Ever been to the Missouri River/Oahe?

[Greenhornet84]

Headed out to fish oahe (first timer)for 5days starting Friday. Gonna be starting north of pierre around okobojo and cow creek areas. Anyone been fishing out there before? What's it like as far as fishing styles I think we'll start with jigs and minnows or crawlers on lindys. How busy does it get out there ( not very judging by what I can find on the Internet) it'll be nice challenge to figure out a new lake. Any tips would be appreciated thanks.

[WaveWacker]

If it was me, I'd start out pulling BB's and spinners and/or cranks to locate some fish first. I know guys pull both with success but honestly don't have any personal experience beyond an aquaintance from SD that fishes it.

[leechlake]

I'd go jig minnow and if water is over or near 60 crawlers on spinner harnesses.

There is plenty of water to fish without being around more than a boat or two. It's interesting and fun fishing. When you look at the shoreline terrain it will generally tell you what structure is under the water. It there's a little ravine that comes down the the water that ravine probably will extend into the river. The river may have changed it's shape a bit but I've found it's a good general rule.

[Greenhornet84]

I'll have to pick up some more bottom bouncers don't usually fish with crawlers around here to often. Anyone fish leeches out there?

[IlliniWalli]

Anyone fish leeches out there?

we always had minnows, crawlers and leeches with us but, like someone else said, when the water warms you can skip the minnows.

some days they wanted crawlers, other times leeches, some days didnt matter.

we would contour troll light bouncers (1 oz down to 1/4) with a 4 foot leader and no. 2 gold aberdeen from 12 to 20 feet deep fairly slow with the trolling motor, working main lake and secondary points and sometimes into back bays. sometimes dragging light jigs (1/8, 1/16) worked better than bouncers.

watch the wind and mud lines. we pounded them some days pitching light jigs/bait shallow into the windward shore.

we usually fished in june out of bushs landing, upstream as far as bobs and downstream toward the cheyenne. we did fish out of cow/spring creek a few times and always did well around mailshack and agency bay.

check out WC, theres a guide that posts weekly reports from oahe/sharpe.

good luck. made a lot of great memories out there until we discovered pool 4 - its half the distance for us.

[Savage Brewer]

Brings back memories of so many years fishing oahe with my dad or grandpa. We did alot of drifting while vertical jigging. Also like said above, pick up some bottom bouncers and lindy rigs.

And as i learned at a young age out on oahe, dont forget the sunscreen!

Good luck.

[B-man715]

It's an awesome fishery I haven't been out there for too many years now......... but hope to try it again this year sometime

As mentioned before, bottom bouncing is a fishing staple there. Hell, that's where they were invented LOL!

I would bring 3/4oz all the way up to 3 oz. A heavy bouncer lets you go faster to cover more water. I will fish a 3 oz in all depths (10-40 fow) when in search mode. Once you get the fish dialed in, adjust accordingly. 1 oz per 10 fow is the general rule (depending on speed). If you find a nice concentration of fish, going vertical (jigging) is a great way to get into a pile of them.

The river has it's share of snags, so a heavy braid as a main line will save you a few bouncers. I prefer pencil style over the L shaped. Don't waste your money on the fancy painted ones either, all they do is catch the fisherman........ For a rod and reel, I like fishing a medium-medium heavy rod with a baitcaster that has a flipping switch (Quantum Accurists are great, Abu's Silver Max work too). They let you pay line out one handed without having to manually re-engage from free spool.

The neat thing about the river is the variety of fish available. You will catch eye's, pike, smallies, sheepies, etc etc. It's pretty cool when you hook into a smallie in 20 plus fow and a whole school will come to the surface chasing the hooked fish up

Good luck out there and report back! The fish are supposedly starving to death and almost jump in the boat

[Selmer]

Yep, bag limits are doubled due to overpopulation right now.

[ice_medic]

It has been a couple of years for me s since i have been out there but the fishing has always been good. For us it was a lot of drifting and trolling with spinner rigs with worms and leeches. We always used bottom bouncers. We did troll and move around alot and that worked well. Also if you can find some flooded timber then we jigged and casted from there and did very well also. Most of all have fun and dont get frustrated. Sometimes they were biting like mad and then 5 minutes later the bite would shut down for no reason. Also with the flooding last year there might have been alot of changes to the bottom so be careful where you are going.

[Archerysniper]

A heavy bottom bouncer trolled or drifted with a prop style spinner and half a crawler over a long shank gold hook. The old road beds are a great place to find. It is also different from hear no need to feed any line feel the bite and set the hook.

[John Mickish]

I have been to that exact area for each of the last three years, and will be back to Cow Creek at the end of the month.

Fish the points and shallow (8'-18') flats. You can use cranks on the flats or spinners and crawlers. On the points you will want a supply of bottom bouncers as mentioned above, and rig them with the slow death hooks by Mustad. No kidding, this is not a sales pitch. The slow death hooks with a crawler will outfish any other live bait presentation on that body of water. Bring LOTS of crawlers as it will not be uncommon for two in the boat to go thru a hundred crawlers or more per day.

If you are not finding the numbers of fish that you want, they may still be farther up river that time of year. If that is the case, tow the boat up to the Bush's landing area and give that a shot.

[Greenhornet84]

Thanks for all the input. Had a great trip we stayed at okobojo campground and fished dry, plum okobojo and cow creeks. Took us a day to figure out the walleyes were different out there our best bite was around 10 am to 6 pm kind of the opposite of what I'm used to. Caught around150 eyes for the two boats with the biggest being 26 lots of flippers. All in all it was a great trip and ill be going back someday.