While I was camping and playing with water toys amongst assorted family members along the shore of Lake Shasta over the Labor Day weekend, B.I.L. Ron extended a gracious invitation for me to join him and his pals — who all live in Oregon — to their family cabins located in some remote mountains in the eastern portion of their state for the group's annual archery elk hunt. I thought about it for a moment, then remembered the video he showed a few years back of his 1980 Landcruiser slow-stepping its way over large boulders upstream through a raging creek which served as the main access road into the canyon.

I mentioned that if I still had my old beat-up 1984 Toyota 4X4 pick-up, there wouldn't be a problem. Now that I have an intact pussy-wagon of a 1990 Toyota 4X4 pick-up without off-road tires, limited slip, or that high of a clearance, I melancholically expressed that however tempting it sounded, my unit likely couldn't handle it. Besides, I was supposed to look for a job as soon as I returned home from the holiday.

It didn't take long for him to talk me into it. It seems a logging company attained a contract to log the area, and they already went in and repaired the road. His pals, who are now into their forties and spent all of their summers at the cabin since childhood, described the new passage as a freeway. I remembered back from the days of the video screening him proclaiming there were a few lakes back in there which housed two species of trout. A quick reminder of a large, deep lake containing Mackinaw of substantial size right up from the cabins pretty much sold it. I was there. Macks can grow to over thirty pounds.

Then came the two stipulations: I was to not bring anybody with me, and I am not to tell a soul where it is or how to get there. I was and still am sworn to secrecy. Disclosure wouldn't have mattered for a number of years after the creek overran the road, eroding it to a treacherous jeep trail. Hardly anyone but a few locals had the wherewithal to even make it to the lake, let alone catch anything. That's why, he reminded, that the trout are so big — his personal best is twenty-two inches — and there are so many of them. Now that the expressway is in place, tourists from all over have access to the area's splendors. He also noted that because of this, it might be the last time they go there to hunt. It could be my last chance.

Since I'm not doing anything (except goofing off), I immediately began to blueprint my trip. I took Ron's tackle tips of brown Rooster Tails and Joe's Hoppers to heart, but deep inside I had my own plan. Never having caught a Mackinaw (lake trout) before doesn't mean I haven't read about them. In California our own Lake Tahoe has a population of these chars.

Boats go out to the middle of the lake and troll Rapala-type lures one-to-three-hundred feet down there. What came to mind was my usual stand-by six-inch broken-back rainbow trout pattern Bomber Long-A like I use for the monster browns of the Sierra Nevada. Quite possibly I would also have to purchase a few one-ounce torpedo sinkers to use as ballast to get whichever stickbait I use down to the bottom.

After driving to Motown from Shasta to visit Mom, then finally making all the way home, I had about three-and-a-half days to ready my equipment. The afternoon of Tuesday, September 15, I was off, stopping again at Gilman Road near Lake Shasta at ten that night to sleep in my cab.

Wednesday morning I awoke by my watch's alarm at five thirty and drove over to another road near a brushy cove to flip a plastic Power Worm for bass. The whole inlet was filled with baby bass, so I knew what the big ones were gorging themselves on. Not exactly matching the hatch with the worm, I did nonetheless catch a largemouth of about eight inches, which was released. I walked around to the other side of the cove to try some stick-ups over there and actually saw a micropterus of about two pounds cruising the shallows. I tried for about another hour before deciding I better get going if I were to make the remaining four-hundred miles to Portland by the late afternoon.

There was one stop besides gasoline I had to make once I crossed the border. The McKenzie Outfitters in Medford had the seven-day non-resident license ($34.50) and Joe's hoppers right there waiting for me. I already found the brown Rooster Tails here at the Torrance Sportmart.

Right on time, I arrived at my Sis' and B.I.L.'s house by four fifteen. The air was warm for Portland, about eighty-five degrees, and the 205 freeway was moving at thirty-five miles per hour. I felt right at home.

Thursday morning, Ron had to attend a business meeting so we weren't able to depart until noon. Six hours later we were on the dirt road heading into the canyon, he and his hunting buddy Marty in his Landcruiser, and myself solo in Li'l Miracle. I named it that because I found it in the paper the very next day after my other truck was stolen in Mexico and it was exactly what I was looking for.

All the way out from Portland, the countryside resembled our own Western Sierra foothills with their sun-baked grass and dirt appearance. The drainage we were driving up into had that traditional Pacific Northwest look. A crowded forest of tall fir and hemlock trees covered on their shady sides by chartreuse lichens. That wondrous sight was quelled by the falling of darkness. We didn't make it to the "little cabin" until eight-thirty.

