Oxbow?

[Riverfisher]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what is meant by the term oxbow in a river.Could someone please explain ?I also am not sure what is meant by flats.I just have never heard anyone around here use those terms.We are either in the river fishing or in a slough !Thanks guys!

[Bassman]

An oxbow is a slough that comes off a river some times its where the river used to run but one end of it got blocked so the river had to go around leaving the old chane there and still connected to the river at one side. Flats are big under water flat areas that go for a hundred feet to a couple hundred yards.

[Drift_Wood]

The Lake will look like a Oxbow usaully will be a big U shape.

[chaunc]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what is meant by the term oxbow in a river.Could someone please explain ?I also am not sure what is meant by flats.I just have never heard anyone around here use those terms.We are either in the river fishing or in a slough !Thanks guys!

An oxbow is a curve in the river that was formed at flood stage. This area still held water after the river receded. It replenishes it self everytime the original river overflows its banks. Some can be deep, but most are shallow. Fish moved into these areas when the water was high, to get out of the main current of the river, and lots of them were trapped there and spawned and created its own fishery. Lots of good fishing in them. :rolleyes: :D

[Moose1am]

Rivers that flow though lowlands tend to meander back and forth. Sometimes a big loop or meander forms and then later the river cuts a new path and creates what is called an Oxbow lake or Slew. The flow of river water does not enter the oxbow and bypasses the oxbow taking the shortest route to the sea.

[fishin3]

If you want to see an oxbow watch Bill Dance. He fishes them alot on his show.

[CrappiePappy]

the guys have pretty well covered what an "oxbow" is, and how it's formed....so, what about "flats" ? - well, flats are just that - flat areas that are mostly the same depth. To a "river fisher" ... "flats" would be an area of submerged bottomland - between the bank and channel dropoff. This flat bottomed section, of underwater landscape, is usually the "transition" and "staging" areas for fish coming out of the depths of the channel, while on their way to the spawning bank cover (Spring) and back to the channel (Fall) when water temps begin to decrease.
Here's a picture of some "flats" (before water levels covered them) in a small lake I fish. Notice that, since the "flats" have no cover of their own, there's artificial cover (Stake Buckets) planted on it. And notice that, while the water is not yet covering the "flats", it's pretty obvious that it drops off into deeper water......... http://www.kdfwr.state.ky.us/gifs/damramp2.jpg
(note too, that this picture was taken from the bank ... looking out towards the main body of the lake). .........luck2ya .......cp

[Riverfisher]

OKkkk.That helps a lot.I understand now .We just always refered to these areas as sloughs.Thank you very much everyone!

[Jerry Blake]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what is meant by the term oxbow in a river.Could someone please explain ?I also am not sure what is meant by flats.I just have never heard anyone around here use those terms.We are either in the river fishing or in a slough !Thanks guys!

Hey Riverfisher:

No need to apologies for asking a question.

Different regions around the country have different terminology for the same thing and the same terminology for different things. When I was growing up in Minnesota a swamp or slough was a shallow pond filled or nearly filled with weeds. In the Thesaurus in the Word program on my computer - bog, marsh, slough, and swamp are all interchangeable. I think a "swamp" in the southeast is a navigable waterway. Now in Texas (and maybe elsewhere) a pond that is built to water cattle and/or for fishing is a “tank”.

Oxbow lakes on the lower Mississippi can be 10 to 15 miles long (maybe more) and over 20 feet deep. When I started crappie fishing here in Arkansas I kept hearing people talk about fishing in “Bar Pits” and had to ask what the heck that was. As I understand it now what they were referring to is ponds or small lakes (some are actually pretty big) that were formed when soil was dug out or “barrowed” to build up a roadway or levy. With a southern accent “barrow” is pronounced “bar”. Funny thing is “bear” is also pronounced “bar”.

[Darryl Morris]

Yeah, no question is a wrong question. I grew up in West Texas, Lubbock, and in that barren flat land, an oxbow is nothing more than a low spot of land that holds water runoff. After taking a geology class in college, I learned that an oxbow is a cutoff from a river, like what Moose explained. Every river has a cut side and a slope side. The cut sides are always the outside bank of a bend. The water is deeper and faster there. It causes the river to meander until the two cut sides meet and break through leaving the oxbow as back waters off the main channel. Oxbows are places great for daubing for crappie when they are flooded and up into it's old slope side. Flats on the other hand, are great for trolling. If you're ever over this way, Tunica Cutoff in Tunica, MS is an oxbow or Lake Chico in the southeastern part of Arkansas is another one, both off the Mississippi River.