Got back yesterday from two days of fishing the Lower Mountain Fork. My dad and I fished Wednesday and Thursday, with the park being largely empty both days. There was plenty of water for everyone to fish.

Wednesday was beautiful, with morning temps in the upper 20s and daytime highs getting into the low 50s. We started off at Evening Hole and I caught one fish on an Eggi Juan Kenobi right off the bat but then couldn't get anything else to bite. We moved down to Hickory and tied on olive woolly buggers and proceeded to catch 20 or so fish between the two of us. The fish were stacked up and feeding very aggressively. After lunch and a trip to the fly shop we found a few people in Evening Hole and Hickory so we headed to Lower Spillway Creek, where we proceeded to see no signs of life and get skunked. We finished the day by heading to Grapevine and finding lots of hungry fish that wanted to hit streamers. Another two dozen or so fish came to hand, again largely on olive woolly buggers. While the fish were likely freshly stocked and were definitely stacked up waiting to be caught, they weren't hitting just anything. After catching a bunch on the olive woolly bugger I decided to try some other flies in my box. Got no hits on a regular muddler minnow or marabou muddler, and only one fish on a black woolly bugger. Proceeded to switch back to the olive woolly bugger and started getting hits every cast.

It was cold Wednesday morning


My dad fishing Evening Hole


Me with the world's smallest rainbow trout


Thursday was the opposite of Wednesday, although the fish were still biting. It was about 10 degrees warmer in the morning but it heavily misted and rained lightly almost the whole day. We once again started off in Evening Hole, with no fish nymphing and one each on woolly buggers. Maybe it was the weather, but an hour into the day my dad and myself were still the only people fishing from the Evening Hole bridge all the way down to the Bluffs, which is why what happened next irked me a bit.

About 8:30 a.m. a guide and his two clients start heading toward me (my dad was at the bridge and I was a bit further down) so I assume they are just going to fish any of the hundreds of yards of water past me toward the Bluffs. Nope, the guide puts Client #1 about 50 feet upstream from me and Client #2 about 50 feet further up. With all that water, he decided he needed to fish right on top of me. I figured he must only have one spot on the whole river, so feeling a bit sorry for his clients, I reeled in and left the area without saying something (no need to start anything). He obviously wanted/needed to fish there more than I did and with other spots to fish, we left the area. (And yes I know it is a public river and he had every right to fish there right next to me, just looking for a little common courtesy.)

We decided to head back to Grapevine to see if the fish were still there. They were, and they were still hungry. Deciding I had caught enough fish on an olive woolly bugger, I tried a crawfish pattern I really like that has hooked bass, sunfish, carp and gar, but never any trout. I came up with it last year and typically tie it in size 4 and 6, but tied some in a size 12 after the guys at Orvis Plano showed me some really small crawfish they seined up during a recent class they held up there. It worked great, with about 20 fish caught between the two of us.

Size 12 Linebreaker Craw


After a quick lunch of pastrami, cheese and peanut butter crackers (we accidentally left the bread at the hotel) at the car, we went back out into the drizzle. My dad continued to catch fish after fish on woolly buggers and Brushy Creek Streamers, while I decided to try swinging flies and managed to catch fish on a size 18 mercury RS2, a size 14 Beaver's Bend Red A** (a red soft hackle fly from the recent Southwest Fly Fishing article on the LMF) and a size 16 hen and orange soft hackle. About 3:30 p.m. we figured we had caught enough fish and with it getting colder and starting to rain harder, we called it a day.

We were going to fish Friday morning, and while the weather was nice, we decided to get back to Dallas early in hopes of making it into town before the heavier rain that was forecast to hit about 3 p.m. rolled in. All in all we caught 90 or so fish between us over two days, with the olive woolly bugger being the MVP of the trip.

We ate dinner and had beers the first night at the always solid Mountain Fork Brewery in Hochatown, and tried out the newish Shuck Me seafood house the second night (located next door to the brewery). Shuck Me was really good and I understand the original location is in Southlake. The manager is a bass and crappie guide on Broken Bow Lake so we talked fishing and will definitely be back the next time we visit the LMF.

Here is a short video I put together showing a few of the fish I caught.