The little cabin was genuine, constructed out of logs and has a wood-burning stove. The roof was plywood with a tarp covering instead of shingles. The tarp was said to be a leftover from the mines when some government agency made the owners remove mercury from their diggings. They would pump the water out over it and the quicksilver would somehow stick to it.

As usual, the first chore was to set up our sleeping arrangement. Basically it was three cots lined up side-by-side with enough space between them to be comfortable. Before this was done, we elected Marty to sweep out the rat dung that had accumulated the past four months or so. He's ten years younger than either Ron or myself, so we figured his youthful body could handle a hantavirus infection better than ours could.

Early in the morning, Ron and Marty put on their camouflage costumes and face paint and headed to the hills. My whole day was planned around sleeping in, then readying my backpack for a three night stay at the big lake. There was another lake down the road, which holds a population of large brook trout. After the big lake, I wanted to stay another three nights there.

Then around ten in the morning, right when I had all my equipment spread out all over the ground, the rain came. It was a drizzle at first, then gradually the subsequent hour gave us a nice size summer squall. Ron and I set up a twelve-by-twelve blue canopy outside the cabin over the door so everything piled atop our outside table wouldn't get soaked. Then I rushed over to my backpack organization staging area and threw everything into the back of my shell quite haphazardly. I needed to wait for the rain to stop before I resumed the process because if anything gets wet, that's more weight to carry up the mountain. The whole ensemble already weighed seventy-five pounds dry.

So I waited and waited for a dry spell…all the way until Sunday. That caused a change of plans. I would fish only one lake for four nights, be back Thursday afternoon, then be on the road to home on Saturday. I could spend two nights at each lake, but a program like that wouldn't allow enough time to get to know either of the waters. Besides, there's too much stress and hassle to get there for such a short stay. I had to pick one and it was the big lake, the one with the Mackinaw.

Sunday morning I was in such a rush to pack up and hit the trail, I forgot to eat breakfast. When I backpack the Sierra for an extended period, I usually pig out at the Breakfast Club in Mammoth before I start up the mountain. Around here, there ain't no restaurants.

Finally at ten-thirty, with rain suit donned and backpack strapped, I was on my way up the road riding on shank's mare toward the trailhead. Looking at my watch and judging how fast I was walking, I figured it was one mile to the trailhead where the sign guiding hikers to the lake read, so-and-so lake, four miles. Right up from the cabin, eh? I was expecting maybe two miles.

But then, if it were too easy, all the fish would be gone by now. My Sierra hike is about five miles, going up for two-and-a-half miles, then down the same amount. This trail however went up, then up again and up some more. They told me about the switchbacks, to the top of which I made by noon. What I wasn't psyched up for was what came after. A steep and agonizing incline, the likes of which I've never packed before. Since the elevation was relatively low, at seven thousand feet, my lungs were performing well. It was my legs that were having difficulty, with the upper thigh and groin area burning of fire. All I could do for the last two miles was take five steps, rest for three minutes, take ten steps, then rest for five minutes.

And what made it more uncomfortable was that it started to rain again and I had my rain suit on. With that, I got wetter from sweat than the rain itself. When the rain diminished somewhat, I removed my vinyl coating and hiked with just my long-sleeve shirt and Desert Storm pants. That is, until it started pouring again. At that point, I put my slicker back on, and covered my pack with a trash bag. My sleeping bag and pad were already covered by plastic. I just laid there, in the dirt, in the rain, and took a snooze while waiting for the downpour to once again become a mere drizzle. In forty-five minutes, I rejoined my buddy the trail for a strenuous up up up.

I arranged with my pals back at cabin camp to make radio contact every hour on the hour for hike and fish reports. At three, I reached the first onion patch and saw hoof prints in the mud and feces which resembled brown brains in the grass. I turned on my walkie-talkie and among the skip heard a familiar voice. It was Rick at the big cabin chatting with Ron and Marty at the little cabin. I couldn't hear the other two, but Rick was, as they say, loud and clear. I radioed my findings of fresh elk tracks, of which he was quite interested. Unfortunately for them, the area in which I stood at the time was a tad far from the road.

Anyway, I thought I was never going to get to the lake. Rick said that if I was at the first onion patch, I'm almost there. I figured I was. I saw an impassable ridge looming a mile in front of me and I knew the lake had to be just in front of that. It wasn't until four o'clock before I saw my first glistening water, a full five-and-a-half hours after departing the cabin.

