Verdigris River above Oologah in Oklahoma

[catfishcentral]

This is a great section of the Verdigris that flows into Oologah. The fishing is almost always good and I don't make it out there enough. Today my son and I went and put in at Big Creek Ramp and trolled for sandies and did a little juggin. We got a late start today about 11:30 am as I was finishing some boat trailer repair. Anyway we took 32 jugs with us and tossed out 16 with cut spoonbill and then went to find the sandies. The sand bass we caught today were off the deeper diving shad raps. We caught about a dozen and then went to catch shad for the rest of our jugs. We proceeded to throw out another 16 jugs with shad and went to trolling again. We ended up with only 30 sandies for the day and kept the biggest fifteen. We either caught 2 pounders or little bittie guys. The cut spoonbill didn't do crap for us today and all the bait was left on our hooks. The jugs with shad we ended up with eight keeper bluecats and channels. Nothing too big in the way of catfish the biggest one was 4 pounds. We were fishing in the middle of the day and there is no water flow on the river to get them going. I'm sure if we baited up at night we would have done much better. Anyway what a great day to be out on the water. My digital camera only had one pic left remaining to use so here's the pic of the day. Nothing special but a couple nice sandies from the day. Man I hate cleaning these scale fish. They make more of a mess than the catfish when cleaning them.:p

[capt theory]

thats cool. have you ever specifically gone for flatheads there? ive been told thats where some of the biggest flatheads in the state are. also been told theres lots of logjams and debris thats great for crappie. and we all know crappie and flatheads go hand in hand when it comes to structure.

[Tulcat]

Looks like you had a good day.

I have never fished that part of the river, but would like to some day.

[catfishcentral]

Josh, Your right about lots of flatheads in that section of river. The whole North end of Oolagah is nothing but a stump filled and submered timber nightmare. There lots of fifty plus pounders that are taken either in the upper portions of Oolagah or in the river. There use to be a bait shop in Nowata attached to a gas station. It is now closed but the old man that use to run it caught a flathead off a limbline just 3 pounds short of the unrestricted record of 106 pounds. I've never gone there's specifally for flatheads but there's plenty of them there. There's blues in there also but I've never heard of any monster blues out of Oolagah just big flathead.

[brandon]

how's the fishing around double creek good? or do you need to go farther north.

[catfishcentral]

Brandon,

There's very good fishing at the North end of the lake at double creek cove. There's decent campgrounds there also. The North end of the lake is full of LOTS of shallow submerged timber. Take it slow while you learn the creek and river channels. Look for the trees that point inward into the lake. These are the trees were on the old river bank was and will help guide you.
Run you boat not more than 5 mph though the area as you get to know the where everything is located. This speed your boat will roll over trees but not do much if any damage. Also make sure you have a extra drain plug, I've had mine pull out before rolling over timber.

[catfishcentral]

FYI If your considering putting in at Big Creek, Highway 60 bridge that goes over the Verdigris is closed for repair. The road to Big Creek is just to the east of the Verdigris Bridge. In order to get there you need to take Highway 169 North and then take Highway 28 loop around. This adds about 20 extra minutes to the drive. I heard that it will take about three months to finish which kind of sucks. Then need to time Bridge repair more condusive to fisherman. :p

[dobbie]

Me and several buddies are going to camp 5 nights at big creek April 21-25.We are going to target the big flatheads,using limblines and jugs baited with big perch.I should have a report the 26th.

[Tulcat]

Sounds like a lot of fun! I look forward to your report... Good Luck

[catfishinfordman]

Im going out to skiatook on froday night. My buddy says he knows a good crappie hole. there I told him I will fish for crappie as well but I am definately going to take some perch and stuff for the flatts exspecially. IS there any good spots for shad on skiatook.

[Tulcat]

Im going out to skiatook on froday night. My buddy says he knows a good crappie hole. there I told him I will fish for crappie as well but I am definately going to take some perch and stuff for the flatts exspecially. IS there any good spots for shad on skiatook.

Most people I've talked to who fish Skiatook catch there shad elsewhere, as they are hard to find on the lake. My one and only visit there we tossed a net for over 3 hours with no shad, but were lucky enough for another fisherman to give us several dozen shad. He said he caught them at a nearby creek, but did not elaborate as to where it was.

[Tulcat]

Well today I spent 5 hours scouting bank access and boat ramps on the Verdigris starting at the Oologah headwaters and up the river to where Hwy 28 crosses and then back down the river. I hit my share of unimproved roads and managed to find 5 spots where bank fishing was possible and you could get pretty close by truck. I also checked out the Big Creek and Double Creek boat ramps and campgrounds for a May trip.

[TDawgNOk]

We went up to Oolagah on Sat night. Only caught 1 crappie that was about 5 in. Oh, and several Zebra Mussles.

Question for you guys who boat on Oolagah. What steps should be taken when you pull yer boat out, before going to a lake that isn't infested with Zebra's?

[catfishcentral]

http://www.swt.usace.army.mil/LIBRARY/ZebraMussels/ZebraMussels.htm

All the info you need.

[TDawgNOk]

Thanks Chris!

