dgames

I have twice caught nice sized suckers from the hole below the riffle a few hundred yards upstream from Kelley. I think it is called lambs shoal. Both times I was pretty excited because I was sure I had a big brown on. Was pretty bummed to see it was a sucker. Like yours, in both cases the sucker was hooked in the mouth. I am jealous seeing your pics. The NFOW is my favorite place to fish in MO/ARK, and it has been just about a year since I have been there. Wish it wasn't a 5 hour drive from OK.

I've been wondering the same. I need a trout fishing fix, need it real bad!

I fish with a rod I built about 17 years ago - a sage RPL II 390. I had two reasons for building this instead of buying a production rod. 1 - most important, cost. I think production RPLs ran something like $380 at the time. I couldn't afford that much but really wanted and RPL. I paid $150 for the blank and put about another $50 into guides, reel seat, etc. 2 - I wanted a thicker handle than what goes on the production rods. I was able to make the handle exactly what I wanted by building it myself. It is really pretty easy to build a rod, although at the time I spent a fair amount of time researching how to do it. This was pre-internet, so I remember checking out books at the library to figure out what I was doing. Wrapping guides is pretty easy. Doing the grip, I remember I made a makeshift lathe by clamping a drill in a bench vise and putting the unformed grip on a threaded rod and chucking that into the drill. Locked the drill on and then used sandpaper to shape it.

Didn't the reintroduction of otters reduce the population in the late 90s early 00s?

When we got down there, I realized that the other times I had been down there it was either like 106 degrees out or a weekday, so I had never seen what it looked like crowded. We were going to start at the evening hole, but didn't even try when we saw the crowd from the bridge at its bottom end. Its been a while since I looked at the Beavers Bend forum and I never tried to register to post over there. Good job on the 3lb bow. Biggest fish I have caught down there was probably 17in and was from further upstream on Spillway.

Fished the Mtn Fork today with my friend Terry. It was pretty tough. Did end up catching about a dozen or so, but nothing of any size. It was really crowded when we first got there about 930 this morning. We ended up starting at the road by the bottom of Spillway creek and worked our way upstream. As expected, the crowd thinned a little as we got further from the parking area and later in the day. Quit fishing about 330 or so, stopped in Broken Bow for an early dinner and headed back to Tulsa. Here are some pics. This was my best spot of the day. Got 6 or 7 out of this hole.

Speaking of high end rods, I went to the TulsaFlyfishers meeting last night. Bob Nunley ( http://www.rlnunley.com/ ) was the presenter and did a really good job. Bob builds some pretty incredible looking bamboo rods. I was amazed at the precision in his craftsmanship. I can clearly see why these are high dollar. I would love to have one, but could never afford one.

I understand now. Although, I think a spinning rod would actually be pretty bad for getting a drag free drift if you aren't just casting straight upstream or downstream. You would have zero ability to mend your way through varying current speeds. I realize that probably wasn't really your point and you were probably being somewhat facetious. I take it your point is that exceptionally long drifts aren't necessarily the goal and quality of drift is more important. I would agree with that. I also take it that you feel you get a better drift without an indicator. I personally think that is probably a pretty high level skill that most of us don't have. While I have messed around a little bit over the years trying to dead drift nymph fish without an indicator and have caught some fish, it seems pretty difficult to me and I am much more proficient using some kind of floating indicator or dry fly to act as my bobber.

I don't understand what you are getting at with your "spinning rod" comment. Did I imply that I use a spinning rod?

Exactly my thoughts as well. Love the longgggg drifts you can get with indicators or dry/droppers.

This thread reminds me of this gem from last year. http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7795583/a-new-fly-rod

I wouldn't even try to differentiate between a fish take and the bottom. If you indicator does anything unusual, gently lift the rod. If it's the bottom, cast again. You will be surprised how often what you might have thought was the bottom was actually a fish. Amen on the importance of the drift. I almost never catch anything if I have any drag on the indicator. Another thing I will add, is avoid having large diameter leader between your indicator and your fly. I generally like to be 4x or smaller immediately below my indicator. Thicker material below the indicator does multiple bad things. First, the larger diameter won't sink as fast. Second, the stiffness you find in the butt half of a tapered leader will mess up your drift and will also resist straightening out. Then when you do get a hit, your indicator doesn't pick up the take as quickly because of slack in the stiff line. My favorite way to indicator fish in slower water is to fish a Stimulator Dry as my indicator, tie 6x or 7x flouro to the bend of the hook, and tie a small tungsten bead head fly to the other end of the dropper. This kind of rig is incredibly sensitive to strikes. As long as you keep drag off your stimulator, you get a really good drift. A final thought on indicator fishing - expect a strike. If you are expecting a take, you will be able to react quickly when it does happen. On the other hand, if the strike takes you by surprise, you will not react quickly, and when you set the hook, you will invariably set it too hard and break the fish off.

