U.S. Fishing Photo Gallery

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The Oklahoma Fish and Game Department stocks nearly 100,000 trout in the river annually, the stockings taking place every other Thursday. Throughout 2001, the state has planned to make 25 total stocking deliveries, with each delivery adding approximately 3,600 fish to the river.

Many of these planted trout are quickly harvested. Throughout the park, you will see lots of lawn-chair bait anglers and they usually have stringers. Typically, these chair sitters remain stationary, so you just need to walk a bit from the access to find your own stretch of water.

Most anglers will end up fishing in Section One (in the park) because when water is released from Broken Bow Dam, the main river becomes unfishable or at least unpredictable. Much of the stream that flows through the park is a diversion creek from the spillway, known as Spillway Creek, that later meets up with the main stem of the river coming from the dam.

As if to prove the Mountain Fork River is becoming an increasingly crowded favorite of flyfishers, certain sections of the river now have nicknames. The Cold Hole, the Forty-Foot Hole, the Bluffs.—you'd almost think this was a real trout stream.

Beavers Bend State Park is one of the prettiest state parks in the Midwest. The park has 47 cabins, numerous campgrounds, facilities for RVs, showers, nature trails and, of course, a nice trout stream. The fishing traffic in the park, especially during weekends and holidays, is heavy. During the fall and winter, traffic falls off.

Bad weather days are perfect fishing days. But southeast Oklahoma was hit hard by two ice storms in the winter of 2000. Repairs to power lines and cleaning up the fallen trees and debris closed down sections of the river for a few months.

While Section Two has bigger trout and more of them, Spillway Creek holds some nice ones too. I have seen 20-inchers caught by the dam and 2-3 pound trout caught throughout the park. In the last year, parts of the stream have been improved by instream weirs and by the placement of big rocks which create more holding water. We are seeing more holdover trout now.

Spillway Creek is characterized by shallow water with riffle-run-pool configurations in some spots, big pools and pocket water in others, and lots of plunge pools. Some sections just don't seem to hold fish (no cover). In most spots, the trees and brush come right up to the river and interfere with your casts. Some big flat areas of Section One and Two find anglers using float tubes since the current is so slow and the water too deep to wade.

At the walk-over bridges, the water gets hammered but there are always lots of trout (but they tend to hold deep). Get away from all easy accesses and walk a bit to find your own water. Trails follow the river on both sides.

The biggest mistakes I see anglers make in the park are 1) overuse of dry flies; 2) don't get down deep enough with nymphs; and 3) they see insects, big insects on the water and in the air, but that's not what the trout are eating.