Arakansas River, and tribs

[Bill Butts]

Greetings Striper Enthusiasts~

Want to post a quick request for any recent fishing experiences you've had or heard about.

From watching the water levels in the Tulsa/Zink Dam area recently, it doesn't appear there is much water flowing. Keystone Lake is just a few feet low, but they're really holding it back. Perhaps the rains this week will help.

The lower IL River may be getting more water flow based on the generation schedules, but I don't know if they actually ran the water they scheduled. The past week's schedule indicated some generation every day.

The other well-known tailwaters of Eufala and Ft Gibson have indicated very little or no predicted generation.

Can anyone share some recent reports or information?

If you have information about other Hybrid or Striper fisheries, that would be helpful and greatly appreciated also.

Great fishin' to you all!!!

Bill

[Okieflyfisher53]

Bill,

I fished below Zink Dam this morning. The water is extremely low, due to no generation from Tenkiller in over a week. There are gar, buffalo, and huge shad everywhere you look. I only caught one small striper, 2 channel cats, and a couple of gar. We need some water coming down from Tenkiller before the Arkansas will be worth fishing.

Steve

[Bill Butts]

Steve,

Thanks for your response.

I'm wondering, though, if you had a senior moment saying there needs to be water run from "Tenkiller".

It's hard to imagine the river flow at 31 cfs. I've never seen it that low.

John and I will be in OK in 2 weeks so we were hoping the river would be fishable, but we'll probably look more closely at the lower IL or other tailwaters in that area unless conditions change in the Tulsa area.

Please keep in touch.

You have my cell # don't you?

Blessings,

Bill

[Okieflyfisher53]

LOL! Yup, I meant Keystone, not Tenkiller. I do have your cell#. I haven't done much striper fishing lately but I plan to do quite a bit this winter.

Steve

[Bill Butts]

Okie~

That Striper is probably bigger than it looks, from looking at how it compares to your rod. Length or weight? When caught?

Could you shoot a few pics of the Zink area with the water at the super-low level? I think about the lowest I've seen it is 150-200 cfs. Does 30-40 cfs look and fish that different in the river basin?

Keep in touch.

Bill

[Okieflyfisher53]

Bill,

I caught that one on Sept. 3rd. It was 27" long and had a girth of 13". The river was at around 300cfs at that time. I don't have any pics of the river at the level it is at now, but it is drastically different than at the levels that you are used to.

Steve

[Flyfisher33]

Any new reports from Zink Dam? I haven't had the chance to fish the area yet, but I definitely want to add it to the "to do" list. If any of you guys are from the OKC area and wanna go up and fish it sometime just let me know. Later

[Okieflyfisher53]

Flyfisher33,

I haven't fished in two weeks. There has been no generation from Keystone Dam since the last time that I went. We need water coming down from Kansas to get the river back to fishable conditions.

Steve

[Flyfisher33]

So I am guessing we need to wait for some generation for it to really be worth fishing? Does Keystone usually have an annual draw down for the spring rains or do you know?

[Flyfisher33]

Hey Okie,

While I am thinking about it, have you ever been below Eufaula? I hear it's supposed to be really good at times but I don't think it's very flyfisher friendly.