The boats you are seeing may be ones that were already in the lake? Everything I have seen shows all public access is closed.

4 Wheel drive with a high lift on the truck....make a boat ramp anywhere.

you can put in on some dirt roads up north.

Gary, up north as in up the river or still on the lake?

The damage has not been over stated! Yes we have a brand new upper spillway creek that is going to be an awesome place to fish BUT we also lost quite a bit of the river in zone II! Lost Creek is gone and from what I have been told will not be rebuilt! The bluffs now has about a 50 ton pile of gravel in it and the evening hole from the bridge back to the bluffs is full of trees, gravel and silt! Will we catch fish in those areas? Sure but it looks depressing and will need years to recover! As for below the evening hole bridge? I haven't seen any pictures from the bend area to know if there was any damage but in guessing there will be a lot of trees and gravel in that area as well. The biggest concern is the lack of insects in the river! The upper spillway will be stocked with fish but there will be nothing for them to eat! The mortality rates will go up and due to the damage of the evening hole the crowds will be 1000 times worse in the upper sections of the river.

Should be lots of mosquitos for them to eat.

Bet the crowd issue is no joke. I saw several pictures of big piles of loose substrate hopefully those will be able to be moved into spawning areas. The wood around log jams will conduct good places for a few river insects to thrive I am still keeping my fingers crossed. Hopefully we can gather up enough help and volunteers to get the old girl going again.

Why or what caused you change your mind on the river? Compared to your post when this first started. Just curious.

Personally I think we could do without the "dire outlook." Was the flood unlike anything that the LMF river has ever seen? Yes. Will the river be permanently altered? Yes. Will it take years for the river to recover? No. From all accounts it sounds like the state is working feverishly to get the park open as soon as possible. Stockings have continued and as soon as the is safe to allow the public back in, they will. Will the food source in the river be an issue? Possibly, but there's insect life that lives in the lake that gets pulled through low flow valve all the time. Why do you think the predominant food source at almost any tailwater is midges? Because those are the insects that live 100 feet deep in a lake. We should probably also keep in mind that the ODWC has several biologists on staff, people who are much more knowledgeable on the subject than you or I, and my guess is that if the river was completely barren without any food for the trout, then I would think they would cease stocking park until something could be done about the issue. Besides we've all heard accounts of fish rising after the flood, what are they rising to? Will it take some time for the vegetation around the river to come back and for the river to be as aesthetically pleasing as it once was? Sure. Will the wild and holdover fish populations be impacted? Yes. But even if that's the case and all we catch are stockers for the next two years, it's still a better place to fish IMO than anything within a 4 hour drive from my house so I'll keep going back. Besides, from the accounts I've heard of people who have actually been inside the park and had a look at the river themselves, all of them are very optimistic that this river is gonna come back stronger than ever. If you aren't someone who has actually been inside the park, then you're looking at the same pictures that everyone else is, and I've got no reason to think that we won't be fishing again before the end of the summer, but then again I'm a glass half full guy. If you want to have a negative attitude about this situation then go ahead, but you also need to keep in mind that this is place where a lot of people who are new to fly fishing come for information about the river, and if everyone on here is throwing out things like "not worth ever making another trip back" then ultimately what you're doing is taking money away from the people who stake their livelihoods on this river.

Also, as far as zone II goes, I haven't heard any reports, but I have no reason to think zone II was dramatically altered in any way. Zone II gets blown out every day and it's a much wider river channel than what we have in the park, especially above the evening hole bridge. From the pictures on the LMFRF's site, it looks like everything inside the park below the evening hole bridge looks more or less the same. I have no reason to think zone II would be any different.

Just my two cents.

Dain, well said.There is no need for the negativity. We are going this weekend.

Park is closed, last I read earlier this week. Sorry it's a negative, but that is a long drive to find out there are barricades up blocking the road. Might give them a call and make sure.

I'm not a trout guy but for what it is worth, one of the guys that work at the powerhouse told me right after they shut the gates and the water ran down they went down to all the little puddles and caught trout by hand and most went right back to the river. As with most things, it is never as bad as it seems and never as good either.So there is some trout there for you guys.

Now we can all go see for ourselves what the river looks like now.

Beavers Bend State Park reopens

I'm curious who told you that they continued to stock fish? Who ever it was is lying! They haven't stocked any fish since the week before the flood started! As for zone two your right not much change but from the evening hole bridge back to the bluffs is forever changed! Due to the 50+ ton pile of gravel at the top of the evening hole and the huge amount of dead trees and slit in the river the Evening Hole will take years to recover.