Fishing Report 9-22-05

After many projects at home and some other personal commitments, I finally got back on the guiding trail yesterday. Phil Hamblin and his son-in-law Dave joined me at East Lake for what was supposed to be a full day trip but turned into a half "dayer".

We met at 6:30 at the Hot Springs ramp. Phil and Dave had been out with me earlier in the year at Billy Chinook for bulls back in March, I believe. We had a great trip that day and got into a lot of bulls, as I remember. We were hoping to get into some of the browns that had been so prolific through the middle of the summer.

I got into my favorite spot and turned on the graph to observe some nice size marks. We were fishing the riggers and leadcore as I have been doing all summer. The Lyman plugs have been producing well for me this summer on the downriggers. Today was no exception. The 4 in. model in the 98 pattern was the hot ticket! The bite picked up around 7:30 and we proceeded in sticking a brown about every 10-15 minutes. I had Phil jigging a Luckycraft Pointer on the leadcore setup and Dave was watching the downrigger rod. After about 5 straight browns on the rigger, Phil got in line for some better action with the rigger. The leadcore wasn't doing it today. I think we only had a hit or two on it. By the time the bite slowed down, we had caught and released 10 browns total before we went in for lunch at the resort. There were all in the 14-18 in. range and the biggest went around 2.5 LB. Water temps are running 56.7 on my graph and should continue to drop over the next few weeks.

Dave seemed to be coming down with a bug, so we called it a day and I headed home. I have a trip coming up on Mon. the 26th and then one on Oct. 6th as it stands right now. I will be fishing with some friends at Paulina and East throughout the first two weeks of Oct. and will be checking out the bulls next week as well. Check back for reports and don't forget the big one in Nov. at Pend Oreille for the giant rainbows. I will probably be doing an article because we will be filming a video this year.

Tight Lines, Rick