First time I ever really thought about them. Since I have a boat now, I've become more aware than before. *(Even though I still haven't gotten it fixed and out on the water yet.)*

[dobbie]

We had a good trip on the Verdigris this weekend.We caught a 67#flathead Sat. night,and a 70# flathead on Monday night.We had 25 flatheads in 5 nights of fishing.Most of the fish were caught in log jams,with ash poles nailed to the logs.We also used bungee cords to.The fish were caught on perch and bullheads.We also had out jugs with shad and cut sandbass on them.The few fish we did caught were dead in 3or4 hours.It didn't matter what hook they were on.The hooks were 3,6,9 foot off the bottom in 20-30 foot of water.We even moved them towards the bank in 15 foot of water and that didn't help.We pulled them up before the the rain,so it might be better with cooler water.I'm not sure what happen but we only had 1 flathead on Tuesday night.

[catfishcentral]

Congrats those are some mighty big flathead. Sounds like a good time had by all. :cool:

[Tulcat]

We had a good trip on the Verdigris this weekend.We caught a 67#flathead Sat. night,and a 70# flathead on Monday night.We had 25 flatheads in 5 nights of fishing.Most of the fish were caught in log jams,with ash poles nailed to the logs.We also used bungee cords to.The fish were caught on perch and bullheads.We also had out jugs with shad and cut sandbass on them.The few fish we did caught were dead in 3or4 hours.It didn't matter what hook they were on.The hooks were 3,6,9 foot off the bottom in 20-30 foot of water.We even moved them towards the bank in 15 foot of water and that didn't help.We pulled them up before the the rain,so it might be better with cooler water.I'm not sure what happen but we only had 1 flathead on Tuesday night.

Sounds like you had a pretty good trip!

Were you fishing primarily above or below Big Creek ramp?

What depths did you catch the big flatties at? How deep was the water and how deep was your hook?

Thanks

[dobbie]

We caught both of the big fish on ash poles around 15' long with about 3' in the mud.One was on mud bank,and one nailed on log in heavy brush.I would say it was 6-8' deep,with bait a foot off the bottom.We fished towards the lake from Big creek.We had almost all of our bait gone except for the bullheads.It was hard to tell what bait they were hitting on,but we did get a33#flathead on a bullhead on a log in 20' of water withbait about 6' deep.I think we just hit it right because of the storm,because we had some good bait on Tue night and had one 19# flathead,and 6 Channels.I think maybe the channels were getting the bait off before the Flatheads could get to them.We didn't start baiting until around 9:00

[catfishcentral]

I fished the Verdigris this weekend. Well kind of I spent most of my time in Big Creek. I got to the river Friday evening and the Verdigris was flowing pretty good. There was too much debris, trees, logs and trash to put jugs out and I didn't feel good about trying to set any lines in the current since I was by myself and it was getting dark. I ended up fishing big creek all night since there wasn't too much debris in the creek and I figured some nice flatheads would be in there getting out of the main channel current. I baited up twenty limblines with nice size perch, threw out some jugs and baited my poles. The limblines proved to be very effective but I was surprised that all the fish I caught on my limblines with live perch were all channels. They were big channels and I don't think I caught one under 3.5 pounds. Most of the channels were anywhere from 5 to 9.5 pounds. I only caught two blues with the biggest one being 9.5 pounds same as my biggest channel. I fished until it started to rain around 2:00 am or so and fished in the rain all morning Saturday and then cleaned fish.

I did run into a little problem with I got hung up on a log underwater. I got off the log but later on I notice my feet were under water in the boat. My drain plug got pulled out and I didn't have a spare. Also the back end of the boat was starting to go underwater and the bilge pump outlet hole on the back of the boat was under water so it was useless to run the thing. I limped back to the ramp and got the trailer down into the water. Now at this time my jugs on my rear deck were floating off the back of my boat and I had a pretty hard time trying to get the boat on the trailer with all the water in the boat. I did finally get the boat out and now totally soaked. My cell phone was in my pant's pocket(now ruined) and my digital camera that I also put in a dry place under the boat seat... well the water got high enough in the boat that the seats in my boat were underwater and filled up my seat compartment. Digital camera looks to be ruined also.

Oh well... stuff happens. I went back today to pull in my limb lines that I left out and spent some time with Jim(Tulcat) and his brother in law. I was planning on meeting them on Saturaday afternoon but being wet, miserable and missing a boat plug I came home to dry out and come back on Sunday. These are probably the last pics with this camera. I couldn't get it to upload off the camera, but the memory stick still works and stuck it in my computer for my only pic of the day. Pic is getting ready to clean fish in the rain.

[rivrbunny]

Chris,
That sounds like quite an adventure. The only good thing about those times is you just thank God you made it back to see your family in one piece. You might check on your homeowners insurance-sometimes they will cover items lost or damaged while on a trip. We all enjoy the pics you post so I hate to hear your camera is messed up. If the insurance doesn't cover it, maybe the wife & kids will get you one for fathers day.

[Tulcat]

My brother in-law Randy and I had a fun, but wet, trip at Big Creek on the Verdigris with Chris.

