Scuba with Frank & Laura

Lake Broken Bow , Oklahoma


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Sunset after Our last dive Dive report for May 6,2006 : The Wall area between the spillway and the dam. The surface temps. Have warmed by 10 degrees over the last 3 weeks. Present Surface Temp. of 66F with slow decrease with depth to about 25 feet . Noticeable but mild Thermo. at about 28 feet. Gradually cooling temps as depth increases with a reading of 52 degrees at around 60 feet. Visibility as usual is mixed. And will vary during the dive at all depths. The upper level waters were a bit cloudy due to the previous night of heavy rain. All together though not bad 7 to 15 feet. Below the thermo. visibility improved to 15-20 and was even Windex like in places with the best seeing at a depth of 40 feet. On this cloudy day Even at 60 feet deep there was still enough sun getting through that you didn’t need to have a light.



Lake Broken Bow in Oklahoma is probably my favorite place to dive. We play around in small isolated coves a short distance from the Marina. Lake access is by land or by boat. The rocks are pretty and get better if you go to deeper water areas. We scouted around the spillway and dam area and found a couple of nice dive sites with cliff walls that can be explored to a depth of 140 ft. The walk down and up to these trails might be a bit hard but the diving is nice.
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There are Two basic dive profiles here... Shallow Shore Dives and Deep Wall Dives. Both have they're good points. Water temps. and Vis are not the same. Vis. can be opposite of each other.
Shore Dives... Clear to 25 feet then murky deeper.
Cliff Dives... Vis. Ok, sometimes cloudy above 25 feet but clear and darker below the thermoclime.

In short if the topography is steep you'll find clear water deep. Expect it to be colder down deep.

Laura and I make dives off the end of the peninsula at Stevens Gap just North of the Marina/Dam area. We find it pretty clear with visibility of at least 10 and sometimes 15 ft. Near shore and it stays clear down to about 20 feet. For some reason any deeper then that and it get murky. Again, the bottom changes to mud at about that depth and is not as rocky which might explain why. BTW... you want to have a dive flag because it's the law and it will cost the Hell out of you if you get caught without one.

Water temp in the Summer is usually about 86 F. and cools just a bit into the lower 70's at 26 feet . Just a couple of hundred feet off the peninsula is a small island and across the lake about 1/3 mile is a nice high sheer cliff area with a small beach accessible only by boat. It's a cool little place to dive and has one nice cliff drop off with some old trees. We've taken a small boat or our Sea-Doo and packed our stuff over to the cliffs near the spillway and had good dives there. It'll take a couple minutes to make the crossing to the cliffs.

We have also done a cool little river dive on the Mountain Creek River in Beavers Bend State Park just below the dam. There the water is not very deep but there are cool Water Dogs ~ Salamanders and Big Ole'Crawdads

There are a couple of dive shops on the way there in Broken Bow. They both fill tanks and sell equipment One is in just South of town on hwy 70. He works on boats a lot and He sells scuba gear and a lot of spear guns too. Then there is also a nice little family run place about three miles west of Broken Bow ( West at the railroad tracks ~ again look for the dive signs to Scuba Divers Rd.)
Take your pick between the two. You might want to rent a spare tank as its about 15 miles from the dive site and at $8 for a full tank you just can't go wrong.

