Split by Tenkiller Ferry Dam
The dam decides which river you are fishing. Tenkiller Ferry, impounded in 1952, holds 12,900 acres of lake up to 132.7 feet deep, and ODWC credits that depth for the cool water behind the year-round trout fishery in the tailwater. Below the dam is 7.75 miles of designated trout stream to the US 64 bridge near Gore, then the lower river to the Arkansas. Above the lake is the Scenic River, protected by state law since 1970, which ODWC says holds the state's best population of river smallmouth over 14 inches. Different gauges, different rules, different seasons.
What Gore is reading
USGS 07198000 near Gore sits inside the trout water; ODWC even uses the gauge as a regulation boundary. It reads the dam's release, not the upper river. SWPA lists Tenkiller, TKD on its schedules, with two units, 45 megawatts and 4,100 cfs at full power; on September 24, 2026 it scheduled 40 megawatts for three afternoon hours. In the two weeks before, Gore sat between 41 and about 104 cfs between runs and jumped to 4,390 to 4,470 when generation came on. No one publishes a wading figure here, so the 40 to 150 cfs band on this page is that no-generation floor read from the USGS record. With units running, get off the river. Call 866-494-1993 for the SWPA schedule.
Gore also logs temperature and dissolved oxygen, and this summer they explain the slow fishing. Provisional USGS data for the last 30 days show oxygen as low as 1.3 mg/L and water up to 27.1 C, and the game warden's September 22 report had 74-degree water, very low oxygen and slow fishing. For the upper river use 07196500 near Tahlequah instead; Riverbend Floats reads that gauge's stage at the Highway 62 bridge, calls 4 to 5.5 feet average, and asks every adult to wear a life jacket at 6 feet or higher.
Dam to the US 64 bridge: three trout, and the Watts unit
The Lower Illinois trout area runs from Tenkiller Ferry Dam to the US 64 bridge. The daily limit is three trout, only one of which may be a brown trout over 20 inches. From the USGS gauge down to Gravel Pit County Road the limit drops to one trout, 20 inches minimum, and in the Simp and Helen Watts Management Unit, from the gauge down to E 1000 Road, trout fishing is restricted to artificial flies and lures with barbless hooks. ODWC's text names two different lower ends for those rules, so read the signs. In the trout area you fish one rod, no snagging, keep trout on a stringer marked with your customer ID, and may possess one brown. A fishing license is required at 18. Walleye, sauger and saugeye are six a day at 16 inches from the dam to the Arkansas.
The Watts unit covers almost a mile of stream and 320 acres, walk-in only from its designated parking, about four miles north of Gore on State Highway 100 and a mile east on E0990, with no overnight camping. ODWC lists four more public accesses, including a pool right below the dam that allows trout fishing even during high generation, the River Road access about six miles downstream, and Gore Landing, run by the town, with a ramp and camping.
No trout since June
Check before you drive. ODWC has temporarily suspended trout stocking on the Lower Illinois after flooding at the supplying hatchery cost about two years of fish; the replacements were 3 to 4 inches and need 19 to 22 months to reach a 9 to 11 inch stocking size. About 36,000 trout went in during 2026 before the pause, seasonal fish from private hatcheries between October and June and mitigation fish from federal hatcheries in Arkansas, and ODWC's warden noted none since June. The agency promised an update in September.
The river has earned the patience. The state record rainbow, 11 pounds 4.32 ounces, came from the Lower Illinois on April 4, 2015, and so did the state record striped bass, 47 pounds 8 ounces, on June 10, 1996. ODWC lists stripers, white bass, sauger, walleye, largemouth and smallmouth in the tailwater too. The last trout reported were taken on caddis, midges and nymphs below the dam.
Round Hollow to Peavine, one smallmouth a day
Above the Horseshoe Bend ramp, and on Barren Fork and Flint Creek, black bass are six combined a day, only one of them a smallmouth, with a 14-inch minimum on largemouth and smallmouth and no size limit on spotted bass. Cast nets are illegal on the Scenic Rivers and jet-driven boats are banned above the Barren Fork. GRDA now does the old Scenic Rivers Commission's job: a $1 day or $10 annual float permit per boat, beer and wine only in non-glass containers, no glass or foam on the river, coolers of 52 quarts or less, and $14 a night at the primitive camps. By GRDA's miles from the state line, Watts access is at 3.1, Chewey Bridge 23.6, Round Hollow 27.7, Peavine 32.4, No Head Hollow 41.5, Echota 53.2 and the US 62 bridge 55.1.
ODWC calls Round Hollow to Peavine the most productive section year-round and No Head Hollow to Highway 62 the one with the fewest commercial floaters. Smallmouth bite best from late spring to early fall above 60 degrees, spawn between 60 and 75, and peak in May and October, when float traffic is lowest. ODWC's fly list: size 2 Clousers in sculpin or olive and white, bead-head woolly buggers, stonefly nymphs in 8 to 12, rubber-legged Yellow Sallies, pheasant tails in 16 to 20, Betts poppers, hoppers and stimulators. A USGS genetics study found hybridization with stocked Tennessee smallmouth most prevalent in the Illinois, where native Neosho alleles made up only 0.422 of the genome.