My wife & I are going to Broken Bow in 2 weeks. There will be some fishing mixed w/a lot of sightseeing. I fly fish the river below the lake often for years but have never been on the lake w/my boat. Lake levels are showing “full pool”. Been a little while since it’s been full. Our plan is to stay at Beavers Bend Lodge on the lake and run up river from there. Not sure if the lake is on my older Navionics Platinum “South” chip. Having never navigated the lake: is the main lake to up river easy to navigate? Is the lake mostly clear of timber?…. Other than the obvious “swing wide around points”, “stay in center of channel”….any thing I should know? ANY tips would be appreciated. Thank you, Neil.

Ive been on that lake several times and every time it was a various levels of low. There may be islands that may be just under the surface.

I would get on GOOGLE EARTH PRO and go back to 2012 and look at the islands and timber that are visible then. That should give you a pretty good idea of where they are.

If you are tech savvy, mark waypoints on GE Pro and transfer them to your mapping. Lots of videos on how to mark and convert to the file type you need for your mapping.

I've been way up north when the lake was about 12 to 15' low. Most of the timber is along the shoreline. It's a great summer time top water bite Neal you will have a blast. Get you some chrome chug bugs with the orange throat. Also if the water is clear you can't go wrong with plum-colored worms on T-Rig and Drop shot. And like Reel Slow mentioned Google earth is your friend.

Just make sure you are in the main channel. Trying any cut-throughs may find you on an island.

Can't say much about navigation..but the small mouths liked Ned rigs and the walleye likes swim baits on steep rocky points around dark. Tight lines!

All my navonics chips had the river channel correct. They may not have all the contour lines etc but the river channel is good, Right now you have lots of room for error. Main lake is open unless you go back into creek arms. You will run into standing timber along the river when you make sand springs bend. Then for newbies stay in the river. Once you go past Sand Springs if you are not in the channel, you are over timber. You will see some dummies skiing in the bends up there. I don't know how they do it. God watches over the stupid I guess. Most of the timber is still about 5 feet or so deep. MOST. You are over timber on the lower end too but you are 40-140ft. over the top of it.

If you are an early riser, the top water bite can be good with a Pop R type topwater with a feathered hook up north can be really good