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My first post, so bear with me...
This had to be one of the BEST fishing trips I have ever been on in my life! My pop and I went down to the Brownlee Reservoir in Richland, OR last week, and had the greatest time ever. Thanks to BGMW for the advice, and my guide Gary at Brownlee Charters in Richland. Now I don't know about the rest of you all, but after sitting for hours with little to no bite at many of the lakes around here, it was nice to get the amount of action we did while at Brownlee.

Once we decided we wanted to target catfish first, Gary had us into a prime spot, and 10 minutes later--Fish On, and I mean FISH ON!! The first was about 3 lbs, the largest cat I have ever reeled in myself. I've gotten into cats before, but all pretty small in the 10-13 inch range, but nothing like what we were reeling in down there. We changed spots after only 6 big ones, (4 losing us in the weeds), we found an even better spot to nab nearly triple that. Many boats were in the water, with not as much success as we were having. One guy caught about an 8lb carp & was cussin mad (serves him right for taking the exact spot the Gary was in the day before and was going to take us to--heh, heh).

After 21 cats, all ranging in the 1.5 to 6 lb range (they've caught 18+ pounders from this reservoir), it was on to crappie. The bite was so frequent, we barely had our poles out of the water, a far cry from most of the fishing trips I've been on this year. I can't really complain, because I've gotten fish on almost every trip this year, but it was just so much fun! Our personal goal for crappie was 100, but after 69, we were tired and pretty much out of time for the tour (travel time between spots on the Snake river took a lot of the time). We'll be going back in August to jump on some of the 10 -12 inch fat bluegill they catch there, and some small mouths as well. Oh, forgot to mention the 16" largie a guy gave us the first night we got there, I guess one just wasn't enough for him.

The only place to stay in Richland is The Hitching Post, unless you're camping, and it's a great little motel to stay in. I could go on, but its just more of the same. Richland was a great place to go fishing, and I recommend it to everyone who loves catching lots of fish!

AJ's Dad

7/26/2010 11:30:00 PM

Looks like a great trip. How big were those crappies?
"Happy fishing"

keepcastin'

7/26/2010 11:59:00 PM

Thanks, AJ. The smallest of the crappie was 9.5-10" long(about 10 of them), and the rest were 10"+, nicest I've seen in years. We stopped at about 5 different spots on the river, and each one seemed to hold more, larger crappie-- both black and white.

The Jigmiester

7/27/2010 3:57:00 PM

Brownlee Is The Best Crappie fishing in the world! I field tested me very first proto type steelhead smolt jig down there and loaded the boat with slabs. My custom made crappie minnows caught just about everything for me down there- Smallies, Cats, Bull Gills and of course Slab Crappie, even down at the park at the Richland boat launch. I wish Washington State WDFW could duplicate the Crappie productivity up here as consistantly as Oregon has on Brownlee Res. Anyway nice pics! The Jigmiester

Jay K

7/27/2010 9:40:00 PM

Wow - great report. Nice trip indeed. Thanks for sharing the photos.

Elijah.Loves.Fishin

7/28/2010 12:42:00 AM

that is awesome! sounds like you had the fishing trip of a lifetime!

keepcastin'

7/29/2010 10:10:00 AM

Thanks guys, I definitely had the time of my life. Jigmiester - It is THE best crappie spot I have ever been to, bar none. I also forgot to mention how much the catfish we caught were talking to us - kind of a cross between a bullfrog and cat purr--Craziest thing I ever heard! I think I either forgot about that sound because I was so young catching them at Moses lake, or they were too small. It was pretty cool though.

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