warms a bit.

Until next trip, tight lines, Rick