Brownlee/Oxbow 5/12-5/16

[1bigfish]

Yes this is a late report but hopefully will be helpful to those headed that way this weekend.
The short report is that while we were at Brownlee the crappie were red hot and the bass where no where to be found. However that was changing just as we left. It looked as if the bass were finally starting to move up a little and the crappie were starting their move to a little deeper water.
Now the rest of the story…
Tuesday 5/12
I took flippinbaits on his first trip to Brownlee/Oxbow. I told him all about how great it can be over there and I had high hopes that we had timed this trip just right. Well I got my first wake up call as to how wrong I would be when we ran into this before we even got to Meacham.

It was mostly hail with a little snow mixed in just to add to the fun.
We got to Richland and ate lunch before setting up camp and heading out on the water. As were we going out Crappie Chaser was heading in with the top down on the pontoon. We later learned that he had to take the top down just to get in that day. We had wind, rain, hail, and even some clear skies out on the water. We started looking for the bass but just could not find them. We got only one hit on a crankbait and every time we tossed soft plastics we would start picking up crappie. The first bass for us was this little guy who was actually smaller then the crappie but was flippinbaits first Snake River bass.


Unfortunately the size never did improve on our Brownlee smallies. In fact for the trip we only landed one Brownlee smallie over 12 inches. After picking up just 10 bass (4 for me and 6 for flippinbaits) we decided to call it good and get off the water early.

Wednesday 5/13
We knew we would have storms rolling in and hitting us off and on all day and since Brownlee had not produced the night before we headed to Oxbow. We got off to a slow start but once I put on my trusty crome and blue lipless things heated up a bit. We had several doubles including this double that I had with no help for my partner.


We were on the fish pretty good and would have caught many more then we did but since the size of the ones we were catching was so small we kept trying to change it up and try and find the bigger fish. We just couldn’t find them. The biggest of the day may have been this one but since we never put one on the scale it is hard to say.


In all I caught 58 smallies and flippinbaits ended with 39. We Cut the day short so that we could get back to camp and see if Dragon67 and Thecrease had made it to Hewitt yet. We got back and saw that they had set up and were out on the water so we put the boat in the water and headed out to find them. We found them and gave them our report and asked how they had done so far. They said he had caught a largemouth, a perch, and lots of crappies on plastics but no smallies so far. I headed to where they had got the LMB and started tossing the lipless since it was still tied on while flippinbaits went to fishing plasics. He managed on more smallie to bring him up to 40 for the day. I didn’t find any smallies but I did get this guy right at the boat as I was lifting the lure out of the water.


Then just a few cast later I got this gal in the back fin.


I knew it was not a bass or panfish right away but for a little while I was hoping it was a catfish. After about a 10 minute fight of chasing the fish with the boat we finally netted it. It was 10 lbs 12ozs. My line was shot and we decided to call it a night so I could respool. Actually we fished for some cats from shore that night but no luck.

Thursday 5/14
It was back down to Oxbow on Thursday. We got a late start and didn’t get on the water till after 9am. The lipless was still working but the fish were a bit bigger then the day before. Thecrease and Dragon67 even manages a few over 3lbs but despite our best try we didn’t. My motor started acting up so we had to pull the boat and get that fixed but still managed to get back out and do some more fishing. I ended the day with 45smallies and flippinbaits got 36 smallies and 2 trout. Both trout came on… you guessed it a lipless crank. We waited till we got back to Brownlee to take the pic.


Friday 5/15
We started the day looking for smallies on Brownlee but they were still hiding in the deep water and I hate fishing smallies that are more then 30 feet deep. Hunt’nFish showed up and we talked to him a bit just before he headed in to take a nap. We decided to go ahead and look for some perch. I only managed 2 and both were under 10inches. Thecrease also managed to find one but it was even smaller then mine. After pulling the boat and getting gas I decided to help Dragon67 clean some crappie and let flippinbaits take my boat out by himself so he could try and get some largemouth we saw while looking for perch. I will let him tell the story of what happened on that little trip.

