Fishing Guide Report w/ Carey Thorn :



This weeked was pretty good fishing. Average at least at Beavers Bend State Park, The Lower Mountain Fork River.

I was fishing the first pool below the wooden bridge in Lost Creek. There were about 20 fish in it the day before. Then this day there were 9.

A lady drops her bobber off the bridge into the hole we were fishing ( Red Zone ). She asks how the fishing is. We said fine. Then she tells us she caught 2 big rainbows and a brown trout out of this hole. I asked if she ate them. She said yes! And they were very tasty she said. Then I told her the law and what she had done. She promptly moved to the Cold Hole. Then her husband walked up to her and they chatted. 2 mins later I see him tell them to follow him below the CH to the pool below it in the red zone. They quickly filled a stringer of trout for a 4 person stringer. So there are 24 less trout, some big ones at that, in the red zone.

I see it everyday I'm there. I gave up calling the warden years ago. Waist of time in my eyes. Here in Texas, they show up 75% of the time. The day I did get checked by a warden, I asked him why. He said there are 4-6 wardens that patrol the area. They r not worried about stocked trout. They are mainly concerned about the big game and drugs. So that's my story about that. Never changes. And won't till they get bigger signs.

As for the trout fishing. Spillway creek is ok but nothin what it was. As usual, the winter months will be better with all the vacationers that can't read the signs. When I fish Spillway Creek, I fish the pools one up and one down from the main stocking pools. The main holes get fished out fast but when people loose a battle with a fish and its tired, they will float down stream and revive sometimes. Or, ill catch one out of a stocking point and move it down to the next pool or move it to a very small slough that a bait chunked wouldnt fish.



This last week has been good with eggs, Near Deers, RS2's when there is a hatch. The last 2 weeks I have been there, not many hatches have happened.

I noticed all the grass hoppers everywhere. At one point last week , I hit one out of the air and I grabbed it. Threw it in the water and watched 5-6 trout fight over it. So I went back to the hotel and tried to match the hatch, so to speak. Made a doz of the best I could do with some beers to help and hit the river. It was a hit. Got tons of short strikes and caught a couple doz from 7-11 am the past Sunday all on the hopper. They really wanted it close to the surface but there were some I had to sink down to catch them.



Fished with Ethan, another guide there, for an hour in the Evening Hole and we had the whole stretch to ourselves with fish biting topwater for two hours before dark. Fun.



The fishing usually gets better, as I have said before, in the winter time with less people taking fish. Upper Evening hole to the Bluffs is the best fishing at the moment. When the stop logs come out, it will get really fun.





Above, Mike finally learned to trout fish! Had him using a hopper dropper with a dropper hopper. Lol

Every five mins I would hear him mutter a bad word. He was having issues setting the hook. Most of the time, he was so slow to the hook set, the fish pooped it out before he would set the hook. Good times.

I was there yesterday, not much luck, a couple on caddis, hooked one nice one on a grasshopper in the Evening Hole, but he got off.

It seemed to me that the water in Spillway Creek seemed warmer than normal. Has anyone else noticed this? May have been my imagination, but my buddy thought the same thing. We were in 2 of the deep holes created by the logs.

Anyone ever catch any decent sized brown trout on LMF? All I ever see is pics of rainbows.

Getting close to turn over will cause slightly warmer water. Lone stare husked there are some very nice browns in the lmf. They are just not stocked heavily hopefully the use of vibert boxes will help aid in natural production. Browns are there for sure though.

I have seen a lot of 12-16 inch browns and a few 20+

They r in there, just tough to catch cause they blend in so well. Very hard to see them. There are not tons of them.

I heard there were 25 people in the EH last night. The park is packed. No RV site left. 25 cars at each fishing spot. OU weekend. I decided to go to the fair and deal with people there, instead of the river.

Last fall I caught a 15 inch brown under a deadfall near the 90 degree bend right after cold hole.

That's the only decent brown I've ever taken at LMF. The rest have always been little tiny fingerlings.

Im headed to lower mt fork next weekend, ive only fly fished once and caught some bluegill thats it. What all types of fish are there in the river to catch? Id be happy catching anything, doesnt have to be trout. Also I have a big assortment of flies, but they all are barbed, there are regulations against using barbed flies there right? Can I just bend the barb back with some pliers and use them?

Thanks for any info.

The wife and I made our first trip to LMF last week and it was awesome. We were supposed to be chasing trout in the Black Hills of South Dakota but winter storm Atlas made us scramble for a backup plan. We caught a ton of fish and I was amazed at the size. Fished Spillway Creek, Lost Creek and the evening hole. We were lucky and were there during the week ...the weekend fishing crowd was arriving in groves as we were leaving on Friday. The campgrounds were super crowded all week as we found out that a lot of OK schools were on fall break so we did not have the nice and quiet campfire evenings that we had hoped for, however those families were not fishing so the river was not crowded.

We never made it down to the red zone below the low water dam ..what is the water like there? Hope to make it back during the winter months when all the crowds will be gone.

Another question ...I did catch one fish on Spillway Creek that had obvious cut marks ...anyone else ever caught cutbows up there?

Zone three has all species swimming in it. Only red zones do u have to mash down the barb. Pliers work fine.

Never have I seen a cut bow there.

