Phil Lilley

Turbines and flood gates continued to move water from Table Rock Lake into and through Lake Taneycomo this past week. Rains Thursday and Friday kept the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from making any headway, though. Beaver Lake's level rose slightly to 1,126.5 feet while Table Rock's level remains at 919.1 feet. Operators are running 15,000 cubic feet of water per second through Table Rock Dam, equal to four full turbines. We had a very busy weekend with lots of boats on the lake. Despite the heavy flow, most anglers did exceptionally well. Almost everyone was drifting something on the bottom -- from shrimp (yes, the ones from the ocean) to minnows and worms, and from Power Bait to flies and jigs. Anglers reported catching "nothing but brown trout" drifting minnows on the bottom from Cooper Creek through the Branson Landing stretch. No one bought in or told us of any browns caught longer than 20 inches, though. Scuds (freshwater shrimp) flies continue to be one of the hottest baits to catch trout, both above and below Fall Creek. You'll need at least a quarter-ounce weight to pull down to the bottom and drift basically down the middle or a tad on the inside bend of the lake. A #12 gray is the best size and color. Of course, there are quite a few shades of gray, at least in our shop. And we're using four-pound clear or green line -- no need for two-pound simply because of the speed your fly is flying by the trout. They have no time to snub their noses based on the weight of the line. Those trout only have a fraction of a second to react -- whether to eat or pass. Other hot flies are the medium cerise San Juan Worm and the Mega Worm, reported by Flys and Guide's Lisa Bellue. The best stretch to drift is from Lookout Island down to Short Creek with the Narrows taking the hot spot designation. Last week, Duane (and others) saw threadfin shad in the water below the dam. These small bait fish come over from the spill gates from Table Rock, along with other warm water species of fish, into Lake Taneycomo, and our trout love to eat them. Unfortunately, we haven't seen evidence that many of these bait fish have come over the dam in the last couple of months, but we hope we're seeing the beginning of a "shad run," as it's called. Some of the guides have been drifting white jigs and shad flies below the dam and have been picking up some nice rainbows and a few browns. If and when we get a true shad run, catching will get really, really good with shad lures and flies. I would also suggest to try dragging small stick baits like F5, floating Rapalas in shad colors using a carolina rig with a quarter-ounce weights. We carry a cheap knock-off in our shop -- cheap because we tend to lose a lot of baits to snags on the bottom. For bank fly fishing below the dam, fishing a gray or tan #14 or #16 scud under an indicator at the hatchery outlets has been about the only good access, but fishing those locations has been very good. Also anglers are catching fish on San Juan Worms. Images courtesy of Ozark Trout Runners, Duane Doty. View full article

One big rain and we're back to big generation here on Lake Taneycomo. Beaver Lake jumped 4 feet to 1125 feet while Table Rock rose to 919.9 feet. Both lakes were almost down to their seasonal power pool. Right now, they are releasing a little bit of water from Beaver and releasing water at Table Rock to the tune of 15,000 cubic feet per second. That's a little more than if they were running 4 full units but they are only running 3 turbines along with 5 flood gates opened 1-foot each. At Beaver, my app says there's one gate open one foot at 970 c.f.s.. We are going to see this flow from Table Rock all this week and probably into the weekend with more continuing at 3 units when they get Table Rock down a little. If they do the same thing as previously, we're going to see 3-unit-water for several weeks. Fishing was tough over the weekend because the upper lake was still feeling the affects of Friday night's rain. The lake Saturday was pretty dirty, and when the cloudiness cleared up, anglers had to still deal with leaves and sticks flowing in from feeder creeks. By Monday, the lake was free of stuff and very fishable. There's only really one thing you must do to catch a trout now and that is to be on the bottom. That's where the fish are holding up. That and in eddies along the bank. And they are biting and can be caught. Guide Steve Dickey put 2 of his clients on big trout already. Randy from St. Louis landed this 28” 10.5lb. drifting a Bomber on the bottom in the trophy area. Steve from St. Louis Caught this beautiful 26 inch brown on a #14 gray scud using 6x tippet. Yeah! Both browns! All of a sudden they're showing up which is cool. So whether you're fishing a gray scud, cerise San Juan worm, a stick bait, a Bomber, night crawler, minnow or PowerBait, get it on the bottom and drift away. View full article

I love to see local baits advertised on the forum! And I welcome it all. May I ask what do you use, Bismuth?

And then there's One Cast.

If you didn't know.... we're down to 2 units and the big rain forecasted is going to be a little rain it looks like. Today's been an awesome day to fish. Wow - for January 10th. And the fish bit too. Steve from St. Louis Caught this beautiful 26 inch brown today on a #14 gray scud using 6x tippet. He was guided by Captain Steve Dickey in the trophy area. The fish weighed in at 8.2 pounds and was released to fight another day. John and Frank from St Louis caught and released these rainbows yesterday. Caught on jigs "somewhere" down lake. We understand John's caught another one today. And last but not least, Duane's client caught this rainbow yesterday drifting a cerise San Juan in the trophy area. Released.