The first thing to do was to set up the tent and put everything in there that shouldn't get wet. Next item was to collect some firewood. There were a lot of trees around, but dry wood was scarce. The lake was down about twenty feet, so there were a lot of young dead trees littering the shoreline. The problem was that they were half water-logged. I collected a few of them, but the best and driest limbs were up on the hill above where I made camp. I took my pack saw up there and cut a bunch of dead stuff to get a blaze going. The wet driftwood burned nicely after the coals were hot.

The next thing was to eat. I boiled some lake water and poured it into not one, but two freeze-dried food packages. I had neither breakfast nor lunch and after a somewhat Herculean hike, I was starving.

After eating and enjoying a nice warm campfire, I had to lie down. It was only six at night but it felt great. I didn't get up the next morning until nine o'clock. Oh baby, that rest was sorely needed.

Ron gave me a pair of oars and a vinyl patch kit to use for an inflatable boat stored behind the biggest tree at the back of the little lake, which was down the trail about a hundred yards from camp. I was thinking I could row around deep trolling a rainbow trout Rapala with the one-ounce weight, but those fantasies dissipated when I saw the valve stem was chewed off. Also, right next to it the material had holes resembling the feeding pattern of a snail or caterpillar on a leaf.

So much for that idea. Instead, for the morning's entertainment, I took my Power Bait rig down to a deep spot along the shoreline. I cast way out there, letting it sink to the bottom, which took about seventy-five seconds with a one-quarter ounce egg sinker. I waited about twenty minutes, all the while keeping track on where the fish were surfacing, then reeled it in to try another spot.

It seemed all the activity was in the corner of the lake nearest where I sat and not very deep. I gathered up my stuff and walked the eighty feet over to where I viewed most of the surface rings. As I cast in the clear water I could see three fish attack the sinker on it's way down. It didn't take too long for them to realize a chunk of lead wasn't food and BOOM, I was on. It fought pretty hard for using a two-pound-test leader tied to four-pound line, but two minutes into it I netted a seventeen inch Mackinaw, my first for this species. It didn't look like it was in that great of shape with its large bug-eyed head and long skinny body. Back in the drink it went, hopefully to put some more meat on its bones.

The next cast produced an immediate hookup on the other specie in the lake, a brook trout. In the Sierra, the brooks look similar to that described above for this lake's Macks. Here, it's not the case. They are quite well proportioned and looking fat and happy. This one was about thirteen inches long, and again released.

That's how it went for an hour, catches alternating between long and weird looking Mackinaw and beautiful, stout brook trout. Watching the lake for this length of time afforded me the opportunity to pick the spot where I would return in the evening to fly the Long-A. There is this nice ledge coming down from the mountain at a right angle into the water. That's where the big ones like to hang out. Right by an under water vertical wall.

And lookie there. Another blue and yellow rubber boat lying deflated in the patch of small trees at the high water mark. I walked up to see if it would serve me any better than the other one, but no. It too had the same bug holes all over it's body.

After dinner I went back over to a point near the wall from where I could make casts so that the Long-A would run parallel to it. It took about an hour before I had the first strike. I set the hook hard, but I could tell it was for naught. Whatever it was came in real easy, in fact twisting in gutlessly. Another snake-built seventeen-inch Mack.

I cast until nine-thirty with only one other Mackinaw of the same size hooked.

Tuesday morning, I awoke early and readied myself for a big day. I had all my tackle set to go the night before. All I had to do was get dressed, grab it and start walking. I decided to cook some breakfast first, but since I didn't crawl out of the tent until five-thirty and wasn't done gulping down the last of the scrambled eggs and Kudo bars until an hour later, I didn't make it over to the ledge until almost seven. That was kind of late for me.

But I did find a killer spot in the ledge. Normally under water, there was a natural walkway about six feet above the present water line, with a niche where I could step down with the gaff if I hooked something big. I decided to bring this shark hook screwed into an old broom handle since I designed it after trying to net a six-pound brown three years ago. The fish wouldn't fit in the mesh, so to land it I had to stick my fingers into it's toothy grin and bear with the blood and pain. No more of that crap.

It was already light and I could not see the bottom in the crystal clear water for looking straight down. There was also a teensy cove to my left were the smaller twelve-to-seventeen inch fish were surfacing. I was feeling pretty good about at least seeing something of size swim by.

I started out by tying on one of the one-ounce torpedo sinkers, then a four-foot leader and a four-inch broken-back rainbow trout pattern Rebel, all on the twelve-pound outfit. I figured this whole contraption would be way out of balance and not cast very well, but behold, It went pretty far out there. I counted down to seventy-eight before the rig hit the bottom, then I used the twitchy injured minnow motion as I slowly reeled in.