-Just brown bows-

@dbltea yea caught a cut bow about two months ago just a mix up in the hatchery wish they would try pure cutts my self.

I was at BB on Tuesday and Wednesday. Fishing was pretty slow and the river kind of looked like the fish had been cleaned out. The normal places in evening hole where you used to see fish stacked were barren. I spotted very few fish.

Nothing really worked consistently and nobody I talked to was having any luck either. I didn't see anyone (except me) catch a single fish. No pattern was a consistent producer so I just kept changing. I took a couple on a red midge larva, a couple on a brown wooly bugger, a couple on a green and black near deer, and a couple on a peach egg. Wednesday afternoon I had decent success (relatively speaking) on a black wooly bugger with a yellow soft hackle dropper.

I caught 2 browns in spillway creek. They were 10 to 11 inches, so those little fry have grown up some without being slaughtered.

Every single fish I caught looked like it had been caught before. They all had sore spots or holes in their lips - every singe one, including the 20 inch hog I pulled out of evening hole.

Also, I ran across plenty of evidence of bait chuckers in the red zone. I could see hooks snagged in the trees with some kind of 20 lb catfish line. I also pulled up a few snags from the bottom, complete with super heavy line, tons of split shot, and barbed treble hooks. WTF man?!?!

Thats a nice cutbow for LMF.

Last couple weeks have been below average on numbers. We have not been catching more than 15-20 per outing with 2-3 clients. This morning I cancelled my trip at 930 am cause fishing was awful with just three fish landed and they were little guys with the biggest being 15 inches. First time ever I told my clients lets try later in the day and maybe they will stock. Everyone in the park was not happy with the amount of fish in the river including some locals. They r not happy with the three week schedule and the fish get yanked out fast. Some people say these fish spread out? What does that mean? Are they in the bushes? They have no where to spread out. They might make it to the pool above or below where they were stocked, but they for sure are not spreading out cause they r a new speicies of trout, different from the last vendor. They r just plain getting yanked out to fast. Period.




Walleye fishing is very good right now right at dark below the dams, on white and chart clousers. Some walleye up to 24 inches have been landed. An 18 inch sandbass and some 18-20 inch browns as well.

Then the stocking truck rolled in at 3 pm. My clients showed back up for round two retry. They stocked 80% bigger fish than 15 inches this time. Fish up to 22 inches all over the park. Lost creek is choked with 17-20 fish now. Fun stuff, till they get yanked out shortly.

Only threw Near Deers after the trucks dumped wild stockers in the majestic river.



I'll try and get more pics as the season rolls on with pictures of the spots themselves. Vids will be coming later as well.

They dumped two net fills in each hole. Looked to be about 15-20 fish per net. Bigger fish though. Three weeks is a long time to wait for two more net fulls.

Fact. The Hochatown Lodge has lost business from disgusted anglers who either will not be back (me and my group)or those anglers cutting their trip short because hardly any trout are left in Zone 1 or they are beat up. The other thing I'm greatly disappointed in is the new owner of the park fly shop has yet to get the message board back up. My guess is that he knows what will be discussed in detail if he does. He's a Guide and can see when they stock. The Board has been down for months now. I'm a life member of the Lower Mountain Fork River Foundation and cannot get them to answer my questions regarding stockings. A number of Guides are in this group. Carey you are not in this category. I have great respect for you. I use to get answers from the OWDC at the beginning of the change in stocking vendors but do not any more. When you live over 200 miles away it's difficult to know how it is. Especially with the Cedar Springs Trout Farm in Broadwater Nebraska no longer telling you when they will be at Beavers Bend. Most of us are not wealthy and enjoy catching fish. That's why we plan short trips around stocking time. Shouldn't take a genius to figure this out. Many Texans support the local economy up there and decision makers have not factored that into the equation of "we'll stock whenever the feeling hits us." There are several businesses in that area who said they'd appeal to the OWDC and I hope they do. Also, I have a draft of a letter I plan to send to Mr. Richard Hatcher, Director of the OWDC with questions about changing contract requirements in the middle of the stream so to speak. No pun intended. How is that fair to another vendor bidding on a set of specs that are changed after the bid is awarded not giving consideration to a hatchery that lost the bid and can meet the original specs. Actually sounds unlawful. They are not even stocking every 3 weeks and I have proof. They've stocked within a 2 week period, stocked on Wed. or Thurs. or Fri. At the beginning when they got the contract I could call and they would say when they are stocking. Now, they do not answer the phone and do not return calls. I sent them a Facebook message and got a maybe, could be, not sure answer about stocking this past week. This whole stocking thing is covered in secrecy. I don't think local anglers care much about when they stock as they can drive to the park and find out or they have a contact in the park system who tells them like the park workers who told us this past Wed. they would stock yesterday. I'm done and greatly disappointed that all involved in this have made this a covert operation that a special privileged few know about. Would like to know what caused the change.

maybe the new hatchery has kin folks in politics????sounds like it!
Tarpon fly, I appreciate your posts and look forward to them. I think you tell it like it is; good, bad, or indifferent and I appreciate that. If someone can post where we might write to vent about this situation, maybe if we send enough negatives they'll react positively; course being in texas we don't have a vote, but they get plenty of our money-p-