We arrived several hours after Chris had went home to dry out after his boating mishap, and headed to the Verdigris to check it out. It was Chris had described with tons of junk and wood, to include whole trees, coming down with the current. But we did venture out a bit on the river to set some set lines that we would check the next morning.

So we headed back to Big Creek which was relatively free of debris compartively speaking, and set out some set lines and then a bunch of floating jugs. By the time we had set out the last jug, the debris in Big Creek rivaled the Verdigris, and within 30 minutes all of our free floating jugs were caught in log jags. We spent the next few hours looking for and freeing jugs. We found them all and 3 of them even had small cats on them.

After that we anchored by the camp site and got in about an hour of R&R (no fish but Randy missed a good run) and then 2 hours of sleep. Chris showed up early Sunday and after some visiting we went out to check our lines and he checked his setlines that we had rebaited for him

Grand total for the weekend was 16 cats, the largest being a 24# flattie, and a few blues over 10#.

[catfishcentral]

That's a nice flathead there Jim. We will be able to find more in the main channel when there isn't so much crap floating down the river. The hour or so I had rods out on Sunday I was constantly getting snagged by debris floating downstream. :sad2:

[rivrbunny]

Nice fish! That debris floating down can be a booger:crazy: Sounds like you had fun and better luck than Chris (maybe we should take up a collection and get him a new camera).

[TDawgNOk]

Chris, looks like you had one heck of an adventure. Hate to hear about the damage to the cell phone and camera.

Jim, sounds like you all had a good time, and a good visit with a fellow brother!

[catfishinfordman]

Well jim maybe u need to take me with u next time. Cause as the story seems to be we always have good luck when I go with u. I dont know if its my luck your luck or the luck combined and Yes the wife said I could go. It costed me a ticket to a concert but I can go stay the night on the river with no grippen :006: wooooooooo hooooooo. So nothing can come up hopefully. holla back at me

[TDawgNOk]

Yes the wife said I could go. It costed me a ticket to a concert but I can go stay the night on the river with no grippen :006: wooooooooo hooooooo. So nothing can come up hopefully. holla back at me

Man, I love it when I get a kitchen pass!!!!

Wish I could get one right now!!

[Tulcat]

Nice fish! That debris floating down can be a booger:crazy: Sounds like you had fun and better luck than Chris (maybe we should take up a collection and get him a new camera).

Just so we are clear here, my 16 cat total included what Chris took from his lines on Sunday that I had rebaited as Chris said he cleaned all the fish he wanted from Saturday.

[catfishcentral]

Well that was only three fish that were on my lines in Big Creek. The Verdigris was definatly producing better that big creek that weekend. I want to get out there again soon...well as soon as the crap stops flowing down the river.

[catfishinfordman]

Well that was only three fish that were on my lines in Big Creek. The Verdigris was definatly producing better that big creek that weekend. I want to get out there again soon...well as soon as the crap stops flowing down the river.


If you or jim need an extra body for the lines give me a call. I am definaltley down for an all nighter.

[catfishcentral]

Inflow today is only about 6000 cfs compared to last week when I saw 58,000cfs of inflow. :ooooh: The lake is 6 1/2 feet above normal and they will be letting water out for quite some time. Hopefully no more rain will be coming soon and the river although high shouldn't have too much debris for some good fishing.:wink:

[Tulcat]

We'll find out this weekend!

[catfishinfordman]

WEll I hope that my car is back by this weekend I am really looking foward towards this weekend. I would like some advice on what to make some tags out of.

[Tulcat]

Simple tags can be made with duct tape and a sharpie, and then attached to jug/trotline with more duct tape.

For a more versatile tag that is reuseable, try a farm supply place for an animal tag with a quick type clasp. Write your info on the tag with a sharpie.

[Tulcat]

My brother in-law and myself joined Chris (catfishcentral), his son, and their dog for a great time on the Verdigris,

Here are a few pics:

[Tulcat]

And more pics from the Verdigris.

[catfishcentral]

Jim,

Thanks for the pics there sir. Bradley, Clause and I had a great weekend on the river with you guys. The current was just prefect and everything was biting good on the river. The lake was up about 6 1/2 feet above normal and running jug lines was very productive but somewhat of a hassel also. Since the river was up so much there were tree limbs in the water and the bank may have been twenty feet under the tree's canopy. I didn't lose any jugs but retrieving them was sometimes a pain whereas it wouldn't have been without the high lake levels. Bradley was all ready to fish all night long but the long day of the river Saturday wore him out. We ate dinner around 9:30 or so and he fell fast asleep even with that dang generator going all night long. I really wanted to fish most of the night with the rod's so I dragged him out of the tent and we fished for a hour or so and caught a decent 7 pound blue and a small 3 pounder. We ended up calling it quits after he was too cold and tired and went back to camp. Saturday brought more fish but and good times on the river but I didn't get a lick of sleep with that generator going all night and I crashed when we got home. Lots of good fishing on the Verdigris.

[brandon]

Me and my little 5 year old boy went out fishing double creek monday. He caught a 10 lbs blue I caught a 15, 8 lbs blue and an 8 lb channel. things were going great until boat trouble forced us in. but all in all if you missed the floating trees you could have a good day fishing.