Within the next hour, I tried other depths by counting to sixty, forty and twenty, and just about every number in-between before I once again let it hit bottom. This time as it neared the ledge, I snagged it on a submerged obstruction. Snap!

Not to worry, I tied on a four-inch deep-runner Rebel Fastrac in basic silver and black. I picked up eight of them for a buck apiece at the last Fred Hall fishing show. I didn't think it would cast very far being so lightweight and all, but I was amazed by how well twelve-pound-test functions coming off the Shimano 3000 Aero spinning reel.

As the name of the lure would suggest, it was made to be fast-trolled behind a boat. I, however, like to fish for trutskies while reeling in slowly, with just enough speed to make the thing wobble. What I did was give a big grunt while casting to get the maximum distance perpendicular to the ledge, then reel in fast like a wild man for the first ten cranks so that the deep-runner bill would give the lure some depth. Then I would let up and reel in a relaxed manner until the lure hit the wall below me.

Watching the surface action happening in all directions around me, I was able to tell how big some of the fish were just by the size of the wake they left. Natural instinct had me casting towards some of the larger splashes, one of which happened near the small cove to the left.

Well, I cast over towards its wake and while I was keeping an eye on my lure, I saw this big mouth with two two eyes attached come straight up from the bottom on the attack. At first it was at an angle to me where I couldn't see its body. But after one swipe at the lure, it turned and showed me that light spots on a dark background Mackinaw skin guesstimated at five pounds. Before I reeled all the way up, it turned for swipe number two. "What's the problem, expletive, expletive," I screamed, as three other fifteen-to-seventeen fish that morning had no problem hooking themselves.

When I lifted the lure out of the water, I saw the fish just kind of cruise under an overhang about fifteen feet down. I made a quick short toss out there and twitched the Fastrac back in again. And once more I saw the same thing. Straight up from the depths came this mouth with two eyes making a pass at it, but not going all the way. Just below it was another Mack of three pounds. Another toss, nothing. He was gone.

I used that lure for a while longer, with only one other twelve-inch brook trout becoming hooked. As the sun hit the water, I tied on another torpedo sinker and tried the Fastrac that way for another hour or so to no avail. Since I could only find straight-back Long-As this year at all the tackle shops I patronized, I was saving the last broken-back in my collection for the nighttime.

As it became nine-thirty, less and less surface ring sightings were made until there were none. Back to camp for lunch and something else fun to do.

I laced up my flyrod for a trip down to the little lake. There, many foot-long brook trout were hanging out waiting for something to do. I grabbed some live hoppers from the lakeshore grass blades and tossed them it. Whammo, they were sucked up in seconds. I pulled the leader through the guides of my flyrod and whipped a number ten Joe's hopper out to the same spot. Kablooey, I was on. I made the most out the experience by forcing him struggle twice as long as a fish I actually would want to keep. Before I released it, I took a moment to admire the brookie's lovely blend of gold, green, blue, black and white.

I stayed for an hour, released I forget how many more, and said thanks to my new finned friends. It seemed they had just as much fun as I did. You can see the bottom all the way across the little lake's forty-foot diameter, so I imagined it was kind of boring swimming there all year.

I set my flyrod down and took a little hike for the purpose of photography while the sunlight was still beaming through the cumuli. As I walked down the little lake's outlet creek, I came upon two elk munching grass along the bank. They looked up and scampered through the trees and disappeared in a flash. I wasn't expecting to see them, so I didn't have my camera in hand, cocked and ready. Instead it was in my butt bag waiting for me to ascend the hill for some scenery shots.

Back at camp, I laid down for a couple hours, then awoke to eat dinner. After that, I hiked my Long-A setup over to the spot from where I could make casts parallel to the famous ledge. It must have been two hours before I had my first hit, but what a hit it was. I could tell it was the big one because when I set the hook, it didn't come right in. There actually was some resistance as it held its ground. Then the line went limp and so did I. It came unbuttoned.

I kept on flinging the Long-A well into darkness without another hit, finally giving it up at nine-thirty.

Around the campfire that night, I mentally prepared to get done what I had to do. I laid out all my gear and would sleep in my clothes so all I had to do was crawl out of my tent at the sounding of my watch's alarm, tie on my boots, quickly gather it all up and get going. None of this fiddling with breakfast stuff.

