The crappie are anxiously awaiting your return!

Lower Mountain Fork River @ Beavers Bend State Park Guided Fishing Report:

Friday - Sunday

Freaking Awesome Fishing!


( above: this 32 inch Wild Stocked Brown Bow annihilated a Pink Near Deer. Might have been 18 inches but I didn't have a tape with me. )

20-24 inch fish all over the river. Most people we talked with were not doing well. Mainly because the water was stained due to it was raining the entire day- and the fish were starving. You could see the fish actually fighting over our flies. 5-10 always chasing it down if u didn't hook up.



I think everyone else must have been using a Plaid Hopper Dropper w/ a Dropper Hopper, with not much success. Fish cant see that little Parachute Adams when u can't see 2 ft down due to water clarity. But, they can see a Pink Near Deere with an pink egg dropped from it. Wacked them the whole week. Near Deeres in the morning till 11 am, then they wanted eggs bouncing the bottom till dark. Sunday was prob the best day as the water cleared up a bit. On Friday, we fished Spillway Creek and EH areas. The park was empty. No one there but 2-3 people. Picked up 15-20 nice fish out of The Evening Hole, a few out of Lost Creek, and lots out of Spillway Creek. Fridays client, Aurthur, had never fly fished in his life.



After we were done and he graduated from my fly fishing 101 class, he hit Spillway Creek and hit his limit of 6 rainbow trout within 45 mins all on his own. Roll casting, tying the rig, mending, and fighting the fish, he did perfect. Now he's hooked and is already talking about the sandbass and hybrid run in the spring on the fly rod. Sunday the weather cleared and water got crystal clear again.



I met up with Jeff and fished the whole river. At 2 pm, Jeff decided to finally listen to me, after he was about to break his rod in half out of frustrations or break offs/ no fish/ and watching me hook up into fish every five mins. He rigged up my way and made his leader longer and wouldn't ya know it.....? - he lands over 20 fish in less than an hour.



Saturday was slower as the air pressure was rising all day and just made it slow. Jeff said he caught 15 or so on his end. I didn't fish, so I don't know the true report.



The crowd was non existent till 3 pm Sunday. We walked out of Spillway Creek towards Cold Hole and ended up seeing 20 people with more showing up as we were moving spots. Went to the last spot of the day and there were people there, so we decided to just pack up and get out.



For the rising trout: 90% are under 12 inches that are rising, use Blue Winged Olives for topwater action or grey Rs2's for just under the surface. You will catch a few bigger ones on the small flies, but the bigger fish are wanting more protein than a small nat or ant.



All we threw were olive Near Deers/ Pink Near Deers/ Pink Eggs. Tried a few other stuff, but they love the pink eggs. I'm messing around with another egg pattern and did very well with it. So we will see what happens later with that pattern as the season goes on.




19.75 inches

SHOW OFF!

No reason for a long report. All day 16-24 inchers. Clients caught fish on first cast and last cast and a [censored] ton in-between. My clients actually gave up and had enough - cutting the trip early. They were actually tired of catching big fish. The stupid Near Deers bored my clients.



Everyone was catching fish left and right. One of the guys always had a fish on.

Then I fished for two hours and Brad was with me as a tag a long. We both agreed we had enough too, brad landed over 50 with some huge monsters and I got about 25 ish in two hours 80% over 20 inches. Brad and I were horsing in 18 inchers or trying to get them to shake the hook out so we could hit the bigger ones. Crazy. - but, it got boring. Weird to say that, but its true.























We had a lot of great runs and jumps. Fun times.

I'm throwing a trout tournament up here in Broken Bow March 8 th. longest 6 rainbows wins! Info in the fly fishing section.

Never been to Broken Bow, OK, Trout Fishing. If I went there and tried to win the trout tournament, it would be quite a stretch.

great PICS!

Lower Mountain Fork River Fishing Report:

Dink fest. They mainly released 10-13 inchers this stocking. I told Michael all about the big ones swimming in the river so he was excited to land one. He usually catches one a day there and his biggest was 8-9 inches. He caught four in four casts when we got there and missed a couple within 15 mins. By the time we made it to the holes with the big fish, Jeff had already covered the area and landed a bunch of the big brooders.