[fishnfool68]

Sounds like he had a good day out with Dad.Thats a big fish for a little guy!

[catfishcentral]

Well the wife and daughter decided to go out of town at the last minute this weekend so I meet up with a buddy and with my son at Big Creek again. I really didn't know how the fishing would be with most of the fish in full spawn, no current on the river and just dang hot out there. I didn't have enough time to catch any more perch than what I had still left from earlier in the week. I took twenty perch and hoped the shad would be easy to catch. Well the shad were very hard to catch and it took us hours, right till dark on Friday night for enough to bait our jugs, limbs and poles. Since there was three of us there we put out 16 jugs in big creek, 32 jugs in the main channel along with 20 limb lines. We did pole fish for awhile but didn't even get a bite so we headed off to camp. The next morning was a big disappointment to say the least. In big creek we did do fairly well with 7 small channels 3 to 4 pounds each and a small flathead. The main channel was just plain sorry with only one fish off 20 limblines and 2 1/2 pound blues off 32 jugs. The spawn was definitely on and the blues were either in the creeks spawning, way upstream or had headed back down to the lake after spawning. We went miles and miles downstream that morning not hardly seeing a single fish on the graph. We finally made it down to where the river dumps into Oolagah and the graph lit up like a Christmas tree with fish on the graph. The North end of Oolagah is shallow and silted in and all the trees and debris gathers on the shallows right next to the river channel. We had a deep 17 foot channel, then tons of fallen trees for cover and shallow mud flats. The weather also played a factor as a very strong South wind was blowing towards us helping push bait fish to the North where we started fishing. We dropped off 8 jugs and then drove around exploring for about 15 minutes. We came back and took 9 fish off our 8 jugs in that short amount of time. We then tossed out another 30 jugs with what little bait we had left and cleaned our fish from overnight and the ones we had just caught. We came back to check our jugs to take another 38 fish off jugs and culled out any too small and set up for pole fishing. We tried to clean our fish while pole fishing but just kept catching fish one right after the other. We couldn't keep them off our poles and caught another 35 or so catfish. I think we were even catching fish we had just tossed back into the water a few times. We had just caught 80 plus fish in just a few hours time. What happened? I think it's a combination of several things. First, not all catfish will be spawning at the same time. Oologah is a huge lake and there's other fish making it upstream looking for good spawning grounds. We had a lot of fish full of eggs and males with swollen heads. Second, there's also fish finishing up spawning and without any current in the river they left to return to the main body of the lake. Third we had a nice strong South wind blowing baitfish up to us on the North end of the lake. The fish returning from spawning upstream, fish still looking to spawn and the wind pushing the food to us made for the prefect location. There's ten miles of river from Big Creek Ramp to the North end of Oolagah. We hardly saw anything in the main channel according to the graph on Saturday. The shad were also very hard to catch in the main channel and where there's no food there's probably no catfish either. Anyway it was a really fun weekend. I wish I had found bigger bait to wrestle with some bigger fish. I caught one blue at 14 pounds the rest were all under 10 pounds a few 8 and 9 pounders but the most were 2 to 4 pounds. I figured by Saturday morning with few fish that we caught, that the spawn, no current and heat was gonna kill the rest of the weekend. We search and search and we lucky enough to find the fish this weekend. Whew, I'm sick of cleaning fish, after cleaning 45 fish in the heat of the day I was more than happy to release everything else we caught. I don't think well need anymore eater's for awhile.

Here's a couple of pics of the lake and river. The first is the big fish of the day 14 pounds. The second is slate bluff. I walked about halfway up this 100 foot bluff to take this pic. The last this some of the timber we fished Saturday afternoon tearing up the fish.

[catfishcentral]

Bighead carp in Grand Lake? Man that's no good I'd figure they would end up in the Navagation Channel before they ended up in a lake. I wonder how they ended up in there?

We had a really great time on Oolagah after we finally found the fish. June fishing can be tough. I couldn't believe how quick they were hitting that day.

[caatstalker]

havent cought any in akla yet but 5 year ago in littlerock on the ark. i cought one weight 52lb an i saw a lot of them snagged there at murry lock sorry to here they are here now , but im not suprised . life goes on

[catfishcentral]

I took my father in law and son and put in at big creek again today. We decided to travel back downstream to where we caught a ton of fish a few weeks back at the North end of Oolagah where the river opens into the lake. The last time there we couldn't keep them off our poles or jugs. This time it was pretty slow. There was a decent South wind and since there was no current we drifted upstream next to all the timber. We only caught 4 channels all 3 to five pounds a piece. We went out into the main body of lake for a while but the waves beat us up pretty good so we headed back upstream 15 miles to fish the bluffs and boulders up past big creek. While driving up to our spot I kept seeing huge schools of shad right after another. They were everywhere for over a mile. These were all the new crop of shad from the spring and they were all one inch or so a piece. I stopped and it was a dang feeding frenzy. The catfish and gar were surfacing and it was a all you could eat buffet. Everywhere you looked you could see huge dark clouds of baby shad right at the surface and the big fish were filling up. We tossed out six rods thinking we would load up. We ended up catching only a few more channels in the three to five pound range. I think there was just too much dang food out there that our bait just wasn't enticing enough. It was pretty cool in a minutes time you would see at least thirty fish coming up and busting the shad everywhere. I've seen this before below dams like Ft. Gibson before with sand bass but never with all these catfish and gar. Anyway no monsters today:sad2: but we had a good time and the weather has been great lately. It gets hot during the day but I can't believe how low the humidity has been. It's made for a lot of pleasant evenings for this time of year.

