Area 1: the spillway to the Old State Park Dam
ODWC's designated trout area is the twelve-mile stretch of the Lower Mountain Fork and its tributaries from the Broken Bow Reservoir spillway down to the US 70 bridge, about five miles of it inside Beavers Bend State Park, stocked year-round. It is split in two. Area 1 runs from the spillway to the Old State Park Dam. The daily limit there is 3 trout in aggregate, only one of which may be a rainbow over 25 inches, and only one of which may be a brown trout, which must be greater than 30 inches. Across the whole area: barbless hooks only, bait permitted, no cast netting, one rod and reel, closed to snagging, and every kept trout on a stringer marked with your customer ID number. After the first day you may possess only one brown trout.
You need a resident or nonresident fishing license at 18 and older; the current rules list no separate trout license, though one existed in 2002. If you have read about catch-and-release trophy zones at the Evening Hole or on Spillway Creek, the current ODWC rules, updated September 21, 2026, have none. The state tourism page for Beavers Bend still mentions two catch-and-release trophy areas, and it is out of date.
Area 2: past the re-regulation dam to Highway 70
Area 2 runs from the Old State Park Dam past the re-regulation dam and Presbyterian Falls to the US 70 bridge. There you may keep one rainbow a day, over 25 inches, and one brown, over 30, both counting toward the aggregate for the whole trout area, which in practice makes most of Area 2 release water. ODWC says bank access is unlimited inside the park and down to the re-regulation dam, Presbyterian Falls is another public access, and boat ramps sit just above and just below the re-reg dam; there is camping in the park and below it.
The river's best fish came from this water. Jason Archie's state record brown, 17 pounds 4.64 ounces and 32 3/4 inches, was hooked just below the re-regulation dam on April 10, 2005, on a Lucky Craft Pointer 78 and 10-pound line, weighed at the Frontier General Store in Hochatown and released. ODWC's biologist guessed it was eight to twelve years old, from browns first provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the early 1990s.
Reading Eagletown against the Corps' release
Broken Bow Dam has two hydropower units, 115 megawatts, and SWPA lists 7,900 cfs at full power; the dam is BBD on SWPA's daily schedules, published in megawatts by hour ending and read out at 866-494-1993. The Corps' Tulsa District lake page shows the pool and release. On September 24, 2026 the lake sat 9.19 feet below normal and the dam was releasing 133 cfs through one low-flow gate with the turbines off.
USGS 07339000 near Eagletown drains 800 square miles, against 754 at the dam, and is the only reporting gauge below the lake. At low water it tracks the dam closely: 128 to 135 cfs that same morning. Generation shows as pulses; it ran 275 to 2,440 cfs on September 17 and hit 3,150 on September 18. No shop publishes a wading number for this gauge, so the 110 to 300 cfs range on this page is the no-generation river read from the USGS record, with the top near the October median at Eagletown. Temperature is the other limit. ODWC says summer heat and low oxygen often threaten stockings, and in summer 2005 stocking was postponed until cooler weather; the 1996 Water Resources Development Act requires cool water from Broken Bow Lake year-round for the fishery.
Spillway Creek, the Evening Hole and Lost Creek were built
Much of the best wading water is engineered. Spillway Creek was once swift and straight and hard to wade; it was rebuilt with boulders and logs into riffles, runs and pools, then got 12 new log pools in summer 2010 from the Corps, the Lower Mountain Fork River Foundation and others. At the Evening Hole a 2,700-foot section was rehabilitated and an old channel called Lost Creek was recreated, adding about 2,000 feet of fishable stream and an acre of wetland, finished in summer 2006 with Trout Unlimited chapters paying part of the bill. Lost Creek starts at the Cold Hole and meets the river about 500 feet above the Evening Hole bridge.
The May 2009 flood, more than 5,000 cfs through the spillway gates, silted Lost Creek and washed out the Cold Hole bridge, and the creek was renovated from January to April 2010. In 2006 ODWC documented rainbow trout reproducing naturally here, a first for Oklahoma, finding 17 young fish at four sites after anglers watched spawning in December and January. Didymo has been found in the river, so clean and dry your waders.
Robert Woodruff's bug list
ODWC publishes a hatch chart for this river credited to Robert Woodruff, and it reads like a tailwater that never quite shuts off. Midges in cream, black and red are listed all year in 20 and 22, olives all year in 16 to 20, and tan and olive caddis all year, with black caddis in January and February and gray caddis February through May. March Brown adults come in February and March on 12s and 14s, sulphurs and PMDs are listed year-round, tan duns in late summer and fall, and Hexagenia in June through August on 6 and 8. For spin anglers ODWC suggests ultralight tackle, 4 to 6 pound line and hooks from 8 to 14. The September 18, 2026 report had rainbows good on crickets, grasshoppers, PowerBait and small lures near the spillway, with the water at 68 degrees. Beavers Bend Fly Shop, in the park since 1998, is at 545 Beavers Bend Road, (580) 494-6071.