My Friday trip has backed out due to another baby being born. Too many babies being born this year, it's crazy. Even I had one! Thursday has opened up as well.

if you would like to go this Thursday or Friday go to my webpage book the trip. Trip starts at 6:30 till 11 AM. Fishing fun guaranteed. Kids always welcome.

Great report, as usual, TF

Congrats, it cuts into fishing time that is for sure. BUT fishing will be there in a few years. That "baby" stage only last a short time in the span of a lifetime.

I hope to be getting back to getting my feet and fly line wet again this winter.

Nice report. Thanks! Glad to see Spillway's fishing well. Thinking of playing hooky on Monday. I probably shouldn't have looked at this. LOL!

Have not been up there since November 2013.

Great report and video Carey.

The river is so much fun now. In the last 13 days my clients and my self have talleyd 1,232 rainbow trout from the lower mountain fork river. Anywhere from 8 inches all the way to 23 inches. And that's not counting the walleye, smallmouths, black bass, spotted bass, multiple species of sunfish and a river sucker that was 7-8 lbs. just yesterday I was looking in old honey holes and found some amazing fishing off the beaten paths. In 1.5 hours I landed 63 bows. Granted they were mostly 8-12 inches, with 5-6 around 15-18 inches. Fished the bluffs for a little bit. 9.5 ft of leader and picked out 3 fish 20-21 inches. The entire river has fish in it. Evening hole is best for a trophy fish. But the whole river still holds 20 plus inch fish. Even in spillway creek.

I started looking for blue herons off the beaten paths and they all were sitting near or on fish. Made finding fish easy in the deeper parts of the river system.

I have located a bunch of monster fish. Some on beds and some holding in feeding lanes. And man, these fish r hidden. I had my client casting at one for 45 mins. The fish would turn and look at the Near Deere every 10 th cast. After 45 mins my clients knees were going out so he retired for the day. His buddy stayed and made 3 casts at the monsters, and got bored. He started casting to the deeper water and I asked if he was done chasing those fish and told me to take a shot at them. 3 rd cast I hooked it. Gordon Was literally 1 ft from me. So I handed him the rod to at least play out the 20 plus inch fish. Ended up being 21.5 inches. The bigger one is 24-25 inches. We should be able to at least hook her by Friday.

Recommended flies and the ones we used in the last two weeks:

1. Olive Near Deer 1/100 th for shallow water and 1/80-1/64 oz for deeper water.
2. No need for anything else! Lol. Unless your a purist.

I have a lot of video I have taken of action packed catching and nature. I'm in no mood to edit anything at the moment so the vids will come later.

Warning: if u have not noticed, lodging is hard to find this weekend. Because there is a festival expecting 2000 people this weekend. So prepare for lots of people. I'm sure you know, a lot of the husbands and kids will break from The festival activities and hit the river for some fishing. So there's going to be a bunch of people there. Looking for a relaxing weekend to go up to the river this is not it. I would highly recommend you think about not going this weekend.

If you're going to order near deeres, please order all of crawfish color. I will change and send you the colors that I would throw.

What does the festival do to the tent camping sites

As an example I have a buddy that is camping while his wife booked a hotel at the Charles Wesley hotel and is attending the festival activities. If you're wanting to camp this weekend I suggest you get there as soon as you get off work Friday. The RV grounds are filling up. The park is predominantly empty at the current moment. There were probably 30 people in the whole river yesterday. The chances of getting a campground on Saturday afternoons is very slim.

Tip: if the campgrounds are full there are plenty of campgrounds dotting the lake. I stumbled across one campground that is on a point on the lake over looking islands. Beautiful spot. You can Google broken Bow lake campgrounds and find a bunch. It's only about a mile or two away from the park.

Thank you for the heads up we are driving up from Texas about 3 1/2 hrs away and we will be leaving early we should get there before 12 do you think we should be good to find a camp site it sounds like we shouldn't have a problem I was hoping the camp would be empty but no turning back now

Oh I see how it is jake no invite after your dad and i cruise the ozarks lol. Good luck.

I have no idea what the water will look like when they start dumping. It will be just a whole new river to fish in for about two weeks. Just have to adapt.

For the most part fishing has been excellent. I couldn't ask for anything better.



Most fish are averaging about 15 inches. But catching fish up to 22 inches. 20 inch bows are fairly common.



All we have thrown is the Olive Near Deere. Other people are catching them pretty good on pheasant tail. Even in the murky water the last couple weeks we've been doing probably even better, than before the water got murky.



When and if they open up those gates, the trout might actually make it a ways up spillway and spread out. Hopefully they stock during that time. Then it'll be even more fun! Probably a couple more walleye will be deposited in Spillway Creek.



When the water came up and dirtied, the bigger fish came off the beds and started to feed hard. A lot of crawdads all over the banks. So that all of your dea of crawdads all over the banks. So the Olive ND was perfect for matching the hatch. Trips have been averaging over 50 fish.



Navigating parts of the river are very tedious and dangerous at times. Some places I just don't go anymore because it's so difficult to get there. If there were fish there on a regular basis I wouldn't mind the hikes.




This bird stayed right on me entire stretch of the evening hole. Every time I would catch a fish he would try to fly out and get it before I would get the net around the fish. At one point, I went to net a fish, and he landed on my net like he was waiting for the fish at one point, I went to net a fish, and he landed on my net like he had done it before, or something. Very smart bird. Then releasing the fish was a chore as he would try to actually take it from my hands.

Fishing has been way better than it has been a while. We will see what happens when they release more water from the spillway after Christmas.

If you would like to book a trip go to my webpage and book what day you would like to go. In the comment box, state three other days that you could go if possible. I do not guide up there on the weekends. Only weekday trips are available and no holidays.

I'm looking for some information on the Spillway release. The LMFR Foundation website says that the release was going to start on the 22nd. But I was up there on 12/22 and 12/23 and even though there were signs warning of a release on the 22nd, there was no release.

I've heard rumor that they are waiting til after the holidays, but which holidays? Christmas and New Year's? Any additional info would be much appreciated. I plan on going up there again on Sunday/Monday. Thanks.

Thanks for the updates Carey. I may have to go try out my flies I tied up there and see if they work. May hit it next month sometime

I hope they wait until after new-years weekend! That's when I will be going up and it is still a pretty big "holiday weekend" so fingers crossed!

EDIT: BTW does anyone know how will the fishing be once they start releasing? Which areas would be best to focus on during the release? I only get a few chances to go up there for extended trips and the timing on this trip can't be changed sadly. I still would like to catch some fish and make the most of the trip!:D

booglerz:
Try fishing the campground and day use areas between the Evening Hole and the fly shop. The flow will be real heavy, but you should have decent access to it. People have said that during the last heavy semi-scheduled flow of about 1100 fps (not the 11,000 fps of the flood) the fishing was actually pretty good. You fish along the bank at these times, in the eddies and slow water. The fish gather up along there and are actually avid feeders on stuff they can grab that's been washed down. Worm patterns should be good.