I met Dick Jones one Tuesday morning during the weekly "coffee break" in the clubhouse. Eventually the conversation turned to fishing, and Dick told me he had a boat but could use some company. His wife Barbara likes to fish, but apparently she had fallen into bad company with Mary’s quilt club. Although I really wanted to go fishing with Dick, it was several weeks before I finally found the time to take him up on the offer.

Dick's boat turned out to be more than my mind had pictured it to be. I was thinking it would be a 12’ or a 14’ aluminum boat like a Klamath. Instead, I found myself fishing from a beautiful 18½’ Lund. It was pushed across the water by 115 horses from a Yamaha engine, and for trolling, a Yamaha engine of 8 horses. There was a small Minn Kota electric trolling motor attached to the bow, (see the picture above), but we didn’t use it that day. The electric motor can be run entirely with a wristwatch type of a wireless remote control – the ultimate guy toy! The boat has two live wells with water pumped through them continually from the lake. All in all it was a beautiful boat to fish from… or just to ride in.

Dick and I spend most of our fishing time at Lake Simtustus, a 611-acre 7-mile reservoir, behind Pelton Dam on the Deschutes River. Pelton Dam’s concrete structure rises 204 feet from bedrock, and is 26½ feet thick at its base, tapering to 8 feet at the top. The width of the dam is 965 feet. It is the largest hydroelectric dam wholly within the state of Oregon, with the three generators producing enough electricity to power more than 45,000 homes.

The fishing at Simtustus is pretty good - at least to our minds. The lake offers kokanee, rainbow trout, brown trout and bull trout, but rainbows have dominated over the years. The reservoir has a reputation for producing some very large bulls, as each spring a few rainbows and bulls as large as 20 pounds are caught. We caught some nice rainbows, and so far the 20-pounders are just rumors but we never fail to come back without our limits. I can't speak for Dick the times I don't go with him though...