So we didn't have luck with the big girls. One of my buddies was there and he was targeting 2 brooders 22-24 inches. No one could catch them all day. They just didn't want to eat. My buddy asked if I had anything else to throw at them. And I did. I was messing around with the Pom Pom eggs and made just one test fly. Glued 4 eggs on it instead of 1.



About 15 mins later I see him hooked up on one of the monsters on my test fly. Maybe he will post the pic.

I had one last final spot to hit on the way out of the river that had a 10% chance of holding a hidden monster. And there he was! Personal Best for Michael.



Later that afternoon, Jeff landed that 27 incher. I'm sure he will post a pic. A nice 28-30 incher is still there. Most of the brooders are already getting skin diseases and are getting fitted in running shoes and running away from the river, cause there is only a 1/4, if that, left of big big ones. Anything pink was king and olive Near Deers.

Report: addition to last.

Dad ( Brian ) catches his PB of 17 inches in spillway creek.



After we left Spillway Creek, we arrived in the Red Zone. It was a bit busy. We started out near the bluffs and then I hear Riley say he has one! 10 mins later he lands a nice 19-20 inchers for a new personal best.



A bit later we move downstream and slip into a spot that I located a big fish in. I pointed it out and said only target that one. A couple of us guys were watching this 10 year old cast like he has been doing this since he was young, lol. The kid is a champ.

A couple mins into it, we see him set the hook. "I got one!" He says.



He relizes what he has hooked and he looks down stream for his dad to let him know he hooked up again. Dad was half way down the Evening Hole. I yelled at his dad and he heard me and started his way towards us.

Meanwhile, Riley is battling the little minnow up and down the pool like a pro.



The little fish decided it wanted to swim around the top of the rapids and I could tell it was thinking about going straight down the rapids to get get away from the little kiddo. And it did! Riley was a pro and kept that fish hooked up the whole time.

The dad finally showed up to watch his son fight an incredible battle with this fish.



Then the time came to net the little fishy.

We had broken 2 personal bests already this day. But, this fish might be the PB that sticks for a long time.




23-24 inch male Rainbow Trout caught by Riley.

Broken Bow @ Beavers Bend State Park Fishing Guide Report: Lower Mountain Fork River



The fall colors are probably going to start popping out within the next week or two. I'm starting to see some of the trees turning red and orange splotches, getting ready to really pop. Should be a beautiful scenery in the next coming weeks. I think we're at the tail end of the monarch migration. That was a beautiful sight to see, with hundreds of monarchs all around you all day long.

We shared one of our spots with a bald eagle all morning long one morning, perched right above our heads in a tree. I was out scouting in a couple places I've never been before and noticed an eagle dive at a fish. I remembered an episode of one of those Alaskan reality shows where they live in the woods. One of the guys said he follows the bald eagles to the fish, like we follow the Seagulls to the fish. He was right, my new bird friend was definitely on fish that day as we slammed them. He even had some skeletons below his tree of some pretty spectacular fish. Mr. Eagle even made me jealous.

At this current moment the river is semi-full of 10 to 11 inch wild stocker rainbows. They are obviously stocking a couple bigger ones as I saw a couple 20+ inch bows in the Evening Hole and a couple other spots. The big girls get yanked out quick if stocked in a blue zone. Catching small fish is really just not my thing, so right now we are fishing for walleye, smallmouth bass, spotted bass, crappies, and monster bluegills.



My main target is the Walleye right now. I am pretty sure, there are actually more walleye in the river then there are trout now. There is one pocket that we know of that has over 100 baby walleye. 12 to 13 inches. They absolutely just everywhere in the river system. From Spillway Dam to the Red River. There are a bunch of deep pockets from the Spillway Dam to the Evening Hole, but be very careful going there. If you don't have polarized glasses you're pretty much wasting your time. Slick rocks can send you in a 12 ft hole. When your scouting, If you cannot see the bottom of the river in a pocket, there's probably a walleye in there!



~Anyways, we are flyfishing and using spinning tackle. For fly fishing, we are throwing clousers, streamers, and Sparkling Olive Near Deere's at the fish. Clouser colors vary from white and chartreuse, green, green and chartreuse, black, gray and white. Streamers very in all shapes forms and sizes and colors. I tend to do well on olive or black crawfish imitations or shad streamers in white or grey with flash. Most streamers and clousers are 2-4 inches long. On occasion we will hook up on the Game Changer pattern. It's a segmented fly. Very fun to tie and mostly to fish, but, the profile is to big for most of these fish. So weather it's fly fishing or spinning rod, I will get you on these fish. If you would like to learn to fly fish as well, after about two hours max, you will be doing everything on your own. All I will have to do is tell you where the fish are.