Saturday 5/16
Back down to Oxbow again. This time we went early and looked for some cats. We fished just below the spillway and only managed 3 cats in our boat. Two cats by flippinbaits and one for me in about two hours of fishing. The biggest was 3lbs. So off we went in search of bass. We got some early but when the wind died down and there was no ripple on left on the water the bass were up and gone. We switched from cranks to plastics but that didn’t help much. The trolling motor died so we changed it out and went looking for Dragon67 and Threcrease to see if they were still finding bass. They were and had already compined for over 100 smallies. When the wind died they had switched from crankbaits to jerkbaits and it paid off big time. We tied on some jerkbaits and started catching fish again. After about 10 fish on jerkbaits my shoulder was killing me so we called it an early day and headed back to Brownlee to meet up with Dragon67’s dad and to track down Hunt’nFish. For the day I got 30 and flippinbaits had 21. Well by the time we got there Hunt’nFish was gone but we did hookup with Dragon67’s dad and went out to get some crappie. We only keeping ones over 8inches and in less then an hour and a half we had enough. We then spent the rest of the night cleaning fish.


All in all it was a fun trip but boy the bass were hard to come by. I totaled only 143 bass for 4.5 days of fishing. In years past I have done better then that in a single day. Oh well. The bass on Brownlee were finally starting to move in on Saturday from the reports we got. And the banking for crappie was slowing down a bit. Another good sign that things would soon pick up was that the carp were splashing around in the shallow especially near the bushes on the flats. Judging from years past one the carp start spawning in the flats the cats will move up quickly to suck down the eggs.

[Billy Boy]

Thanks for the report! I will be over in the next couple weeks. Can you offer any suggestions for lures and and colors of jigs that worked the best (in addition the the lipless blue and chrome plug)? Thanks!

[1bigfish]

Kind of hard to say what they will be hitting by the time you get there. If the water in Brownlee continues to stay somewhat stable and the weather is nice and stable you should be into a top water bite in a few weeks. If you find that the bass are wanting soft plastics i usually like to toss a Houdini Worm on a shakeyhead jig of a 3inch senko on a drop shot. Of course you can never go wrong with a simple Karlin grub a tube on Brownlee. For color I stick to colors like greenpumpkin, watermelon, and salt&pepper.

As for the crappie, I would send a PM to Crappie Chaser and find out the color he is using. When we were there color, size, and shape didn't make a differnce to the crappie. They were everywhere and would hit anything.

[QH's Paw]

My Bro-inlaw just came back from Brownlee yesterday. They did well on bass and crappie. They stayed out on the snake the whole time.
He said the res. was coming up 5' each day, including their last day.
They didn't hook up on any LMB but he said they did land 2 5#+ SMB.

[raptorschild]

Nice report.....Sounds like the lipless was the way to go!

[Hunt'nFish]

QH'sPaw,
Did well on bass???....One man's definition of "well" is another man's definition of "sucks".

1Bigfish,
After C&R'ing a pile of crappie Friday, we were planning to follow you guys over to Oxbow on Saturday, but you were gone already when the birds woke me up.
So what started as a plan to find & join up w/ ya'll turned into a tour of sorts for Larry "Grumpy Grouper", my Uncle. He'd hadn't ever been over there and so when we got over to Oxbow we took a left & headed down river to show him some of the camp spots we like and point out those that you can launch from, are big enough for his motorhome, etc. Next thing we know we're at the end of the road and decided to back the boat in and fish. Caught a pile of fish, but no size to speak of at all. But it was still fun. Deep diving craw crank seemed to treat me the best. Larry was struggling.....not sure if he was holding his mouth right or what. Normally he spanks me on the bass. He made a comment about his new Quantum Tour Edition 7.2:1 burner reel and we began to wonder if his super fast retrieve rate might be part of the issue. So he slowed down and BAM! Now we both had a winning recipe and after a short break for a nap we fished til dark and just decided to leave the boat in the water, stay and fish the morning fish before we had to head back home. Hit on hundreds of fish, too good to leave... even if they're all dinks.
Also picked up one of those nice trout too.

So after a dinner of pan fried Enchiladias and cold drink we hit the rack.

Next morning we had great expectations of more, fish after fish, action........NOT TO BE!
WOW, like someone flipped the switch off on the bite. Switched baits, switched again, finally decided they went deep and turned to plastics off shore, and began to pick up fish again...although not even close to the same numbers as we did on the cranks.

Larry did pick up a very nice 3lber .... forgot to measure or weigh but we did snap a couple pics of her before turning her back. I figure she went 16" or so. Real nice fish. We did end up keeping a few barely legal males to fillet. I don't like to keep the bigger fish anyway....but since we were only catching dinks anyway, that all seemed to work fine.

Kinda felt bad for ditching everyone, but I told Wes "Zumwalt" that if we found good bass action we were planning to stay over there and not to expect us back.