Happy Fishing

[TDawgNOk]

sounds like a great trip chris!!

[catfishcentral]

The boy and I fished Oolagah this Friday and Saturday and did pretty good. The surface water temps are pretty dang high 91 degrees...can't be good for the fish. The gar though seem to thrive in the heat and they were picking at our baits all day long. The schools of baby shad are still everywhere the the gars and feeding pretty good to say the least. The biggest blue we caught went about ten pounds but we ended up catching a couple nice flatheads in the mid to upper teens. I didn't weigh them but one probably went 15 and the other 18 pounds.

[rivrbunny]

Nice fish, he looks pretty happy to have caught those big cats! Kids love fishing.

[capt theory]

hey chris, what was that weight on that big ole flathead that old man caught in oologah? i was talking to a buddy about that lake and just couldnt remeber what
you said.

[Love Them Cats]

Hey Chris, where is the Big Creek Ramp located and is that area any good for bank fishing?

Ken

[catfishcentral]

hey chris, what was that weight on that big ole flathead that old man caught in oologah? i was talking to a buddy about that lake and just couldnt remeber what
you said.

103 pounds, on a limbline out of 12 foot jon....just 3 pounds short of the 106 unrestricted record.


Ken,

Big Creek Ramp is located about 2 miles North of highway 60. Since your coming from the East if your in Vinita it's just before you go over Kentucky creek and the the Veridgris river. There is a sign posted going eastbound on highway 60 just before you go over Kentucky creek. The ramp is about 2 miles north and the campsites and ramp are kind of hidden on the left (west) side of the road. The bank fishing access there is not good. There is several decent places to bank fish on the Verdigris above Oolagah. People fish under the highway 60 bridge and there's quite a few back roads that can get you to some good places. The best thing you can buy is one of those 20.00 Oklahoma maps and you find backroads to all these access places.

[Love Them Cats]

Ken,
Big Creek Ramp is located about 2 miles North of highway 60.

Thanks, We'll have to head that way and try a few places?

Ken

[catfishcentral]

Man, it's been months since I last fished...been too caught up in bowhunting. The boy and I put in at big creek yesterday and fished the Verdigris for about 6 hours. The shad took about 30 minutes to find but we found a huge school and caught enough to fill a five gallon bucket in one cast. Shad were at the bottom at 35 feet in the river and it was pretty hard pulling the net back into the boat with all those shad. We threw out jugs and then rod and reel fished while we waited on the jugs. We caught 12 fish on the poles after about 3 hours on fishing. We went and ran our jugs and caught another 20 fish. There we not much in size 2 to 5 pounds but the freezer was empty and we took out limit of fish to stock up. Water temps were at 42 degrees not much in the way of current but the fish were definatly biting.

[maupin]

nice fish!:big_smile:

[catfishcentral]

The boy and I fished for the Sandies today up and down the river. They were killing the sandies last weekend and early in the week, but I heard reports they were getting to be a little more work later in the week. They were scattered and fishing during the overcast morning hours was tough...only caught around ten. The sun decided to come out and it was a beautiful day to be on the river. We only ended up catching around 40 sandies and 18 keepers for the day. Everyone we talked to today on the river had about the same results...scattered and much better action in the afternoon.

[catfishcentral]

Been a long time since I was last on the Verdigris... I both fished and hunted on Saturday. My two rifle spots are only open for the first nine days of rifle and Oolagah's WMA is open for all 16 days. I never hunted it but had a rifle tag to still be filled and wanted to do a little fishing. Search for a decent place in the morning to take my climber in and sat in the tree stand for 3 hours without seeing a deer. Then hit the river and caught just enough shad to bait up. There were TONS of fish on the sonar just like in the spring time on the river. Caught 15 cat's in about three hours all channels except one blue. Nothing big all between 3 and 6 pounds. The biggest fish of the day was a 7 1/2 hybrid thought I had a good cat on there for a minute, fought really good. The rain stay away for the majority of the day just some light rain in the late afternoon while doing a evening hunt. No deer spotted today, the wind was terrible...glad I wasn't on a lake today. Pretty sure between the wind keeping the deer bedded down and still some hunter pressure was the reason for not seeing a single deer today. Still a great day to spend outside and catch some fish.

