Thread: Snake River

(Pics added on page 2....sorry for the long post)

Well, let's get the bad news out of the way. The crappie bite = non existent. The water was still a bit too muddy for them. I didn't hear of a single crappie caught over the weekend around Lyons Ferry. We trolled cranks, trolled jigs, fished the bluffs, jigged over deep water humps and channels, and made cast to every stick up and hidden brush pile I knew of. Not one crappie in the boat all weekend .

The good news....the blue cats and smallies were red hot!!!! Launched out of the State Park around 5:30 am on Saturday and headed up to "crappie bluff" looking for slabs. First cast against the bluff with a red jig under float....bobber down. I set the hook....feels like I have a monster slab on the line! Then it starts pulling a little drag and heading for deeper water. Pull it up closer to boat.....it's a 3lb blue cats:D. This fish was right against the bluff and only 15" under the surface. We keeping fishing the area for about an hour before heading after some cats up river.

We head up to a good hole and setup our cat rods with fresh shrimp. No sooner does the bait hit the bottom before it's fish on. We nail blue cat after blue cat until we run out of shrimp and three dozen worms. They were all between 1-4lbs on average. I started to head back to the Marina to see if my girlfriend needed any help setting up camp so I fished around the marina docks from the boat for about 40mins or so. You could not keep the bass off your line if tried. I swear those fish will hit a bare hook! We caught them deep on docks, out in open water, up against the banks....pretty much every place you could cast held bass. Me and my buddy caught about 20 of them around the marina before heading in around 9:40am.

Went to camp and ate breakfast (the marina breakfast is really good and cheap) that put everyone to sleep. I still wanted to fish so I hopped in the boat and shot to the north bank just downstream of the bridge. There's a nice little side channel that slows the current down and has a fast break into the main channel. I caught so many little bass of that island and drop off that I lost count after 35. Didn't have any catfish bait so I went and fished under the ferry with a crappie jig and caught two bluegill and a sucker for bait. Went back to the island and used the bluegill for cut bait. After about 15mins my rod almost gets pulled out the boat. Set the hook and it's another cat...best one of the trip at about 7lbs I'd guess. I released it and kept one smaller blue to use for bait then went back to camp.

I spent Sunday morning fishing holes in the main river channel. Every hole we tried held cats but one held a TON of cats. Right below the mouth of the Tucannon is a hole in the main channel. The cats were stacked up like cordwood in that hole. From 5am-8am we pulled over 25 cats from that hole. They loved cut chucks of sucker fish and even the belly fat from other blue cats.

All in all we had a blast out there and I'm planning another trip for July if the water clears. With over 150 bass brought to the boat and at least 50-70 cats it was a great trip even though the crappie where a no-show. If anyone heads out there soon give me a heads up and I'll ride over with you.

Oh ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you should have seen the guys fishing the mouth of the palouse that I talked to "read in the paper this spot was hot" I have been here all day and only caught 1 cat. The water was way to warm to be holding many fish that shallow.

I caught one 10" crappie so I guess I out fished all the other crappie fisherman!:D

Ditto on the bass bite, red hot

I talked to a friend of mine who was camped at the marina, and he said his neighbor killed the crappie last week, but said he hadnt caught any since.

Yeah, I'll be back again as soon as the runoff is gone. Most of the cats we caught were in pretty strong current and at least 18-25 feet deep. Didn't catch a channel cat all weekend which is pretty weird. The blues like that heavy current though. Looked like the water level was pulled down a few feet as well. Had fun doging all the drift wood in the main channel . I never did try my favorite crappie hole. They had all of the gates on the dam open so I did want to take a chance riding up near there.

My buddy from work that drove out there this weekend is really rubbing it in thick today:D. He drove up river to Chief Timothy and caught about 40 crappie. I'll ask if he took some pics and try to post one. Most of them were around 10-13". He said the water was a little better up there but not much.

I should have put in above the goose and ran up to CF, the deadman slough area is usually thick with crappie this time of the year. I have also pulled many fish from the barge tie off in the same area, sometimes you can see the schools sitting in the pilings.


Chief Timothy, now thats a long way to go, I have bass fished that area some, but never crappie. I am going to try and do more fishing mid-week as the ski-doo crowd is thick now on weekends.

I am going to try and hit scootney this week for my next trip.

man i gotta get over there this year! good job slab.

My friends and I were in the Center Ferry State Park last weekend. We caught a lots of smallies and 2 cats (5-6 lbs/cat). Most smallies are 10-12 inches. I tends to come there again this weekend, but I'm not sure. I don't want to drive my very old car to there

I hear you Auburn. I pull my boat with 79' F150 and she likes to drink lol. It was about $200 in fuel round trip after filling the boat up. I can make the same trip for about $85 in my car :D.

Your right about the bass. We didn't catch one over 2lbs this trip but there are some nice ones out there if you fish long enough. I think we're spoiled here on the westside with smallies that average 3lbs. I'd trade our bass for those channel cats any day to tell you the truth.

Slabking, did the locations of your catfish spots match up to the story in F&H news? I'm headed over on Friday and this will be my first trip to this spot. We think we're gonna stay at the marina.

Also, did you poke your camera in the water to see what was down there? I think I may get one of them some day.

Bill W

(I didn't get a ton of pics but here are a few. I was too busy baiting everyones poles and unhooking fish.:D)

Here's two shots from the boat ramp at Lyons Ferry:






This a shot looking downstream from the grain elevators:




This a little blue cat from the grain elevators. You'll catch a bunch this size during the day. The bigger fish bite best from 5am-8am then again from 9pm-11pm or so.




This is one we kept to use for cutbait once we ran out of shrimp, bluegills, nd sucker. It worked like a charm. They really liked the fat from the belly and the guts.




This was at the marina parking lot right before launching out on Sunday. I'm grabbing some baitfish out of the livewell to chop up for bait:D. The Marina is a really nice place to stay in comfort but if you want to launch out early your first morning there be warned that it doesn't open until 7am. You can launch from the state park at Lyons Ferry for free.....and earlier. The camping area is very clean and there are no ticks like the other camping areas up river. They have a bait and tackle shop, and great food. You can also leave your boat tied up to the docks overnight for $4.