Brownlee Reservoir Fishing
Tips, and information on fishing this Snake River impoundment
Access and camping:
Brownlee may be accessed from Oregon’s Farewell Bend State Park on it’s southern end, and Steck Park near Weiser from the Idaho side. You may also find good boat launches, camping facilities and fish cleaning station at Hewett Park, which is only a few miles away from Richland.
The north end of the reservoir has access from Cambridge at Woolhead Park near the dam. Most of the reservoir has limited or no access due to the rugged landscape. The spots described have good launch ramps and some limited shoreline available for the bank angler.
Conditions to be aware of:
Spring drawdowns may cause substantial lowering of the river making launching or river running impossible or extremely hazardous.
Summer time temperatures can be quite high often reaching the 100 degree mark and above.
Spring and summer time thunderstorms can create hazardous conditions for the boater. Be aware of the sky and clouds moving over the river’s rim.
The are health advisories for mercury on fish from this system please visit here to read more on this problem.
Brownlee Reservoir is the largest of the three reservoirs created by the Hells Canyon complex. It is the furthest one upstream and is 57 miles in length and covers approximately 15,000 acres. As you can guess by these numbers it is long and quite narrow and shorelines tend to be steep and rocky. The Snake River and its reservoirs become the border between Idaho and Oregon. There are two major tributaries entering Brownlee, these being the Powder and Burnt Rivers.
Water that enters this reservoir is nutrient rich as it has traveled through the southern Idaho/eastern Oregon farm lands and some that was diverted as irrigation water returns to the Snake. This high density, nutrient rich water is what provides the basis for the tremendous fishery that has developed since this reservoir was filled in 1957.
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Fish common to Brownlee are both black and white crappie, Smallmouth and large mouth bass, blue gill, punkinseed sunfish, yellow perch and brown bullhead and three varieties of catfish including blues, channels and flathead. Most of these varieties were not native but were introduced into the river system in early 1900’s through the 1940’s. Trout are also stocked on a regular basis into the system.
This reservoir is the most heavily fished of the Hells Canyon Complex reservoirs. It’s generally healthy river conditions throughout the year, has created one of the most utilized warm water fishery in Oregon and Idaho.
As Brownlee is border water between Oregon and Idaho there is retroprosity in fishing licenses between the two states. Fishing on the main river either license will be legal except while fishing on docks or from docked boats from the opposite state your license is in, or in the mouths of tribs belonging in the other state. You will also need to know limits, possible size restrictions of any species of fish that you are targeting under your fishing license.
INFORMATION:
ARTICLES:
TACKLE SHOPS:
AREA WATERS:
Grande Ronde River Granite Lake
Lake Bryan
Dworshack Reservoir
FISH:
Sturgeon
Trout
Fun article describing Salmon mania
affecting Idaho anglers.