Anyway, long drive over and long drive back. Didn't feel like I got the time on the water I really wanted.
Oh well better than nothing.
Now my Dad & brother are talking like they want to do Hewitt this weekend and want me to come back & bring the girls to do crappie ......
I don't have the heart to do 14hrs in the truck 2 weekends in a row.
Besides, I was a very bad boy at Joes the other day and need to conserve $$$.
Hunt'nFish

Here's that fish of Larry's




Link to rest of pics: Snake Rvr May 09

[1bigfish]

Hunt'nFish,
Nice color on that smallie Mike. Dan actually wanted to fish the Hell's pool because of the report his dad gave him on Friday night but I wanted some cats from Oxbow. Sorry we left without you Saturday morning. We wanted to be on the water before the sun came up so that we would have a decent chance at some cats. Glad you founds some down there. If you like tossing jerkbaits and watching the fish come up and grab it you would have been in heaven on Oxbow Saturday. Personally I like the way they hammer a crank so I should have been down there with you.

raptorschild,
It ain't always the way to go but I always like to start with it. We actually tossed just about everything but topwater baits.

QH's Paw,
I actually have some buddies that are still over there and I don't even want to hear the reports when they get back. I knew it was just so close to turning on when we were there that I don't even want to think about how hot it is right now. Sunny and stable weather over there now... what a differance a week makes.

[Hunt'nFish]

Well we were just handed another week of mandatory shutdown, mid June...unpaid this time.
So I may just have to sneek over there again....for a full week this time.
And then again for our normal 4th July family vacation.
Maybe I should'a just left the camper & boat over there.
Hunt'nFish

[Crappie Chaser]

The weather is finally getting nice,water temp is mid-60's and rising, resv. is almost full pool and the bass are still not showing in any numbers. Lots of little fish moving shallow this last week so maybe it's getting closer to busting loose. Crappie still wide open. Have not tried for cats recently but the word is they are showing signs of life. To get an idea of the winds we've had this spring do a search on youtube of crappie brownlee. An outdoor writer took those videos on my boat May 5th.

[1bigfish]

The wind in the video looked a lot like the wind we had our first 2 days there.

[1bigfish]

Well since flippinbaits still has not posted his story I will post part of it including pics.

As I said in the first post flippinbaits borrowed my boat to try and hunt down a largemouth bass while I went to clean some crappie. As I was standing around the cleaning station a guy walks up and said that their was a boat coming in that wanted us to give him a hand. My first thought was that my boat must have brokedown or something but when I looked over on the water I saw flippinbaits standing on the front deck holding the net over the side usuing the trolling motor to bring the boat into the docks. I could not see what was in the net but took off for the dock to help him get the boat in and Huntn'Fish came along to help.

Here is what was in the net...





She tipped the scales at 30lbs 10oz. I didn't even know my scale went up that high.

We took pics and asked if anyone wanted it. No one did so we put her back into the water and she swam off.

FYI this carp was hooked in the mouth. He was usuing a 5inch senko Texas rigged with the weight pegged to get in down in heavey cover.

[flippinbaits]

Thank Dave!

Sorry, It's finals week at school and im getting my butt kicked!

Anyways, Dave pretty much said it all. Caught it under a grass mat fishing for LM. Took me just under 14 min to land it. 6'6'' all-star MH with a Quantum PT spooled with 12lb berkley big game. Killed the trolling motor chasing it on full blast though, sorry bout that one Dave

Thanks again for the pics dave!

[Big Unit]

Originally Posted by 1bigfish

Here is what was in the net...
She tipped the scales at 30lbs 10oz. I didn't even know my scale went up that high.

We took pics and asked if anyone wanted it. No one did so we put her back into the water and she swam off.

FYI this carp was hooked in the mouth. He was usuing a 5inch senko Texas rigged with the weight pegged to get in down in heavey cover.

THAT IS AWESOME!!! Usually, those hogs pull us around when we skewer them with our fish arrows! What a fight on fishing line!! WOW, can't imagine. Great job!!


We'll be there this weekend!!!!!!!


BU

[TEXAS RIG]

Originally Posted by Crappie Chaser

The weather is finally getting nice,water temp is mid-60's and rising, resv. is almost full pool and the bass are still not showing in any numbers. Lots of little fish moving shallow this last week so maybe it's getting closer to busting loose. Crappie still wide open. Have not tried for cats recently but the word is they are showing signs of life. To get an idea of the winds we've had this spring do a search on youtube of crappie brownlee. An outdoor writer took those videos on my boat May 5th.

Hello Gary it was good to see you I did leave my boat at the rv park. We will be back on the 26th of June for 10 days staying in #5 spot. I wanted to let you no that the nibbels tube filler I purchassed from you at the sportsman show worked great. It saves so much time not having to put a nibble on after every fish. Hopefully the cats will be in the flats & hungry.

