Fishing Report 8-17-05

Tony Wilson, who works at East, had lined up a trip for his visiting parents, Gaylord and Marie while they were up on vacation. We were on the water by 7:00 a.m. and had the first fish by 7:30. It was a beautiful 6.5 LB male, hook jaw brown. Not a bad way to start the day!

About 10 minutes later, Gaylord advised me that the downrigger rod was throbbing pretty hard. As I looked over I saw the rod bounce about a foot without getting out of the release. I asked Tony to take over on the leadcore rod I was working when all of a sudden it got hit and we had a double going. I got the rod out of the release and leaned into the downrigger rod hard to set the hooks. Instantly line starts melting off the reel at a pretty good clip. I passed off the rod to Gaylord and got back on the leadcore rig to get the other fish in as quickly as possible and out of the way. I knew by the way the fish acted that Gaylord's fish was the bigger of the two.

When I got the smaller brown to the boat, we decided to release it immediately. Too bad we didn't get any photos because this hookjaw was easily 4.5 Lb. The focus was on the bigger brown that we finally had near the boat. When I first saw the big male, I thought that this fish was in the 10 Lb. range. The breeze had blown us off the deeper water and we were now up on the shelf and in water of only 12 feet. With a little coaching, we got the tiring fish in a good position and I got him in the net. He officially weighed in at the Paulina Lake resort scale at 9 lb. 6 oz. and was 29.5 inches in length.

Jim, who runs East Lake Resort, had told me that he would mount the first 10 Lb. brown that I got. After seeing the fish at the dock in my livewell, he decided that it was close enough, so it will be on the wall next season for all to see. Before anyone gets upset about me killing the fish, please realize that I release hundreds of trout each year and we need the fish for the actual mold to get the exact replica.

We ended our morning outing with 10 browns and the largest four going 4, 4.5, 6.5, and 9.5 Lb. It was my best outing for quality browns so far this season. The bigger brown hit a 4" Lyman plug in blk/slvr at 23 feet in 45 feet of water. Surface temps are still running 69-70 degrees and won't be cooling off for a while yet. The browns are still hanging out in the thermocline for the most part but things will change next month and they will be on top again as surface temps cool to their liking. Some of the best brown trout angling of the year lies ahead in Sept. and Oct.

Screamin' Drags, Rick