[catfishcentral]

Has anyone been up on the upper Verdigris lately? I get a weekend finally to fish and the weather looks nice but windy. The river looks like the best option, hopefully the cats will be biting and gonna take the "other" fishing rods and see fish any sandies have started making the run up the river. There's been some good current in the river lately so we will see.:cross:

[catfishcentral]

Well it was a great day to be on the water except for the wind....glad we stayed on the river today. There was about a dozen boats up on the river today. I know I wasn't the only one not catching much in the way of fish today. We trolled for quite a while looking for some sandies but we didn't get one in the boat at all today and the sonar was pretty empty. I thought that I finally caught one sand bass but snagged a monster spoonbill instead. :smile2: We did manage to catch a few catfish but they were not wanting my shad today. All channels with the biggest one around 5 or 6 pounds. The wife and son went out of town today so it was me and the daughter today fishing...until she got too bored from not catching enough.

[Team Catfish]

NNNNNNNNice!! The channel cat looks awsome CC. Glad your daughter got a chance to use the FISH GRIPS.

[GaryF]

Looks like a pretty successful day to me, Chris! If it was anything like the weather up here it was a great day to be out.

[catfishcentral]

70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky today. Even being on the river the wind was still pretty bad....face got a little wind burned but I'll take that any day over sitting at the house. Great day to be on the water even if we didn't catch too much.:big_smile:

[healthydrink]

Caught 4 today in the main lake south of Winganon. Real windy and could not anchor on the windy side of goose island. Only found a small pod of Blues on the north side of goose island biggest one was abot 5 pounds. Cut shad, they mostly liked heads. I have a hard time catching shad 30 feet deep, i think my net is closing up too soon. Anyone have any tips. I tried duct tape around the bottom of the net. Did not seem to help. can find them on my sonar 4 to 8 feet thick on the bottom, and can only get about 3-4 shad at a time and work my self to death just to catch them. If you have any tips please let me know. Thanks

[FourWinds]

some nice fish there, Chris

[catfishcentral]

Caught 4 today in the main lake south of Winganon. Real windy and could not anchor on the windy side of goose island. Only found a small pod of Blues on the north side of goose island biggest one was abot 5 pounds. Cut shad, they mostly liked heads. I have a hard time catching shad 30 feet deep, i think my net is closing up too soon. Anyone have any tips. I tried duct tape around the bottom of the net. Did not seem to help. can find them on my sonar 4 to 8 feet thick on the bottom, and can only get about 3-4 shad at a time and work my self to death just to catch them. If you have any tips please let me know. Thanks



I can't imagine being out on that lake yesterday with all that wind blowing. Winter time shad can be hard to catch sometimes but I rarely have issues with my net closing up too early. I'd make sure I have plenty of rope for my net when castnetting that deep. I just tie on another castnet rope from one I've destroyed. I would also make sure there's no tension for friction on the rope as it slides into the water....that will close that net before it reaches bottom. I use to have that problem when casting deep and throwing too far away from the boat.

Oh and welcome to the BOC...love that Oolagah lake especially the river above it.:wink:

[dobbie]

Looks like a nice trip to me Chris.

[catfishcentral]

Got to get out again this weekend for a little bit and this time with the boy. The shad are super thick in big creek. There's millions in there right now...sonar was thick with them. We caught more than enough shad in one cast and went downstream and fished with four poles for four hours. We caught 22 fish for the day. They were biting hard all day long.....Bradley caught this guy today around 14 pounds. Picture quality isn't the best, taken with phone.

[arkrivercatman]

Sounds like a great day. Hopefully soon I can say the same.:wink:

[ronlyn239]

You know, Chris, every time you do this, it makes me think I have been fishing on the wrong lake. Funny thing is, Oologah is closer than Birch. I've been fishing at Kaw because my son lives at Blackwell and it is a convenient place to meet. Maybe it's time he came over here.........

[catfishcentral]

Ron,

I rarely fish the main part of Oolagah lake instead I fish the river (verdigris) above the lake. It's about a 35 minute drive from B ville to the ramp on big creek but the fishing there is super duper. :wink: Big creek ramp in right about in the middle of the river above Oolagah. Once you exit big creek into the Verdigris you can go 9 miles or so upsteam and 12 miles or so downstream to where the river dumps into the lake plus all the creeks like big creek, california, kentucky creek all hold lots and lots of fish. In my opinion the best place to catch numbers and size for flatheads in the state and the blues are getting bigger and bigger each year. There's been plenty of water running through Oolagah lately and the blues are heading up the river above the lake right now.

[TDawgNOk]

Chris, any idea how far big creek is from Owasso? I would love to run up there and give it a try sometime, but hate trying to do thing "blind"

[catfishcentral]

Tony,

You can take 169 North all the way to Nowata to highway 60. Then take 60 East about 3 miles and take the road North to big creek which is about two miles. The only thing about taking 169 North is it goes down to one lane about half the way to Nowata and takes some time with stoplights and such to get the rest of the way to Nowata. If I was a betting man I'd say it will take you around 45 milutes to get to the ramp from where you live.

[catfishcentral]

Take highway 60 East from highway 169 about 2 to 3 miles. You will go over two bridges the Verdigris and then Kentucky creek bridge. Once you go over Kentucky creek bridge take the first left(North). There's a sign that say cemetery. The ramp is about two miles to the North. The road starts out as a gravel road for about the first mile then turns to pavement. The ramp will be on your left. It's kind of hard to see but if you hit a gravel road again you have gone too far. Just a little before you get to the ramp the road also splits off to the right also. Keep going straight....slow down and you will see a turn to the left just before the road turns to gravel again.

