This year’s trip to Broken Bow saw fewer participants that the previous two years. As we were steadily growing our group outing in Oklahoma, hitting the 40-person mark last year, economic times and health issues for some members gave us our first reduction in participants at this outing. Those that did attend enjoyed themselves, and I believe most everyone caught fish. The mullet mixer was held at J.E.M. of the Forest, a cabin rental from Broken Bow Lake Cabins. The spacious cabin held all 17 attendees with plenty of countertop space for all the wonderful food items that people brought. Jesse King of Three Rivers Fly Shop imparted some of his local knowledge on us, letting us know what flies to fish and where to fish them. We also learned how last year’s flooding affected the area and where the best fishing spots were. Evening Hole is a popular place on the river. In fact, we made plans to meet at Evening Hole at 1pm on Saturday for a group photo.

We are becoming more adept at rigging our lines for the dead drift; using an attractor, a dropper, some weight to get the fly down to the fish, and we’re learning to read our strike indicators. Egg patterns were the most common attractor pattern, the trout instinctively notice them as they drift by even if they’ve never seen a salmon egg. Streamer fishing was also fruitful to some of our members. At the Spillway, several trout were caught using a streamer. Zone II, the old park dam, was too full to fish as it was generating power all weekend. So we were mostly left to fish Spillway Creek and Evening Hole. 

Later, after our group photo on Saturday at Evening Hole, we saw trout rising and in some instances completely breeching the surface making a very noticeable splash as they targeted surface hatchlings. So we switched to dry flies and fished the surface. I can tell there were some jaws clenched as the fish struck at the flies but eluded the hook. Some women were successful on the dry fly in the end, catching and landing some feisty trout. I’ve heard that when fishing for trout, nymphing is the most common way to catch them―like water is to drink. Streamer fishing is likened to drinking beer―lots of fun but not so sophisticated. How-ever, when catching a trout on a dry fly it’s as sweet as sipping champagne.

Cheers!