Tucked into the rolling Cookson Hills where the Ozarks start to fade into the plains, Tahlequah sits right on one of the clearest rivers you’ll ever fish in Oklahoma. Most folks know it as the capital of the Cherokee Nation – has been since 1839 – and home to the state’s oldest main street. But drive around the back roads with a man who’s spent forty years chasing whitetails and running trotlines, and he’ll tell you the real story: this little town of 17,000 might just be the most underrated outdoor playground east of I-35.
Start with the water – because there’s a lot of it, and it’s good.
The Illinois River runs cold and clean right past town. Below the Tenkiller Ferry Dam, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation dumps thousands of rainbow trout every year. On a cool March morning you can stand knee-deep in the riffles and catch your limit before the coffee gets cold. Upstream, the same river floats canoes and kayaks all summer, but come fall the banks quiet down and the smallmouth bass start hitting topwater like they’re mad at the world.
Tenkiller Ferry Lake itself covers nearly 13,000 acres of deep, clear water loaded with largemouth, spotted bass, crappie, and catfish. The Corps of Engineers maintains dozens of boat ramps and campgrounds around the lake, so you can back the truck right up to the water, sleep in the camper, and be casting at first light.
Twenty minutes west you hit Fort Gibson Lake on the Grand River – another big reservoir with walleye that show up strong some years. Keep going downstream another twenty minutes and the Grand joins the Verdigris at Three Forks, right where they all spill into the Arkansas River. That whole corner of the state turns into a giant wetland in the winter, and the Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge stretches out over 20,800 acres of it. When the migration is on, the sky can turn black with ducks and geese.
Speaking of ducks – if you like jump-shooting wood ducks in timber or setting out a spread of mallard decoys in a cut soybean field, this is the place. A mixed bag can easily hold mallards, teal (both blue- and green-winged), pintails, gadwalls, shovelers, wigeon, and woodies. Toss in Canada geese and specklebellies and you’ve got a morning most city boys only see on television.
Dove season opens in September and the thermometer still reads triple digits some afternoons. Sunflower fields and picked wheat stubble around Tahlequah hold birds by the thousands. Find a water hole or a fence line with the right wind and you’ll burn through a box of shells before the sweat dries.
Deer hunting? Cherokee County keeps showing up near the top of Oklahoma’s harvest list year after year. The 2022-23 season saw more than 131,000 whitetails hit the ground statewide, and a big chunk of those came out of these same oak ridges and creek bottoms. The mix of ag fields, thick timber, and river corridors grows some tall racks. Public land bowhunters who put in the scouting time do just fine, and there’s plenty of private ground if you make a few friends at the coffee shop.
Turkeys strut these hills too. Eastern birds mostly, with a fair number of hybrid Eastern-Rio crosses that gobble hard and die dumb some springs. Cherokee and Sequoyah counties regularly hang with the western Oklahoma powerhouses when the final tally comes in.
Want something different? Feral hogs are everywhere. No closed season, no bag limit, hunt day or night. A lot of old coon hunters switched to hogs years ago because the dogs stay happier and the pigs don’t climb trees. Just remember some public areas have restrictions, so read the regs before you turn the dogs loose.
Black bear and elk sightings happen, but you’ll need landowner permission and usually a special tag. They’re out there – just not something you stumble into on a weekend warrior trip.
Public ground is the real sleeper here. Within an hour’s drive – most of it thirty minutes or less – you’ve got thirteen different areas open to hunting. The big ones include the 15,281-acre Cookson WMA in the hills east of town, the 21,798-acre Fort Gibson Public Hunting Area, and the McClellan-Kerr WMA along the Arkansas River Navigation System. Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge has walk-in waterfowl hunting when the seasons line up right. The Tulsa District Corps of Engineers and Camp Gruber add even more acres.
Every April the town throws the Red Fern Festival, celebrating the book and movie filmed in these same woods. You’ll still hear hound music echoing through the hollows at night – only now it’s usually dogs baying up a hog instead of a raccoon. Walk the courthouse square, eat some Indian tacos, look at the old capitol building, then load the truck and go kill something. That’s Tahlequah.
Gas is cheap, the people are friendly, and a man can still get a decent motel room or a primitive campsite without reserving it six months in advance. Bring the boat, bring the four-wheeler, bring the lab or the bluetick or both. Just don’t tell too many people – some of us like it quiet out here in Green Country.