Took a quick look at each of these and I like ours best! I love the fact that there are separate forums for each specific fishery. None of the others had that level of detail. I year ago I visited the smokey mountains and came across this forum http://littleriveroutfitters.com/forum/index.php while doing research. This is a pretty cool one with lots of great pics, but I still think ours is more comprehensive.

I haven't fished Iowa trout, but back in the early 90's I made two or three trips up to southeast Minnesota which is pretty much the same area. I fished Forestville State Park quite a bit and then tried a little in Whitewater SP and the trout run creek just north of Preston. The best hatch I have ever fished was right by the main bridge on the Root River in Forestville State Park. It early June 1991, the same weekend the US Open was held at Hazeltine just a county or two north. That was the US Open where a spectator was killed by lightning. That storm was a major storm that had dumped a lot of rain in the area. Most of the streams I had tried were blown out with the rain. I was actually headed back towards home, which was KC at the time, when I stopped at Forestville. I couldn't believe it when I saw that those stream were still running clear. I fished the afternoon in Forestville creek, which is a neat little stream you can almost jump across. I remember catching fish in almost every hole on gold ribbed hare's ears. By evening, I was about to quit and went back to my car and looked out on the Root River. There is a several hundred yard long flat section just above the highway bridge that had looked void of any structure and fishless earlier in the day. Now, however, I see rises, everywhere. Obviously, I quickly gathered myself to go fish this. Sulphur mayfly duns were starting to come off thick. For that last hour before dark, there were hundreds of rising fish in this section I had though looked lifeless. It was amazing. I had some kind of yellow comparadun that was a good enough match to catch some of the risers. I think I probably caught 8 or 10 in that hour that the hatch was going on, but it was really exciting to fish it. Another thing that was pretty crazy was that bats started flying all around me feeding on the mayflies. Anyway, based on that evening hatch, I made a return trip or two within the next year or so. I ended up moving to Oklahoma in 93 and haven't made it back up to the area since.

Yeah, I have seen the carp like that down there and have also seen the gar pretty thick around June a couple of years ago.

I stayed at pointe royale last weekend and fished from 11pm to midnight on both Friday and Saturday night. Caught 2 fish during the night fishing Friday and 3 on Saturday night and had several other strikes and fish on. Nothing big though. I am no expert at night fishing, in fact this was the first time I had ever successfully caught fish on the fly rod in the dark. I was casting a PMS across and letting it swing downstream and stripping it partway back in. Friday night I was very much blind, they were running 3 units when we got there in the afternoon and I never got to see the water down in daylight. The water was down by the time I started fishing at 11pm, but I really didn't know the lay of the land very well. I also found myself struggling with my casting a bit in the dark. I didn't realize how much I rely on visual reference on the forward cast to keep my timing down. I found myself hitting the water a fair amount on my forward false casts. I was also probably being on the ultra careful side to not get too tight with my loops because I didn't want any tangles to deal with in the dark or to get a fly in the eye as I obviously wasn't wearing sunglasses. THe other thing that threw me off a little was that it seemed really hard to judge how far I had cast. I fished quite a bit through the day Saturday, so I had a lot better feel for where everything was Saturday night, so I felt a little more comfortable. However, I still struggled a little bit with casting and having a sense of where my fly was while retrieving it. Friday I had pretty much stayed in one spot - right where the trail comes down to the river from the parking lot. Saturday, I walked upstream 200-300 ft and then worked my way down to the deeper water below where the trail hits the river. THere was a ton of fish in the deeper water during the day, but surprisingly, all the fish I caught that night were in the narrower upper section. I did miss a couple down in the lower section though. If I had any advice, it would be to keep your rig simple and get it rigged ahead of time. I head a headlamp on, but never did turn it on.

