Fishing Report 12-31-05

We lucked out and my middle daughter, Kim, finally decided that she would let us have our oldest grandson Colin for the last half of the Christmas vacation. Two years ago was his first trip to Central Oregon in the winter and he was delighted. We had two feet of snow in the driveway and for a kid that had never been in it, he knocked himself out. Between sliding down the driveway and tubing up at Skyliner Park, he was a kid in a candy store!

The weather was a little different this year and he has seen mostly rain with a little snow mixed in at night. Thursday looked like the best day of the week to head out to fish and so off we went for a half day at Billy Chinook for bull trout. We were only one of 3 boats at the lake and one of those guys was breaking in a motor. We launched at the cove and I started looking right out in front to start with. There were a lot of nice bulls at 70-110 but they didn't seem interested in what we were offering at least not at first.

A month ago we found quite a few kokanee right along the Crooked Arm from where it narrows to past the Cove Marina. The pattern was a little different this trip. We didn't graph near as many kokanee in the Crooked Arm.....just a few balls here and there. We did see something I don't think I have seen before at this lake. From the first point where you enter the CR Arm (just past the buoy), to about half a mile down the arm and under the bridge, we graphed a ton of fish that were suspended at 30-65 feet in water a little over 100 feet. They were not big fish and seemed all about the same size (looked bigger than kokanee) on the graph. We tried a variety of lures and speeds but didn't get a bump. I should have tried a kokanee rig but didn't want to mess around because of the limited time on this trip. I really wanted Colin to catch his first bull trout. We something pretty cool when we spooked a Bald Eagle up off his rock when we got too close for comfort. He had a mud hen in his talons and it did impress Colin as we watched him looking for a higher perch to enjoy his meal, undisturbed.

I ended up at the confluence of the Deschutes and CR arms and we worked Lyman's and Yozuri TX minnows from the top down to 75. Again, I was marking a lot of big bulls at 65-100 and we started to see more kokanee on top as the light grew dim. At 4:00 p.m., as I moved the plug up five feet, the rod jumped. I thought it was a fish and I brought it up another five feet and the pole started to bounce a little. I got it out of the release and set the hook and handed it off to the grandson. When we got it to the top it finally started to fight a bit and we could see that it was a nice bull. It went a little over 6 LB. and was probably about 25 in., though I didn't measure it. After a couple of photos we slid it back in to fight again. As you can tell in the photo, she was a very healthy looking fish. Colin has now added a bull trout to his list of trophy trout. And his list is pretty impressive for a 12 year old! He has now landed lakers to 17 LB, browns to 8.5 LB, rainbows to 6 LB, brookies to 3 LB, kokanee to 4.1 LB and now a bull trout at 6 Lb. I was an adult and fished quite a few years, before I had any trout of those proportions! I guess it helps to fish with a grandpa that knows the ropes a little.

I want to end this with a thank you to all my guide customers and faithful followers of the website this year. We will be upgrading the website this coming year and if you like it now, wait until you see what we have in store for 2006. We will have some trophy trout videos coming out that will be the best fishing footage we can bring you. Also, we will feature some other trophy trout writers to give you some different perspectives and experiences on the pursuit of trophy trout. And last but not least, we will be notifying you via our trophy trout newsletter of upcoming products and happenings in the trophy trout world. I will be on a rather hectic outdoor show schedule for Walker Downriggers starting on Jan. 6th at the Seattle Boat show and ending at the Redmond O'Loughlin outdoor show on March 5th. That will be 5 shows in 9 weeks plus a video filming session to boot. I sure hope I can still stand up! Stop by the Walker booth and say Hi if you get a chance.

Happy New Year and tight lines into some monster trout in 2006!
Rick