July 3, 2026 | Beaver Tailwater Fishing Report
- Ryan Burks
- Jul 3
- 3 min read
Summer is officially here and the temps have been showing it. The weather is hot and for the most part, the fishing has been too. The generators are back online and pumping much needed cold, clean water out just in time! Read on below for some updated details.
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Fishing Report - Beaver Tailwater Levels & Conditions
Currently, Beaver Lake is sitting at 1126.6, or about 5 feet over our current power pool number and 3.5 feet below the top of power pool. This puts us in a very comfortable place of having enough water to ensure consistent releases, but still having some room to catch and hold rainwater in the lake. Since my last report, the generators have come back online, which is the best news we could have hoped for. The dam is generally cranking out one unit, or about 3500 cfs of water every day for a few hours, beginning in the late afternoons. This is putting some clean, cold water into the river which we desperately needed. The river is currently as clear as you could ask for, cold and full of happy fish. There have been a few days where fishing has been a bit spotty and tough in the early mornings for me, though. I'm speculating, but I think the fish got used to the warmer water we were seeing, and it has given them a bit of a shock to have consistently cold water. The sun warms things up a touch by late morning and that is when the bite has been picking up. It could have been any combination of factors, but that's the only thing I can think of to explain the tougher morning bite for me. I'm sure that once the fish acclimate back to what the water temps are we will be back to normal, but this has been a big change compared to what the last several months have been. Anytime there is a big shift in conditions, it's normal to experience a bit of an acclimation period for the fish.
The tailwater level is a bit higher than what we have seen over the last few months when the generators are off due to Table Rock's levels rising. Currently, the river is navigable with a jet outboard all the way to the dam, although you need to be careful and aware of where the big boulders are. With a prop outboard, you should probably not plan on being able to get much above Parker Bottoms.
What's Working
I've had success on many different flies lately, and you can generally find some fish that want to play with whatever technique you want. Since getting back from vacation, I've not had the opportunity to fish hoppers/terrestrials but I have no doubts that a small hopper or beetle fished in on the banks in shade would be working well. We've had good success fishing small Beaver Buggers on floating lines. It can be a blast stripping these and watching fish chase and attack them in the clear water we have right now. Oddly enough, I have been struggling a bit on the midge bite. Midges like the Rootbeer and Ruby Midge, which are normally core flies for me haven't fished as well as they normally do. I've been finding much more success fishing the Beaver Blowtorch in larger sizes like a 12 or 14 under an indicator. All of our brown trout this week came on a little variation I've been tying with a pink tag and purple body. It's been a fly that I've kept to myself for a while, but will be adding it to the website over the weekend if anyone wants to grab a few!
In the afternoons when the water comes up, our standard high water rigs have fished very well. I'm using a short butt section of leader (about 4 feet) to a tippet ring. To that, I'm adding about 8' of 3x tippet. About 2' up from the end of the tippet I put a blood knot so that I can place split shot without is sliding all the way down to my flies. For my first fly, I'm running either a Jumbo Worm or an Eggstacy Egg as an attractor. I'm sure that a Y2K, or any egg pattern in a bright color would work well. We are dropping Sunday Specials and Purple Haze sowbugs off the attractor pattern and having no problems finding fish.
Check out the store portion of our website for flies, and if you need something you don't see there...don't hesitate to reach out! I can make it happen.
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