05-28-2006, 04:57 PM
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]We fished Brownlee Reservoir on the north end for about 6 hours on Thursday the 25th. We had planned on camping for the entire weekend, but do to the weather (wind & rain) forecasted for Friday & Saturday we ran for home, can’t take chances in a tent. Woodhead Campground was full and the lake had a lot of debris floating in it also. The reports from fellow fisherman were not all that good, so we started off trolling deep diving crank baits along the shores looking for any signs of life. We managed a ton of smallmouth bass, but nothing of good size (12” average) and of course we were not targeting bass. We were in search of big crappie and by trolling cranks we can usually find some bigger crappie and cover lots of water. We managed only one crappie and it appeared to be full of eggs. There were reports that the Powder River Arm was producing better, but we never made it up there to try. Here’s the Crappie we did catch.[/size][/font]
[inline CrappieBRLEE.jpg]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]We also managed to catch this nice catfish while trolling; boy did it give a good fight on 8lb test. Every time it would see the surface it would make a headshaking dive toward the bottom. It always amazes me when I catch a catfish on a crank bait, in 100+ feet of water close to the surface. What’s he doing up that close to the surface, I would assume feeding. [/size][/font]
[inline CatBRLEE.jpg]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]We did try some jigging for about an hour in hopes we could find some bigger bass. But the wind made it tough to keep it steady, so we went back to trolling cranks. We plan on going back up and camping again for several more days on or around the 14th of June. The reservoir is full now and the water clarity was pretty good.[/size][/font]
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[inline CrappieBRLEE.jpg]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]We also managed to catch this nice catfish while trolling; boy did it give a good fight on 8lb test. Every time it would see the surface it would make a headshaking dive toward the bottom. It always amazes me when I catch a catfish on a crank bait, in 100+ feet of water close to the surface. What’s he doing up that close to the surface, I would assume feeding. [/size][/font]
[inline CatBRLEE.jpg]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]We did try some jigging for about an hour in hopes we could find some bigger bass. But the wind made it tough to keep it steady, so we went back to trolling cranks. We plan on going back up and camping again for several more days on or around the 14th of June. The reservoir is full now and the water clarity was pretty good.[/size][/font]
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