Texas Swamp Diver ~ scubaboard.com

Cliff Dive at Broken Bow

Cliffs at Broken Bow Cliffs at Broken Bow Cliffs at Broken Bow

One Sunday we went up to Broken Bow again to check out the cliffs near the dam. We did one dive along the cliffs above. The water here gets deep really fast. They tell me it goes down to well over 100 feet... maybe 140+ feet. Old Topo maps show that to be correct. Our dive was only to 32 feet but we covered a lot a distance... probably about a 1/3 of a mile on the 52 minute dive. We ran into a number of trees along the way. I was not expecting to find old trees under the cliffs but that is just what was there in places. The water was comfortable and at times really clear. At times it got murky too so the visibility was mixed. The fish were out and we spotted a few lunkers and a number of pretty little small ones. We spent the afternoon scouting around the dam and snorkeling to find future sites to explore. We found some great looking places near the dam and enjoyed watching a fish feeding frenzy. Some of the cliff areas were really spectacular! We came back the next week and dove near the dam and had mixed results as the visibility was not great and we dropped down into a bunch of trees more then once... not too cool. Ivy got caught up in a bunch of fishing line and it took about 5 minutes to free her up. The walk down and then 'back up' at the dam really sucks !!! Frank says don't do it again.... But I forget painful things easy so I may try it again.
I have found that You can almost always find good visibility here if you look around at different depths. Things change but it's rare if I can't find 15 feet somewhere and usually more.
Beautiful shore entry near the Cliffs Frank at cliffs near the dam
I got together with "Twins and Fins", a dive group from Tyler,TX. a week or so later and we made some cool dives here at these cliffs. The water is about 140ft deep here but the best fun is to be had along the walls at about 30 to 40 feet. I loved it. I'd have to say it was some of the best local lake diving I've done.

Ivy Laura & Frank at Lake Broken Bow, Oklahoma



Here are some maps of areas we have been diving at Broken bow Lake.
Click to Enlarge
Satalite Image of Lake Broken Bow Topographic Map of Lake Broken Bow Topographic Map of Lake Broken Bow
The first is a satellite image of the Dam, The Spillway and the Stevens gap area. The two other pictures are topographic maps. We have been diving at the areas that are labeled.

#1 ~ Is a Scenic Overlook. It's my favorite. We get there by boat but there is a trail that is not really all the bad. After one has been to the Valhalla Silo it's a snap !! Pull into the driveway at the overlook and you'll go up hill. at the top is a two level parking area. If you go to the top area you should find a trail near the North-West corner (looking left when facing towards the lake). Follow it down to the lake. there is a small cove there. The lake drops into the depths here as you can see from the topographic maps. You can follow the walls in either direction or just plummet into the deep. I've made some Winter solo dives here and each was really special with the Temp. and Vis. the same at all depths I went to. Usually it is darker but clearer as you go down. Most people never go below the thermocline and so they don't experience the clearer water the lake has to offer. The best views are to be had as you start back up. It has sort of a Stairway to Heaven look to it. There is also a thin 4 wheeler road that begins near the lower parking lot that leads to my favorite dive spot. I call it "Central Park". It is a mix of many types of dives. It starts and ends in a pretty cove that can be a great place to ancor a boat too. The wall dive hear is just flat out cool, freeky, scary, deep, dark, clear, beautiful and a unexpected thrill. I love this place ! They say it goes to 140 feet here. They lie... I have personally descended to 166 feet and found the old river bed at this location. Year round the deep water temps. are in the mid 40's

#2 Is a Scenic overlook right near the Dam. We have been diving here and along the Dam. If you look across you can see the Cliffs. This is an excellent dive site but you need a boat to get there. I guess you could get a Goat or a Mule to haul your stuff but I don't have either. I buddy and I made a dive at the cliffs last year.... Excellent !!!

#3 Is a sceenic overlook near the Dam. This is where the water from the lake goes down into the Mountain Fork River. It's cool to stop here and look at both sides of the Dam. You can really get an idea of how deep the water is

The Stevens gap area is also a favorite for divers. Its near the Marina. Diving the Dip is popular and probably the easiest shore entry and exit you'll ever do in your life.
You can see islands to the North and we have dived some of them too and they are cool because nobody is ever out there. The shoreline slopes gradually on many of the islands and you can make really long dives in shallow water and see interesting fish and some of them are monsters !!
The little Island I marked just off of the tip of Stevens Gap is really cool. On the northern side it drops off into some deep water. It probably goes down quickly to 80 feet or so. The rest of little Island is a pleasant shallow dive.
The Island is only a short surface swim from the tip of Stevens Gap or just take a heading and dive there and you'll see the shoreline come up in a couple of minutes.

Enjoy your outing and tell me how it goes.

See you at the thermocline !

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