I really enjoy my fishing trips with John "Dink" Werwie. We are from the same generation, love to chase big browns and have the "eat, sleep, fish" drill dialed as well as anyone on the planet. We were out last together back in June when he had his Grandson, Mikey, up for a week. It was a lot like winter that week with snow still falling a little more than we liked or expected. We had both looked forward to this final trip of the year together.

We met at East late Sun. evening and decided not to fish until the next morning. We awake to the wind blowing in some clouds and quite a temperature drop. It felt more like late Oct. than late Aug. The fishing was way off what we normally experience this time of year. We struggled to get a few fish the first day topped by a 4.5-5 LB. hookjaw. Tues. wasn't much better and we decided that a change in scenery might not hurt at all. Wickiup was our next stop and it usually produces well late in the summer. In fact, Ron Lane had recently brought me over his killer 15 LB.+ hookjaw to mount and then to top that, his friend Greg picked us to do his 21 LB. hen a week later. Both of these fish were Wickiup graduates.

After we launched, I drove the boat down the arm to beach it at our campsite while John drove my rig back to camp. On the way down, I ran into Chuck Jones, my buddy from Roseburg. He was lamenting about how bad the fishing had been during his stay with the exception of a 10 LB.+ male he had caught a couple of days earlier. I couldn't feel too sorry for him, I chuckled. He now has 28 browns over 10 Lb. and is the most prolific big brown angler in Oregon by a mile.

John and I got out with high hopes after the slow fishing at East. With John hooking up at "cheese bay" almost immediately on a 4 LB. hen, we thought things could only get better. It turns out Wickiup wasn't up to form yet either. I think John scratched another smaller brown that evening and I had one nice kokanee that made a kamikaze run at my pointer but that was it. Next morning John kept up the pressure with a few more browns but nothing to raise any eyebrows. We decided that with the crowd arriving on Fri. for Labor Day Weekend, we would bail on Fri. if the evening didn't produce much. I finally shook my skunk and got into a 3.5, 4 and 5 LB. browns before we got off the water Thurs. evening. We decided that was enough and I made the trip back home late that night. John was heading home the next morning. It is always good to spend time with John and I look forward to our adventures next year.

I have some guide trips for bulls coming up in Sept. and will continue to target the browns when I get time between working on the new house and marketing our new DVDs. I still have some openings for bulls if you are interested this fall.

Look for our big rainbow DVD from Canada to be in our store this month finally. The actual footage of the world record rainbow makes this a truly unique DVD. The Tahoe DVD has been delayed but may be out by the end of 2008.

Tight Lines,
Rick