May 8, 2026 | Beaver Tailwater Fishing Report
It's been a busy couple weeks for me, and lots of fish have come to the net. I haven't kept an exact tally, but I'd wager I've had 500 fish come to the net over the last week. We've had some killer days on Beaver and steady action over on the White below Bull Shoals. We are still getting some ups and downs with the weather, but the fish haven't seemed to mind at all. Give it a quick read below to find out what's happening out there.
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Beaver Tailwater Levels & Conditions
Beaver Lake is continuing a steady rise and is at 1121.65 msl right now. We are officially over the lake's target top of flood pool of 1121.43. What this means is that the control of the water releases are now in the hands of the Corps of Engineers, rather than the power company. In theory, we should be seeing generation to lower the lake, but with the generators still down there isn't any water coming through. It's been about a month now, and we are in serious need of some water. I haven't carried a thermometer (although I may start), but the river was nearly warm enough to swim in around the Hwy 62 bridge this week prior to the couple colder nights. This isn't good for the trout, or their feeding. The good news - the water clarity is great! The upper end of the river is still fishing great for me.
The walleye are largely gone from the areas of the river that I tend to haunt and I've seen a few white bass replace them. The white bass haven't been anything to write home about this year though and I'm beginning to wonder if they are ever going to push all the way up. With the water warming up downriver, it is possible they are stacked up down near Houseman. I haven't been fishing down that far much due to the warm water though.
I did see a quite a few gar this week as they push up the river to spawn as well. There were several really big ones, and I'll probably be sneaking a big streamer at them a few times next week to see what happens.
All in all - we need some generation in a bad way to cool the river, particularly the lower reaches and we should all be hoping they get the generators repaired soon.
The White below Bull Shoals was fishing really good this week as well. We didn't catch anything really big, but had great numbers. The caddis hatch over there is winding down, but there were some bugs coming off sporadically when the wind didn't blow them off the water. The general pattern for generation has been to see minimum flow during the day, with a small bump of water in the evenings. This makes for great opportunities to have big number days all over the river and is a nice change to be able to fish that river with a shallow and light rig.
What's Working
On Beaver, we are still playing the low water game and fishing many of the same flies. Rootbeer and Ruby midges continue to be great. We are running these in 16's in deeper water and 18's in shallow water. I've also been having lots of fish come on the Blowtorch and the Space X in size 16.
After rains, a double fly rig with either an egg or bright pink San Juan worm up top followed by a midge has been getting it done nicely.
I've had several days lately where we did have to change things up a bit, with yesterday being a prime example. For whatever reason - the fish seemed to really key in on movement. We were having a decent morning, and then started fishing leeches and micro jigs and it picked up. It really picked up after we started twitching them quite a bit, though. Just goes to show you, keep trying new things and the fish will let you know when you get it right.
On the White below Bull Shoals, I've been catching most of my fish on a double nymph rig with an egg trailed by a midge on the falling water in the mornings. Once the water bottoms out from the previous night's generation, I've been switching back to a "buggier" top fly instead of the egg. The Blowtorch, Space X, and Sunday Special were all fishing pretty good, but Rootbeer midges were getting eaten the most.
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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