Fished today around island area at gravel lot below dam. Water is still dirty but caught a decent number of fish. Nothing of any size though, all in 10-13" range plus a couple of 6" channel cats. Here are some pics.

This is a little late and very long. Went to the Mtn Fork a week ago Saturday with my good friend Terry. The mtn fork is about 3hr 15 min from Tulsa, short enough to be able to make it a day trip, but far enough to make it a really long day. We had been having record heat in OK for the last several weeks and the first week of August was the hottest part yet. We were getting up around 110 every day the past week and Saturday wasn't going to be any different. I packed about at a dozen bottles of water for the day knowing it was going to be a long hot day. I have been fishing with Terry regularly about 2 years now. He was a pretty good spin fisherman, but was pretty much new to flyfishing when we first started to fish together. The lower Illinois below Tenkiller has been the main place we fish with occasional trips to MO/Ark to fish the white, north fork and roaring river. We were both getting the itch to fish this weekend and with the lower IL being a muddy mess, something different was in order. So we decided to make it a long day trip to the Mtn Fork. This would be my third trip to the Mtn Fork and Terry's first time there, so it still has the feel of something new and different. Terry picked me up at 530 am and we were on our way. After a slow stop for breakfast at the Okmulgee McD's, we eventually got down to the Broken Bow area a little after 9am and stopped in at the Three Rivers Fly Shop. We saw that the generation schedule called for BB Dam to be down until mid afternoon, so we wanted to get guidance on whether the lower river below where the generation enters was going to be a viable option. We were told that the water temps were too high down there and we should stay in the spillway creek and upper red zone area. Three times down there now and I still have never seen any of the lower section of the fishery. For those not familiar with this fishery, the great thing about it is that there is a substantial section of good fishable water that is above where the generation hits the river. After looking around the fly shop for a while, we finally made it to the river around 10 or so. Parked at the bridge at the bottom end of spillway creek just above where lost creek begins. Here is an overview of the upper section of the Mtn Fork. The picture below from google earth will help with this desrcription. Broken Bow dam is really 2 dams with a mountain in the middle. There is a western dam and an eastern dam with the eastern one being more in line with the original river channel as far as I can tell. The flow from the western portion of the dam enters spillway creek. Spillway creek runs a little over a mile before it runs into the original river channel. It is the royal blue line on the picture. I love spillway creek, although the regulations on this stretch is pretty much anything goes with a limit of 6 bows. Spillway is extremely high gradient and seems to get a pretty constant flow that I would guess is probably 100cfs. There are drops and chutes about every 100 feet or so. It kind of reminds me of the steeper sections of the frying pan or the big Thompson around Estes Park. After a mile, spillway goes under a bridge and dumps into a long deep pool. This pool seems to be very popular with bait fishermen. At the bottom of the deep pool, the stream makes a right turn and enters the mtn fork channel. In the middle of the long deep hole, a side stream is diverted from the right side and flow a third of a mile or so through the woods. This is lost creek which is shown in yellow on the picture. Lost creek is similar in width to the hatchery outlet at Bennett Springs or to Dry Creek at Norfork Dam. There are probably about 10-15 pools along its length each holding fish, some of them quite a few. Generally, each pools is only big enough for 1 fisherman. At the bottom, Lost Creek dumps back into the Mtn Fork main channel. Back at the deep pool at the bottom of spillway creek, special regulations start and run to the bottom of the evening hole on the Mountain fork. This is about a half mile and shown in red on the picture. The flow is the same volume as spillway creek (less what got diverted to Lost Creek), but is much lower gradient and more like the water on the Current below Baptist. There are 4 or 5 holes along this section. The link here is a video clip of the TU On The Rise episode shot at the mountain fork. This clip is all taken in this special regulations stretch between spillway and the evening hole. The last minute or so of the clip is the s curve that dumps into the upper end of the Evening Hole. The top end of the evening hole starts with the S curve followed by about 100 ft or so or really nice riffle water. Below the riffle is about 300 yards flat water with some structure and little scoured out areas. This seems to be the most popular section for fly fishermen although the one time I fished it, it wasn’t really my favorite spot. The evening ends at a bridge. I haven't fished below the bridge, but it snakes around for a mile or so where the road crosses again. There is a small dam just below here, so this section is more like a small lake. When I have seen it, this section is full of kayaks and swimmers. A little ways below here, the outlet from the eastern side of the dam enters. When they are generating at the dam, this is where the water comes in. So, everything above this point that I have described is unaffected by generation at the dam. I have never been below here on the river. Anyway, back to the trip report To start out, we worked our way down lost creek for an hour or so, picking up fish here and there. I was fishing a Stimulator/dropper rig with a cream colored midge as the dropper fly. There was one hole near the end that had a ridiculous number of fish in it. Caught 2 or 3 here and lost 2 or 3 more. Had several of the “golden” rainbow trout in it. The bottom of lost creek dumps into a really nice deep narrow run. Casting is kind of tough here as overhanging trees line the right bank. You kind of have to wade under the trees and cast sidearm to fish it. Caught 5 or 6 here including two 16-17” bows. Terry went on down past me and went to the riffle area at the top of the evening hole. We picked up a half dozen or so in the riffle at the top of evening hole. By this time, it was about 1pm and we were getting really thirsty and hungry, so we started heading back to the car. It took us about an hour to get back to the car as wel played around in lost creek again on the way back up. By the time we got to the car, we were pretty beat and hungry. The 107 heat was taking its toll. Drove into Broken Bow (15 minute drive) and got something to eat at Sonic. We eventually got back to the river about 4pm and parked at the same spot at the bottom of Spillway creek. This time our plan was to work our way up the bottom of the high gradient spillway creek. The previous two times I have been to the Mtn Fork I have fished the upper end of Spillway creek (there is a parking area at the upper end) but I had never been on the bottom half. The first few pools above the bridge had people fishing or swimming in them, so we had to hike up a ways to get past them. Terry and I started hop-scotching each other working our way up from pool to pool. I was having trouble keeping my stimulator floating in this really fast water, so I ended up switching to a thingamabobber rig. If I was any good at Czech nymphing, this area would be ideal. Most pools produced a fish or two. Terry found one really good hole that he caught 2 or 3 out of. As I was walking past him to go above him, he called for me to fish in his spot. I ended up getting several out of there as well. We ended up working about 2/3 of a mile up spillway until we finally called it quits at about 7pm. By the time we got back to the car we were both exhausted and hungry. Drove back to Broken Bow and had dinner at a decent Mexican restaurant called Papa Poblanos. After that, we hit the road and got back to Tulsa about 1130. It was a very long and tiring day, but a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures. With the extreme temperatures, I went without my usual chest pack and instead fished all day with a lanyard and kept a single fly box in my shirt pocket, so I didn’t have room for a camera.