[Crappie Chaser]

Originally Posted by TEXAS RIG

Hello Gary it was good to see you I did leave my boat at the rv park. We will be back on the 26th of June for 10 days staying in #5 spot. I wanted to let you no that the nibbels tube filler I purchassed from you at the sportsman show worked great. It saves so much time not having to put a nibble on after every fish. Hopefully the cats will be in the flats & hungry.

Billy, it looked like you were having a good time with the grandkids. I saw lots of crappie coming coming aboard your boat. Your boat will be safe there. Good people. Glad you like the injector. Yesterday we caught cats sight fishing on the Snake. Today we hit the flats for the first time. They're there! Best fish went 6 & 7 lbs.

[FelonFinder]

That's good to know... very good ;>

[QH's Paw]

Originally Posted by Hunt'nFish

QH'sPaw,
Did well on bass???....One man's definition of "well" is another man's definition of "sucks".

Hn'F, when I say did well or good, in reference to the snake and Brownlee in particular, I mean minimum 100+ fish day(on bass).

Originally Posted by Hunt'nFish

Well we were just handed another week of mandatory shutdown, mid June...unpaid this time.
So I may just have to sneek over there again....for a full week this time.
And then again for our normal 4th July family vacation.
Maybe I should'a just left the camper & boat over there.
Hunt'nFish

Well, your timing for 2nd or 3rd week of June will be an excellent choice . If I only went one week a year it would always be 3rd week of June(October runs a close 2nd, for Crappie and cats).
By that week the water is usually at full pool and stable but, they are not supposed to begin draw down until after July 4th.
We usually do well on all species in that timeframe. Save your crappie guts and fish cats at creek inlets and the flats.

[1bigfish]

Originally Posted by Crappie Chaser

Billy, it looked like you were having a good time with the grandkids. I saw lots of crappie coming coming aboard your boat. Your boat will be safe there. Good people. Glad you like the injector. Yesterday we caught cats sight fishing on the Snake. Today we hit the flats for the first time. They're there! Best fish went 6 & 7 lbs.

Looks like to me.

[lor]

I just got back from Brownlee, we easily keep 50 crappie in about 4 hours of fishing between 10am - 2pm, we let the hand size ones go.

[Crappie Chaser]

Anyone who has had a 100 fish day on Brownlee this year should hit the pro bass circuit. My boat hasn't hooked a legal fish since May 5th when 1 was caught and I've been out there 23 days this month.

[gatorslayer]

Originally Posted by Crappie Chaser

Anyone who has had a 100 fish day on Brownlee this year should hit the pro bass circuit. My boat hasn't hooked a legal fish since May 5th when 1 was caught and I've been out there 23 days this month.

Could you tell me about the Crappie Tournament at Brownlee on June 6 and 7.

Thanks

[Crappie Chaser]

I don't have the exact details but in the past there were divisions for men,women,girls & boys. New this year is a team division. It's a 2 day contest, no day money. Day & night fishing allowed.Bring your longest fish to weigh-in. If you catch a longer fish on the 2nd day you can bring it in. Longest fish wins and in the past they paid 3 places. Entry fees range from $25 for adults to $10 for kids. The Hitching Post (541) 893-6175 is the sponsor and can give you better details than me. Ask them for Louie's #, he runs the tourney.

[Piscatus]

Just got back last Thurs. from two weeks of Oxbow and Brownlee - found a few large fish on the bank early and late in Brownlee, but by all accounts the spawn there hasn't happened yet.

Oxbow - also not spawned yet, but more fish available down deep (as of last week). Ran boat in 50-60 feet of water and dropshotted in the 20-40 foot range. Wife and I found a spot (now top secret) where the big fish were hiding out on Oxbow on last day and pulled in 5 smallies ranging from 15" to 18". Scale was busted but we are guessing they were in the 4-5# range. Anyone know of a standard formula for estimating weight?

Piscatus

Originally Posted by Crappie Chaser

I don't have the exact details but in the past there were divisions for men,women,girls & boys. New this year is a team division. It's a 2 day contest, no day money. Day & night fishing allowed.Bring your longest fish to weigh-in. If you catch a longer fish on the 2nd day you can bring it in. Longest fish wins and in the past they paid 3 places. Entry fees range from $25 for adults to $10 for kids. The Hitching Post (541) 893-6175 is the sponsor and can give you better details than me. Ask them for Louie's #, he runs the tourney.