Excellent report and a very nice explanatory video.
Do you know who the "guide" is? I believe he needs to be taught some table manners.(River etiquette)
That first fish got such a fright seeing the brightly colored fly it had to retaliate. The rest took off in alarm.
You may have caught the smallest trout in the river but the last one was a beauty.

Thanks. I have no idea who the guide was. Yeah, you can say a lot about that fly but you can't say that it is subtle. You may be onto something with it scaring all the other fish, because there can't be much that color floating down the river. And to think I went with the white indicator to be "stealthy" and not spook the fish. Haha. I was pretty sure when I caught a fish less than 10 minutes after getting to the river that I was gonna tear them up on the nymph rig, but it was not to be.

Glad y'all had a nice trip. A bunch of us off another forum met up the 7th, 8th and 9th for a Trout Camp but I wish we had your weather. A couple people got there Wednesday and Thursday and tore them up in the day use area. A bunch of big fish being caught right now. I netted a 22"er for a guy named Mark from Abilene and a guide put Lew D on a 24"er.


I am just going to make everyone mad, but if you are in one of the popular spots, such as Evening Hole, then as long as your lines aren't touching it is pretty much acceptable



Thanks for the video and report

Glad y'all caught some fish that weekend. The forecast was looking a bit iffy. Where the the day use area? Not sure I have heard that term before in relation to the LMF.

I haven't fished the LMF near as much as some people on this board, but if it is common and routinely accepted for people to fish well within casting distance of you, then that is disappointing. Every time I have been up there has been midweek when it is not crowded, and I don't plan on changing that approach anytime soon.

Anyway, I do have a question about Zone 2. I have never fished it but checked it out this past trip when they weren't generating. We didn't fish it or even go in the water, but when you walk in there is a giant sign saying "no swimming or wading." But then there is another sign talking about fishing the zone, and since you clearly can't fish it from the bank due to all the brush, it is obvious you have to wade. These two signs seem to kind of contradict each other. So I am guessing that when they are not generating and it is safe, wading is allowed? Second question, does that trail that starts in the park at the State Park Dam run well down into Zone 2. The area right below the dam didn't look too good but we didn't go far enough down to see how the rest of the zone looked.

Awesome post! Thanks for sharing.

Nice video, thanks for posting it and the write-up.
I have only been to beavers bend once and that was when they had a lot of flooding so did not get in much fishing.
Hoping to get back up there and your video/write-up was good inspiration.

That trail from the Regulation dam runs at least a mile down river, perhaps two. It has been several years since I have been there, but the area just below the dam can be excellent fishing at times. Another area, about a mile down stream, known as "the islands" can also be good fishing.

Larry

Thanks. They had been releasing water earlier that day so I wonder if the water level right below the dam was still a bit elevated. From what we saw it was just featureless and flat, but if it was a bit high that could easily be explained. At some point I'll get down there and check it out.

Great pictures and post! I really want to head up to the LMF and see it for myself. These heavy rains have the Guadalupe flowing too fast for me to wade solo.

I'm gong to have to spin up some line breakers in smaller sizes. I love tiny craw patterns for picky fish in clear water. I've had really good luck with Brandon Bailes's Hatchling Craw pattern as well.

I've seen that Hatchling Craw pattern on Instagram. Looks like a real nice pattern. The small craw I tied up was on a size 12 hook but it was a 4XL Orvis woolly bugger hook so the craw is not as small as it would be if it was tied on the B10S hooks I usually use. I have some of those in size 12 but didn't have them with me in Oklahoma.

Zone II is hit or miss. I've been in the best hatches I've seen down there. Just as often, though, there's nothing happening at all. I think, with it so spread out, they can just be hard to locate. You are allowed to wade-fish. I guess people aren't supposed to just play in the water, but from what I've seen, it's not really enforced. Listen for the sirens and watch for rising watdr!

Could have sworn I replied to this several weeks ago. Guess not. Thanks for the information.

My brother is coming into town for work the second weekend of February and we are going to try and make a day trip up to the LMF that Saturday, Feb. 9. Having never fished there on a weekend, what are we getting ourselves into? We will try and get there at first light but plan on avoiding Evening Hole and probably Cold Hole and Hickory since they seem to be the most crowded areas.