Brownlee weekend report

[fisher guy]

Arrived there at noon on thursday and got a tent spot for the weekend. Put the tent up and it's time to go fishing.
Got over to the launch and there is plenty of water to launch this year and the parking lot is not to full. I get the boat ready and back it back down to the water and drop it in with my son so he can start it and get warmed up. Park the truck and go back down to the launch and my son say's the battery is dead. Well, lets try pull starting the big motor and see if we can get it to start up. After a couple of pulls the motor fires up and were good to go. Leave for our traditional starting spot and on the powder and no one is fishing it. All right lets get started. work the point from west to east, east to west nothing! Try one more pass pick up a couple of crappie and a very nice trout. Better but this is pretty slow pick up one more crappie and then we decide to head for crappie rock. Get to the rock and the fish finder lights up jackpot. Party boat is 30 yards away knocking them dead and you guessed it nothing for us. Fished for 3 hours and got 6 more enough for dinner try again tomorrow.

Friday: Start at crappie rock this morning but someone us beat us there to the spot we wanted. Fished for an hour and put 10 or so in the boat while we watched the other boat put on a clinic with 30 or more in the boat. can't take it any longer were going exploring in the Snake. Catch a few bass, a bluegill but know crappie. Cross over to the Idaho side and find a new spot with crappie. Put about a 70 Crappie in the boat over 3 hours. Things get slow so it time to go looking again. Found another spot but the wind was blowing to much to anchor so we head back in. Not a bad day, about 1 1/2 hrs of cleaning but the new fillet knife works great.

Saturday: Hit Crappie rock first thing and we are the first ones there. Amazing because we went and gassed the boat up in richland at 8 didn't get there untill 9 and the parking lot was pretty full. Anchor up and have the time of our life. I have never caught so many crappie in one spot as we did today. My fish cooler (120 Quart) is 3/4 full and we are looking at a ton of filleting. spent 3 hours filleting that night boy was I ready for bed.

Sunday: got a couple of hours before we need to head back so we going searching and exploring. Find a nice school over by the powder river queen, another by a bend in the river and of course we fish crappie rock for 45 minutes. Picked up about 25 for the morning, time to head in and come home.

So, what did I learn. #1 make sure you charge the battery before you go.
#2 the schools of fish are very large but not very spread out. Need to get within 10 yards of the school this year. #3 Fish are at all different heights, abandoned the bobber for casting and retriving. Cast wait 3 seconds retrieve lite jerk action. Alot of the bites were light to no almost no bite slight tension fish on. Others were very aggressive.
Colors we used, red and white, black and silver, all pink, orange an green speck, yellow and green, red and green, get the picture almost anything worked when you were in them. I used crappie knibbles my son did not and I'm sure he out fished me.
#4 Invest in a good 110 fillet knife and cleaning does not seem to take to long.

I know this was a long read but it was a great time over there.


Saturday's Catch

http://
AJ Hard at work.

[codeman]

hey sounds like a great trip!!! I notice from your picture there seems to quite a few white crappie in your cooler. I used to fish brownlee alot about 12 years ago, when i was in college in nampa, id. There used to be hardly any body out there then. Now it is just a zoo. The last 10 years or so we have mainly fished owhyee, with really good results. There seems to be less people there, probably because there are so few access points. You ever spend much time fishing there?? If not, i would recommed it some time. You wont have to worry about other people beating you to your spot, there are more spots than boats on that res. Anyways, I've also never chased crappie in the fall, ive always wanted too. I had been thinking about nothing except big bucks that last few weeks, but now you have me thinking about crappie again. dang you.

[dragon67]

Good going!! Hey did you catch any perch or kitty fish?? I was talking to my dad acouple of days ago and he said that the perch were coming back in and they were the nice size ones.

[fisher guy]

That cooler of fish had about 50% whites but the day before out on the snake it was less then 20% and 80% Blacks. We only got one cat but we never spent much time fishing for them. It seems to be one of those things that when you are into the fish its hard to quit and go fish somewhere else. I know they were catching some nice cats by hewitt. My son has fished owyhee but that is another 2 hrs of driving and I have had good luck on the powder. As far as crowds it's not as bad as 10 or so years ago. Plenty of open space to fish.

[nsyhunter]

We leave Salem first thing Thursday morning so looking forward to the evening bite!! Staying through Sunday and the weather looks great, good to know we can still launch at Hewitt.
As an aside, I consistantly catch Black Crappie out on the main Snake. The only time we see many White is when we go back into a cove.
This is a great time of year to catch trout as they are waiting for the first rain to head up the streams.

...sharpening the kives

[jd_ducker]

That's a cooler full of fish!

[Jrfisher]

Now That is "Good Eats"!