I took a little trip to Beaver's Bend State Park the day after Christmas, arriving just at day-break. I fished mostly in the Evening Hole. The stockers stayed active there pretty much all day (well, I left at 3 when it started to rain), and I've learned over the years that if they're biting where your at, why leave? In the early hours I had a lot of success with an olive wooly bugger using my 6 wt. The tan leach I tried did not work. Just the other side of the bridge in the run there I caught a lovely 13 inch brown on the WB along with several more stocker rainbows.

After eating a bite I switched to my 4wt and went to work with BWO emergers. I had my best success with a "pueblo emerger", about size 20, swung weightless in the current. Most of the hits came at the very end of the swing or when I stripped it back a little. Except for the one brown I never saw anything but recently stocked rainbows. They were mostly 10-11 inches, some a little bigger, but not much. Their colors featured the silver more than the rainbow color. They weren't the great big fat trout we all got used to catching last winter. But there were as many and as active as a fisherman could hope for and fought "above their weight-class".

At one point there were some medium sized yellow mayflies (sulphurs?) buzzing the surface in a pool in the middle of EH. I saw fish rising for them. I tied on a light colored mayfly-type dry but had no luck. As I've said in other comments I'm not much for dry-fly fishing and don't know the ins-and-outs very well.


It was a pretty busy 26th. People everywhere, but you could still find some elbow room. That's why I stayed in lower EH. Everyone seemed to be walking right past it. Looking upstream it always looked a little packed, but it seems like there were plenty of fish everywhere in the Red Zone from all I've heard and read.

Cool report. Thank you sir.

Good report JonBo. Looking forward to Crystal Lake Fisheries in Ava MO taking back the stocking responsibilities.

Thanks, fellers. Same here. The other outfit did the best they could and we got some good fish, but I'm happy to have Crystal Lake back. With the fishing pressure on the LMF river (intense), the stocking needs to be rock solid dependable.

Thanks for the report. I am kind of torn on when to go next. I told my wife and kids I wanted a one day trip for my birthday [Dec 29] but I am thinking about taking it after new years. I know there were a bunch of fish and not many people last time and would like it like that again.

Nice report. Happy birthday TD. Mine's the 30th. As a present to myself, for my second trip to LMF I'm going to hire a guide to get a better idea of and where and how to fish this place. Intend on going shortly after this big cold front moves through. I use to laugh at the old guys that waited for thinks to warm up and now I is one.

Let me know if you need company Dawg ( and a split on gas money ). Mine was the 17th and I could use a good birthday - day trip as well.

That sounds like a plan.