When trying to upload pics, I keep running into issues with the 2mb file size limit. All the pics I take seem to be about 2.4mb. I have to crop them or use the picture editor to alter the colors and that seems to drop the file size to under 2mb. Is there a way to attache larger pics or an easier way to compress the picture size?

Thanks for all the feedback. Some more questions Is the night fishing usually good starting right after sundown or do you have to wait a few hours? Can you hear the horn from Pointe Royale in case they start up the dam? I assume you use some kind of headlamp for tying on flies at night, but make sure you don't shine it in the direction you are fishing. Is this correct?

This was two months ago. Hasn't really cleared up any.

Wow, it is amazing it hasn't cleared up any. Is that the back side of the island downstream from the kiddie hole?

Thanks!

Here is my first attempt at tying a PMS

I just found out I am going to be staying at Pointe Royale next weekend. I am starting to tye up some flies for the weekend. I have been intrigued reading about the PMS on here in the past. I just made my first attempt to tye one up. Here are a few questions for Leonard or whoever else is knowledgeable in such matters I don't have any 200R hooks in size 6. I just tied one up on a 6 wooly bugger hook. One difference I see besides being heavier wire than the 200R is the turned down eye. Is the straight eye of the 200R critical or is it the curve shank that makes the 200R the hook of choice? Closest place to buy hooks is BPS in Broken Arrow which is a 30 min drive. Trying to decide if I need to run out tonight to buy hooks. Do you tie yours unweighted or do you wrap with lead wire. If unweighted, do you fish with split shot or are you fishing it shallow in the water column? I read about having a 'bead' of super glue when you tie in the PS strip. Is this a bead all along the hook shank so that the hide side of the PS strip gets glued to the entire length of the shank? Is it worth night fishing at point Royale or is the outlets area the main place to night fish?