All the lakes in the White River Chain of Lakes are almost to their seasonal power pool levels, but we have some rain forecast for the whole basin this weekend that might prolong generation below each dam. Right now, we're looking at three to four inches Thursday through Saturday morning with some snow mixed in. But I'm wondering how accurate this forecast is and hoping, of course, that it's wrong. What's nice about fishing below a dam is that you experience a variety of different conditions. We've seen three units or 9,500 cubic feet per second of water flowing for the past month, and while fishing has been pretty good, we're wanting a change, preferably less is better. We did get a small change this morning -- operators have dropped the flow from Table Rock Dam from 9,500 to 6,800 c.f.s. for a few hours, signaling that a change is about to happen. But we'll see what the rains bring this weekend. Most of our normal fishing techniques are working, but nothing is working to the degree I would call "hot." We catching trout on jigs, jerk baits, the pink worm, night crawlers, Powerbait, scuds, egg flies and San Juan worms. We're drifting and dragging the bottom, casting and working a jig or jerk bait and fishing a pink worm or scud under a float. The Landing area is producing a lot of small rainbows ,probably freshly stocked. But I've also seen some pictures of big rainbows caught down there, so you never know. Monkey Island is fishing decent. Drifting the area from our resort through Cooper Creek has been just okay, but we have seen some bigger rainbows come off the bluff bank. The best area to catch nice rainbows below the trophy area has been from Fall Creek to Short Creek using night crawlers and drifting small jerk baits on the bottom. Our guides, the few trips they are taking, have done well fishing the pink worm under a float, but they fish it deep -- up to 11 feet deep according to Guide Bill Babler. But that technique is producing good rainbows. In the trophy area, Guide Steve Dickey is drifting #12 - #14 gray or tan scuds on the bottom and catching good numbers with some rainbows pushing 18 inches. Guide Duane Doty is throwing his custom-painted jerk baits at the crack of dawn for a couple of hours and doing fairly well, although he hasn't caught any big trout longer than 20 inches lately. Dock hand Blake has been throwing a jig most days, faring the best on black/gray, white/gray and sculpin/ginger (brown head.) He's throwing a 3/32nd- or an 1/8th-jig using four-pound line if he's fishing the trophy area. But we've been switching to two-pound line and smaller 1/16th- and 1/32nd-ounce jigs working the slower water from above the resort down through the Branson Landing. I've been doing well on black/yellow, black/fl. flame and white/black. One other thing I'll mention. When Table Rock Lake turns over in late fall, it kicks up silt on the big lake then we get the silt. The turn over usually happens the first or second week of December but this year it happened almost 30 days early. It takes about a month for the silt to settle out at which time our water becomes very clear again. So, our lake water is already clear when it usually is silty so we're going to 2-pound line now over 4-pound in a lot of instances. Food for thought. View full article

Years ago, I ran a 90 prop on a 20' shawnee... front stick stirring too. Felt like I was flying over the water. Yeah it was scary... at first.

I’m sure Duane and Blake will be around too

There’s a couple coming down staying in a separate unit. Your crew, Seth and Les. That’s it far as I know. I have salmon and smoked chicken. Anytime is needed

Generation has stayed the same all week so there's no change in my report for Lake Taneycomo as far as water release. Beaver has dropped a couple of feet but weekend rains have kept it from dropping even more. Table Rock's level has risen a bit but they will all start going down as run off water slows down. We should see this flow at least through this week. One of the hot lures is the small jerk baits Duane and Blake have been demonstrating on One Cast. There's a variety of baits you can use just as long as they are floating and anywhere from 4 to 5.5 inches long. Duane, and now Blake, custom paint their baits to look like shad, rainbows or sculpin but there again, there are baits out there that you can buy that look pretty close to what they're making. Here's a video Duane did explaining how he fishes them. We have some knock-off baits in our shop for sale and I've ordered several hundred due to come in next week. As Duane says, you lose a lot of these baits due to snagging on the bottom so don't go out and spend a lot of money on them. But they have been working very well! I got out the other day and drifted some PowerEggs with the grandkids down close to Monkey Island. Ended up catching a half dozen rainbows in the short time we were out. You have to use pretty small weights, even with the 3 units running, if you're fishing down lake because the current is pretty slow. I was using a #4 split shot but a 1/8th ounce bell weight would be fine. I've also heard there's a lot of rainbows to be caught doing the same thing from Scotty's Trout Dock down through the Branson Landing area. You just have to be careful of the wind in that area. View full article