National Sand Bass Festival

Lake Texoma, straddling the Oklahoma-Texas border on the Red River, covers 89,000 acres and holds the distinction of being one of the few inland lakes in the United States to sustain a self-reproducing striped bass population — a fishery phenomenon so productive that it generates a spring sand bass run significant enough to inspire a week-long civic celebration in its honor. Madill, the Marshall County seat, has hosted the National Sand Bass Festival every year since 1963, building a free five-day program around the natural spectacle that Lake Texoma’s tributary systems produce each spring when sand bass fight upstream in numbers that make the fishing almost incidental. The 2026 edition runs June 2 through June 6, drawing more than 15,000 visitors to a town of roughly 4,000 permanent residents.

The Festival Program in Full

The main stage anchors evening programming across all five days, with a performance tradition that has historically brought Nashville recording artists to Madill — John Michael Montgomery, Blake Shelton, Sawyer Brown, and John Conlee have appeared in previous years. Specific performers for 2026 will be announced closer to the festival date through the Madill Chamber of Commerce and the festival’s official channels. The carnival operates with arm-band nights that give families unlimited rides during designated evening windows. Tournament fishing runs through the week in two formats: the Fish Bowl Bass and Striper Tournament departing from Catfish Bay at Lake Texoma State Park for the adult competition circuit, and the King Sandie Kids Fishing Tournament at Madill City Lake introducing younger anglers to the sport in a specifically youth-oriented format. Beyond the water, the festival footprint covers turtle races, a car and motorcycle show along Lillie Boulevard, the King Sandie Fun Run, a three-on-three basketball tournament on the courthouse lawn, a cornhole competition, a talent show, and craft booths featuring regional artisans.

The Lake Texoma Fishery

Lake Texoma’s striped bass population — the result of stocking programs that found the lake’s Red River hydrology uniquely suited to producing self-sustaining landlocked striper reproduction — has generated a guided fishing industry centered in Kingston and Denison, Texas. The Texoma Striper Guide Association connects visiting anglers with licensed guides whose knowledge of the lake’s seasonal striper patterns goes well beyond what any visiting angler can acquire independently. The lake record stands at 35.12 pounds, a figure that gives the fishery its national sporting reputation. The spring sand bass run, occurring simultaneously with the festival, draws anglers from across the Southwest and represents one of the few genuinely exceptional freshwater fishing opportunities available in the Red River country.

Where to Eat in and Around Madill

Hobo Joe’s Restaurant (Madill, open since 2001) is the community’s most consistent full-service breakfast and lunch institution, with a kitchen running hearty Southern comfort preparations — the house chicken and dumplings, the country fried steak with white pepper gravy, and the daily vegetable plate with cornbread are the preparations that the local agricultural and courthouse crowd has sustained through multiple decades. Bridgeview Cafe covers the lakeside dining category with deck seating and Lake Texoma views that give the meal its context — the house catfish plate with hush puppies and house coleslaw is the preparation most consistent with the festival’s fish-centered identity. La Grande Mexican Restaurant fills the evening dining slot that Madill’s small but consistent Mexican-American community has supported for years, with enchilada plates, the house green chile chicken burrito, and the house-made guacamole that locals cite as the kitchen’s most reliably fresh preparation.

Points of Interest for Families

Fort Washita Historic Site (Fort Washita Rd., Durant, 12 miles north of Madill) preserves the stone and earthen structures of an 1842 U.S. Army post established to protect the Five Civilized Tribes who had been removed to Indian Territory — a well-preserved frontier military complex that gives families an encounter with one of the most consequential and morally complex chapters in American history at a physical site where those events actually unfolded. The Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge (East side of Lake Texoma, 16,464 acres, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) provides the most accessible birdwatching and wildlife observation in the lake corridor, with a Central Flyway staging area that draws significant numbers of migratory waterfowl through the late spring and early summer period concurrent with the festival — white pelicans, various heron and egret species, and shorebirds in transit are commonly visible from the refuge’s driving tour route.

Book Your Stay on the Lake

Lake Texoma’s Oklahoma shoreline from Madill through Kingston supports a vacation rental market with lakefront properties suited for the full five-day festival run. Search Lake.com for properties on Lake Texoma to find cabins and waterfront homes within practical distance of Madill’s festival grounds and the lake’s fishing access points.