[shadmaster]

Is that area pretty rough travelling with debri and stickups? Thought I might try it but don't want to get into tearing up boat and equipment. Been on places before where I should have brought a chain saw.

[catfishcentral]

Is that area pretty rough travelling with debri and stickups? Thought I might try it but don't want to get into tearing up boat and equipment. Been on places before where I should have brought a chain saw.



The really only bad time to be on the river is when we have flooding and you'll have all kinds of debris floating down the river but that's no differerent than any other river. There's about a half mile from big creek where you put in to where it dumps into the Verdigris. There is some stumps that you have to watch out for but as long as you drive in the center of the creek your fine. The only time I had problems is when the river was way up and those few stumps that were a foot above the water were now just below the surface and my lower unit loves stumps.:smile2: The main river is pretty much very easy to travel. It's deep 20 foot plus up to 40 in most places.....there's very few places under 10 feet deep. The most novice boat driver would be fine. I let my son drive it all the time.

[healthydrink]

Nice fish Bradley,

I was gonna go to the river this last week end. But we been tearing them up on the lake.

Guess where I will be this weekend? lol

We only got to fish about 2 hours Sunday in the lake caught about 20 blues but all small less than 5 pounds. Sure wish I would a went north after seeing your pic.

[Team Catfish]

Got to get out again this weekend for a little bit and this time with the boy. The shad are super thick in big creek. There's millions in there right now...sonar was thick with them. We caught more than enough shad in one cast and went downstream and fished with four poles for four hours. We caught 22 fish for the day. They were biting hard all day long.....Bradley caught this guy today around 14 pounds. Picture quality isn't the best, taken with phone.

Nice cat CC. HOLY MOLY we got a lot of rain today!!!

[shadmaster]

Went over to the Big Creek ramp this AM and checked it out. Chris your directions were dead on. Not hard to find at all. Looks like I'll put it on my list of places to try. Gonna wait till this water from the recent rain settles down. Some of the road off of 60 was under water a few inches and rising.

[ronlyn239]

I just checked the stream gauge, and the river is way up. I guess that isn't good news for my projected trip to Big Creek on Friday.

[catfishcentral]

Went over to the Big Creek ramp this AM and checked it out. Chris your directions were dead on. Not hard to find at all. Looks like I'll put it on my list of places to try. Gonna wait till this water from the recent rain settles down. Some of the road off of 60 was under water a few inches and rising.

There is another way to get to big creek ramp whenever that roads floods. Heck I'll see guys back their boats down that road and fish those watersheds on either side of the highway. Anyway if that road is ever under water which happens when lake levels are high instead of turning where you usually go keep going another 2 to 3 miles East on highway 60. There will be state highway 28. Take a left (28 West) for about 2 miles and look for Road 20. Take a left (back East) and it will dump you right about where the boat ramp is located. You do a little extra driving but it's worth the few extra miles in most cases.

[catfishcentral]

I just checked the stream gauge, and the river is way up. I guess that isn't good news for my projected trip to Big Creek on Friday.


Ron are you going up there to catfish or sandbass and crappie fish? The river will be terrible for sand bass fishing for sure now but the catfishing should still be really good. I drove over the Verdigris late today and there was some debris floating down the river but I've fished and driven my boat in much worse conditions. The river barring anymore rain will probably calm down enough to fish without too much debris floating down the river and debris catching onto your lines while fishing. I know I would be back there again this weekend if I didn't have to travel to OKC to visit the inlaws.

[catfishcentral]

Take a left (back East) and it will dump you


That should say take a left (back West).

[ronlyn239]

Thanks for the info, Chris, after looking at the stream gauge report, we have decided to go ahead and take a shot at it. Suppose the shad will still be in there?

[catfishcentral]

I'd imagine they will still be there in Big Creek.

[ronlyn239]

Still shad everywhere, no trouble catching them,but we only caught one channel of about 2 pounds. All the water is deep, so I was at a loss where to fish. We fished in Big Creek, then downstream to the Verdigris, and tried there. Wife lost a good one close to the boat, but that was about it.

[catfishcentral]

Haven't been fishing in a while but got some serious fishing lined up for the rest of the week. Heading out to big creek tomorrow night and will be camping and fishing till Sunday. The lake and river is way up but shouldn't hurt the catfishing. Hopefully the campgrounds won't be underwater. :cross:

[gottagetabigun]

Haven't been fishing in a while but got some serious fishing lined up for the rest of the week. Heading out to big creek tomorrow night and will be camping and fishing till Sunday. The lake and river is way up but shouldn't hurt the catfishing. Hopefully the campgrounds won't be underwater. :cross:
be sure and let us know how you did.

[catfishcentral]

Realized I never posted on the fishing trip. I planned on four days of fishing but after a day and a half....called it quits. The water was 12 feet above normal and the normal camping spots wasn't usable. Heck you could reach up and touch highway 60 bridge while going under it in your boat. The winds are really what put a hamper on fishing. Sustained winds of over 30 mph the whole time, gusts up to 45 mph, even during the night. Thursday night saw some pretty heavy rains, more wind and bad storms around. I personally just got tired or the wind and high water. I left home early to take care of honey do's to fish another day. The blues were biting good. The day I fished, we caught 15 nice blues from 3 to 10 pounds. Dobbie and his buddies did real well, caught a couple of blues at 42 pounds each and lots in the twenty pound range. The blues were defiantly biting but trying to target flatheads in this high water was difficult.