And my plan went flawlessly. At dark-thirty Wednesday morning, I was standing on the ledge where I saw the big one the twenty-two hours earlier. On that side of the lake, my cheapie transistor radio was picking up a lot of FM stations from Idaho, including one playing my favorite program, Morning Edition. Listening to Bob, Cokie and the gang took the edge off the boredom that is casting endlessly the Long-A.

Then it happened. At six-forty, when the retrieve of my lure had it about seventy feet out there, I had a hit. When I set the hook, I knew it was him. It didn't budge. It didn't rip line off the spool either, but it had to be big. It swam straight down towards the bottom, making the twelve-pound outfit feel like a lumbering rock cod rig. After about ten minutes I had it near the ledge, but still it was nowhere near color. It started to scoot over to the left and I had to lift the rod so the line would pass over a boulder to position myself near the gaffing niche. Ten minutes later, I caught my first glimpse of it, and it only looked to be about three pounds. That's because the water is so clear and the fish was still pretty deep. As it came up, the big Mackinaw started to appear larger and larger, and when it broke the surface in front of me, I guessed it to be five-and-a-half pounds. Then it freaked and swam violently from side to side, forcing me to back off on the drag three clicks. I held on, letting it tire itself out until it was subdued enough to stick it with the gaff. I aimed the point under its lower jaw, gave a lift and yelled "YEAH, this's got to be over five!" As I raised it out of the water, it felt heavy. I wanted to put it on the scale, but I left my trusty Normark back at camp. My camera too. I didn't care, he was mine. The weigh-in and photo session could wait.

Usually I would tie it on an anchored rope and toss it in the water to keep it alive all week until hike-out day. Since I was leaving the next afternoon, I lied it high and dry on the ledge until it flopped no more.

I retied and started casting again. I kept at it until nine, then went back to camp for the festivities.

Giddy with anticipation, I dropped everything and broke out the scale. Hanging his face on the scale's hook pulled the electronic readout to seven pounds nine ounces. There ya go, my largest salmonid ever. My plan worked great, and catching a big one made the agony of hiking there worth the effort. The only part of my system that was off was that the fish hit the lure only one or two feet below the surface. I though for sure I would hook one in the abyss. Oh by the way, lake trout aren't native to Oregon, but they don't stock them this big here either. These fish are spawned in the lake and grow to this size on their very own. That makes me feel good.

I hung him from a nail on a tree and posed it with my gaff and lure for a nice photo. After I removed the viscera, I rolled it up in a trash bag and put it in a shady spot behind a boulder in the lake to keep it cool. The whole time I kept thinking, wait 'till those guys see this. Otherwise I'd be full of fish stories about the one I but only viewed.

That was it. The rest of the day I hiked to the top of the ridge to take some more photos and to try to make radio contact with cabin camp. The walkie-talkie wasn't making it the five miles down there. About four was all I could expect thanks to a strong ionosphere.

That night I fished another ledge on the other side of the lake where most of the surface rings were happening. It wasn't as deep though, and four hours of lure flinging produced one more seventeen-inch Mack.

Early Thursday morning, my last day, I again fished the big-guy ledge for three hours. Didn't even have a bite.

So, I went back to camp, ate whatever food I had left, rolled and bungeed everything to the pack frame and was out of there. Remember the over five hours it took to get here? I made it back to the trailhead in one hour forty minutes, practically jogging non-stop all the way down.

I set my pack down and leaned it against the mileage sign, then walked up to the cabin with my fish in my food bag to show everyone. Nobody was there. Oh well, I jumped in my truck, picked up my pack, and went to visit the other cabins where they were all partying it up. When I brought it out of the icebox to show, they were stunned in disbelief. Some goofy Californian comes up to their lake and catches the biggest Mack anyone ever saw. Two of them took turns posing with it. I loved every minute of it.

Friday morning, Ron and Marty awoke early to hunt another nearby ridge. It had been raining all night, right up to the time they took off, but that didn't stop them. I lied in bed until about ten, which was a half hour before they returned without a kill. I felt lucky that the rain stopped as soon as I made it to the lake and didn't start up again until four days later when I was back at the cabin. We were all pretty worn out, so we decided to cut the trip a day short and head out that afternoon. We were back in Portland by seven-thirty, and myself back in L.A. by Sunday afternoon.

I wanted to get that fish filleted and into the smoker as soon as possible. I cut it so it looked like one of those salmon halves in a box you would buy as a gift from the Great Northwest. And that's kind of what I did with it. I kept half for me, and mailed the other half in care of B.I.L. Ron to treat himself and his buddies for taking me to their secret cabins for a trip of a lifetime.

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