Spinning gear: we are using 4 pound mono with a 4 pound floro leader on 7-9 ft rods. We will use rooster tails, tiny flukes, curly grubs, and small jigs used for catching Crappie's like a Thump Buddy in glitter clear, and small cranks like Rapalas. If they just will not hit a lure/fly, we will switch over to live bait ( rarely do I use live bait) which includes earthworms, crickets, and live minnows. Sometimes they want very small minnows or they'll end up wanting 4 inch minnows. You just have to pay attention to the shad hatch and match the size of the bait swimming around. When the sun comes up, the fish move a bit deeper usually. But some days, even on a bright sunny day, they might be sitting in 1 ft of water and sometimes even in the rapids. Most of the time we are off the beaten path power fishing the deep pockets where most people don't venture.



The White Bass are very abundant in the river as well. Just Sunday morning, I landed well over 100 Sandies that were 15-18 inches long with only one small dink on a jig. The fish were ten feet in front of me and would school on the surface chasing my fly. About an hour after that they would not touch an artificial lure/ fly at all. I tried for about 20 minutes to no avail. I threw grubbs cranks rattletraps, rapalas, and all I got was just that one dink. Switched to minnows and casted to the same pocket and immediately hooked up. I caught sandy after sandy for 2 1/2 hours every cast 10 feet in front of me. Sometimes I would catch 2 to 3 Sandy's on the same minnow. But still, they wouldn't touch any lures after that time they quit hitting them. It was very very odd. Normally we don't have an issue catching them with lures and flies. They were just really zoned in on live bait this day ( not normal ) But still super fun with 4 lb mono.



As for the trout, same flies that usually work, work. Near Deere flies still whacking them. White midges and grey RS2's bumped on the bottom. No pics cause nothing was over 15 inches lately. Nothing has changed except for the size of the fish. A few monsters here and there but very rare at the moment. If you have a 3 weight, bring it. Walleye and Sandies I recommend a 5 weight.


( Cody's epic day on the river)

For the bait fisherman for trout: bump a real salmon egg on the bottom. Find the Cold Hole and fish your way upstream less than a 1/4 mile and bump the eggs on the bottom with 4 lb line and a small split shot. After you get your limit, please put the bait up and switch to lures to prevent gut hooking every fish after your limit. You may only have one fish over 20 inches out of your six.

I would assume they will start stocking the wild hold overs soon, when it gets a bit colder. But again I've not looked into this, it's just an assumption.


( 17 plus inch fish are active at night mainly but we will still catch some monsters here and there during daylight hours. )

It's very hard for me to fish for trout right now, when the walleye are in the same waters- and they are bigger than most of the trout. If you hire me for trout, so be it then, we will go catch trout.

Facebook page : Carey A Thorn

$350 for 6 hours fishing

1-3 people

Group trips up to 8 persons with two guides available.

Dang, those are some nice hauls!!

very nice fish tarpon.

We just got back from a 3 day trip and had a blast
Caught a few on power bait
Rode the haunted train with the kiddos
Colors are turning
Nice cool weather
Great trip

Heading up Friday morning. Already hungry for some more walleye.

This past weekend was slow compared to usual, due to it being so crowded. Still caught plenty of fish. Tons of 10-12" stocker rainbows. Crappie and Walleye were pretty spooky. They would follow the bait to the surface, and then turn away. It took a lot of work to get them to bite. I did get one hefty walleye on my fly rod that made my weekend. Black bass seemed to be all over as well. Caught a few largemouth, quite a few spots, and probably 20-25 smallies. Biggest of all being about a 2lb smallie. I'll be back soon, hopefully less crowded.

Fishing is going to do nothing but get better as it gets colder. If you wanna get in on the action, and learn what it's all about, give us a shout. We'll give you a trip you'll remember for a lifetime.

Didn't get an exact measure before she was cleaned, but she hung off my golden ruler by a few inches. Ruler tops out about 22.5". Smaller walleye in the second picture was the 2nd biggest caught all weekend, and it was 20.25". 18" cutting board. Heck of a way to break in the new Sage rod.