Beaver's Bend State Park Oklahoma

Getting ready for our annual trip to Beaver's Bend State Park in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Any updates on where the trout are biting? We got shut out last year for the first time ever.

They used to have blue zones and red zones. Areas where you could use natural and artificial and then artificial zones only. Those have all gone away yes? Now it's open fishing everywhere correct?

Thank you to everyone.

They did get rid of the blue and red. The whole river is barbless hooks with different limits. Stop logs are still in as of right now

"Thank you very much" For the last several years, I remember a specific hole where they took the stop logs out and the water in the pool was 1.5 to 2 feet low and wasn't holding good fish. Several years ago they had the stop logs in the spillway of this specific hole and the trout were amazing. All catch and release for us on that trip. I have many great memories of fishing with my son.

What are the stop logs? Been here 3 days and fishing has been terrible to say the least. Way to crowded, literally someone every 20-30 yards down the river. Looking like we'll be shutout this trip. Spill way didn't even produce which is usually guaranteed.

They are the timbers that are holding the water back at the bridge where the swim beach is. Every year the park removes them in early Nov after the kayak and canoe rentals shuts down. Removing them allows the retained water to flow through and drops the level of the water a few feet all the way back to the riffles coming out of the Hickory CG area, thus creating several more places to fish and fly fish. This helps spread out the anglers.

Fact: the park does not give a rip about fly guys and they may not remove the stop logs at all.

The fishery is what it is: crowded and a put and take fishery. I suggest you chase some warm water species to augment your trout habit.

"peanut butter jelly time"

I was there on Dec. 28th and 29th. Most vacationers I have ever witnessed fishing and hiking. Christmas crowd. Glad to see people spending the family time, but made for a tough day fishing for sure! I only managed 8 that day. The next day rain/storms kept people in bed and I had a much better day. Caught 15-20. Missed a beautiful brown.

I do hate the fact they changed the regulations. Oh well, still a fun place to fish with beautiful scenery.

I fished on Monday before Christmas (I think that's when it was) in the freezing rain and sleet. Fishing was great. I caught one about 19" that was as stout as a largemouth bass. I fished a week later in nice weather and really struggled. Of course, there was a lot of fishing pressure at that time. I will fish any time in the rain as long as there's no lightning.

The last I knew, the stop-logs had not been pulled this year. So the paranoia may be correct. Beaver's Bend doesn't care about the fly fisherman. More to the point, though, the thing I've found about Oklahoma outdoors facilities is that it seems like their budgets are spread very thin. They could have decided this year that they couldn't afford to pay to pull the logs only to put them back a few months later. They have a lot of visitors to try and please. It does seem like maybe fly fishing has gone down some on their priority list in recent years.

Lots of mixed messages coming from BendBow. Those Christmas crowds are what I HEAR is the norm during good weather - And all the time. More power to bad weather! The badder the better! Oklahoma folks love recreation more than ever.

Evening Hole, Monday, Jan. 17? Bluebird day (clear). Fairly chilly. Hardly any crowd, at all. BWO's coming off. Nothing on nymphs. Everyone cleared out pretty soon but me. Late morning, fish began rising. Fished size 20 RS2's in BWO color. (I don't know if you would really call them RS2's, or not. I tie an olive body, dark gray, CDC wing, any kind of tail.) Caught about 12 stocked rainbows in the next hour and a half. Stripped like a soft hackle/wet fly part of the time, dry-droppered as well. Both effective. Nothing on the dry. Left at 1. Good day, glad I stuck it out after 2 hours of nada.