Thread: Oologah Archives

Fished the river way up above the lake finally. I have been wanting to fish it for years but it always seems to be blown out when I have had an opportunity to go. I put in at big creek ramp and fished for 8 miles upriver and 3 miles downiver. I wanted to get a good sample of its depth and water clarity. Also fished Big creek from the ramp to the river. I ended up boating way more than fishing because I got there at noon and the thunderstorms came in at 6 pm. Water clarity in the tributary creeks is 4-8 inches. In the river, it was 15 inches at the uppermost point I went to, 20 inches at the farthest point downstream. The river has a massive biomass of shad. It has tons of lay-downs, some very large (70+plus feet, 4 foot diameter trunks). I found a good amount of standing timber from the bank out to 25 FOW. Most of the river near the launch area is an average of 22 feet deep. At the uppermost point I went to, the average was 11', the the farthest point downstream it was 24'. I ran across 3 different places where it was over 30' deep. It has cliff banks, sloping banks, rock banks, mud banks, car size boulder banks and banks that are nearly solid laydowns for a hundred yards. It is perfect crappie habitat. It looks like upper Gibson except with way more lay-downs and no crappie fishermen that I could find (saw 3 boats for catfish). Its a big river, 200-300 feet across. I didnt fish it hard and only caught one dink , I should have slowed down and given it a chance. In the last half hour before I left, I netted some shad and used them around a big lay-down. I promptly caught 5 big sand bass and the dink. It may be that it gets such heavy flows that it isn't a good fishery for crappie or it may be that I fished it wrong or hit it on a bad day. If anybody has any experience with it, I hope you chime in.