[catfishcentral]

The boy and I went up to big creek yesterday to do some catfishing. There was only two other boats on the river yesterday so it was pretty nice. We caught plenty of big shad up in California creek. I started throwing in big creek but didn't catch any.... but didn't try too hard anyways. We went and anchored up by highway 28 bridge and got some shade from being under the bridge. It sure was nice with the light wind and the shade covering us. We threw out five poles and caught 8 blue cats in about two hours until the bite slowed down. We caught some pretty decent ones...biggest went 17 pounds, 14 12, 11 and 10 pounders along with some dinks and one gar. We also headed downstream and drift fished next to the rock bluffs and did pretty good also. We caught 7 more drift fishing...mostly 4 pounds and under but a nice 28 pound blue towards the end of the afternoon. The boy got board so we headed on home. Great day to be on the water. It's nice that the lake is getting back to normal and you can launch again at the creek.

[catfishcentral]

The boy and I headed to the river on Friday and caught a few fish. We didn't have much luck downstream from big creek to the opening of the lake. We caught the marjority of the fish upstream above California creek. The day ended with 3 flatheads only one of legal size about 10 pounds, 7 channels and only one blue about 4 pounds. We couldn't buy a bite down by all the logs at the opening to the lake. I thought the boy had a really nice flathead there for a while. The rod doubled over and he fought it for awhile before getting hung up in some brush. I pulled up anchor and got the fish unhung to find about a 25 pound buffalo on the end of his line. :smile2:

[catman george]

WTG, what a fight that must have been.

[mudcreeker]

Hey Chris, you seem to fish the Verdigris quite a bit... I've got a 16 ft jon boat that just has a 50 lb thrust trolling motor on it. Would I be able to get around OK in the river? I reallllly want to get out there and set some jugs and limb lines and fish. I figured I could put in downstream and head upstream. That way if anything happened, I could always just float back down!

[catfishcentral]

You could do that. The ramp for the river is actually in big creek about a half mile to the opening of the river. This puts you right about in the middle of the Verdigris above Oolagah. You can go 10 to 12 miles North or South. THis time of year there's really no current and shouldn't be a issue.

There's actually a lot of good fishing in big creek and can be navagated quite a ways. I've limblined the creek before with very good results but it's been awhile. I'd try big creek first and if you do go into the river...I'd always go up stream. A lot easeir going down then up if there's current.

[Quackshutr]

We've done good in Big Creek and Verdigris both. Done better fishing upstream of the creek mouth than we did downstream.
Haven't been up there this year yet tho.

Q

[wedge17.6]

[QUOTE=catfishcentral;1026134]Haven't been fishing in a while but got some serious fishing lined up for the rest of the week. Heading out to big creek tomorrow night and will be camping and fishing till Sunday. The lake and river is way up but shouldn't hurt the catfishing. Hopefully the campgrounds won't be underwater. :cross:[/QUOTE
Hi chris, U said U camped at the big creek campground? did u have any trouble with all of the idiots out there tearing up stuff? or problems with the drunks.
thks wedge

[catfishcentral]

I've never had a issue with people stealing stuff but drunks yelling and being drunks at 3:00 am when you try to get some sleep. Also some yahoo's running there 4 wheelers very loudly I might add way too late at night. Trying to sleep when someone is running their generator all night long. I can't stand people with no repect for others camping. The last time I camped on the Verdigris was about a year ago and it was off the bank downsteam below highway 60. I've seriously thought about setting up camp on that island downstream of highway 60 also. There's great fishing down there and as long as river isn't too high..looks like a good place to camp.

[JEEPER]

Is the Rive up that much. I live on the South end of the lake and have not been up there yet but I do cross the Caney every day and it seems down.

[catfishcentral]

I lake is at normal level now so the river is also. There barely any current in the river right now.

[big train]

[QUOTE=catfishcentral;1026134]Haven't been fishing in a while but got some serious fishing lined up for the rest of the week. Heading out to big creek tomorrow night and will be camping and fishing till Sunday. The lake and river is way up but shouldn't hurt the catfishing. Hopefully the campgrounds won't be underwater. :cross:[/QUOTE
Hi chris, U said U camped at the big creek campground? did u have any trouble with all of the idiots out there tearing up stuff? or problems with the drunks.
thks wedge

After reading this thread I am heading to big creek this afternoon. I drive a white toyota tacoma pick up. My boat is a tracker crappie pro 175. If you see me give a holler never me anyone from the boc.

[JEEPER]

Well Big Train how did you do on Big Creek. I hope you saved us some fish.

[big train]

Caught a few channel biggest around 3lb. Forgot throw net so didnt have any fresh bait. All I had was liver and worms. I am not to organized seems like I always forget something. Still had a lot of fun. My first trip there in my boat.