okiebug

go here tomorrow at 4:30pm and you'll know whether its fishable. http://www.swt-wc.usace.army.mil/power/hydropower.html#TENK Just a guess but I would say it will be atleast for the morning and mid day. Also this isa helpful site too. It tells you the lake level, and there is are links to gore, and the upper illinios so you can tell how much water is coming in and how much is going out. http://www.swt-wc.usace.army.mil/webdata/gagedata/TENO2.current.html

You'll want to fish at watts parking lot, or below the dam. I fished the lower end a few weeks ago and it fished poorly. As far as flies go you'll need some zebra midges (black, olive, pale yellow have worked the best for me), cracklebacks, copper johns, and hair and coppers all work good. If you don't mind slinging junk flies (I don't mind) micro jigs can be deadly. You will want to watch the release schedule to make sure you don't show up when they are releasing water. If you hear the horns sound when your on the river its means they 'may' be releasing water so keep an eye on the water level. You don't want to get caught on the wrong side of the river when it comes up. here is a link to the release schedule: http://www.swt-wc.usace.army.mil/power/hydropower.html

Update: Fished sat. morning up at watts from daylight until 8:30am. Went down to Gore landing and managed to fish half way to marvel. Didn't catch a single fish on the lower section, and no signs there were any trout even there. I will give it a try agin when the temps cool down. The fishing was subpar up at watts too, but did manage to catch some small rainbows up there.

Anyone fished between marvel and Gore landing? Was thinking about fishing it tomorrow, thanks

I wouldn't count on it being fishable. Looks like rain this evening and tomorrow in the forcast and that will probobly bump the inflo of water into lake tenkiller up even more. Even if the schedule say's they wont be releasing water this weekend I would be suprised if they actually stuck to that. I wish they would take a couple of days and just blow it out, I'm having serious LIR withdrawal!

Awsome, thanks guys.

I will be heading up to branson for a week at the first of June. Thought I would do some wade fishing one morning, and might even try my hand at some night fishing. I've been reading the taneycomo forum, but wanted to see if anyone around here has any experience/tips to fly fishing it. Thanks in advance.

And now we beging the slow painful crawl down to 632ft. A bummer for sure, I was hoping they would go ahead and blow it out for another day or two.

Looks like they are going to try to get it up to 12500 here shortly. Hope this doesn't make the river a muddy mess like it did a couple of years ago.

If they are releasing around 4,000 cfs its unfishable unless you floated it, with 1 unit going it will flow at around 1800-2000 cfs still be fishable in a few places, but I have never had much luck fishing it then. When they are just releasing a small amount and the flow is at 100-200 cfs the fishing is the best imo. If you look at lake tenkillers water levels, 632ft is where they like to keep it at. If its above that, like it is right now they are more likely to release water, they are also alot more likely to release even when its not scheduled. the opposite is true when the levels are below 632ft. You can also look at the inflow cfs and see how much water is coming into the lake, i think right now its around 3000cfs which is alot. It is usually around 500ish. With the rain that we just got overnight I would imagine it the inflow is going to go up quite a bit higher. So probobly no fishing for a couple of weeks or more until they get the lake level down to 632. Anyway just a couple things that I have noticed over the last few years.

dead drifting, zebra midges and buggers. Nothing too creative, they were hitting good so I never got to deep into the fly box.

Thanks for the report, I was out there the same day, and your right the fishing was good. I noticed that yesterday they were releasing water, so hopefully that washed some of the moss out.

Does anyone no what cfs the minimum flow will be at? I miss the days before the dam was fixed, and it would run at about 100 or cfs.

I was out there this morning, not much in the way of flow. Fishing was a little slow, but ive seen it worse. You'll catch fish if you don't mind staring a bobber while it drifts painfully slow down stream. midges, and buggers. Might be better tomorrow, looks like a warm up. My guides were icing up on me all moring.

There"s a strip of land between where the road ends and the water is. Its marked heavily, with no trespassing signs, and even a gate if i remember right. I checked it out one day, but wasn't willing to risk leaving my vehicle parked there.

Never floated the LIR, but have wade fished the enire river. When the river is at no or low flow (under 200 cfs) you will need to pull your raft/drifter in a few spots, but only short distance. Fishing will be the best at these times, and you can get out and wade fish anywhere along the way. I have had limited success fishing with one gate open, but i would think it would be ideal at this time to take a drift boat down. There was a thread on here not to long ago, titled 1st drift boat trip down the LIR. At times during the summer with low generation, the river will be lined with people from the dam down to the gravel pit, wouldn't be much fun kayaking down through that. Let us know how it goes. Here is a link to the release schedulei if you haven't found it yet, they don't always follow it. http://www.swt-wc.usace.army.mil/power/hydropower.html#TENK

Stumbled across this the other day, thought you guys might find it interesting. Not sure on the details but it looks like the LIR could have some much needed help coming. Here is the link http://www.ktul.com/...tenkiller-trout

Update: Made it out this morning to LIR. Numbers were decent, but nothing of any size. Pretty good midge hatch going on for most the morning. Caught a couple of small stripers. Anyone know how the fishing has been up by the dam?

Was able to fish the LIR a few times over the past couple of weeks. Although the numbers seemed to be lower than they have been, there are much larger fish! I fished the watts area, and found the fishing pretty good up and down that area. Dead drifting a whooly was my go-to, but they were willing to take a dry(yellow humpy was the best) from time to time. Was fortunate to catch and release two 19"ers, and several in the 15/16" range. There are still some small browns in the area too. I wasn't able to make it down over the holiday weekend, so i'm hopefull there are still a few left.

Went out on Saturday morning. Was on the water at daylight, caught a couple of rainbows right of the bat. Third fish at hand was a small brown, taped out at 7". I don't know why but this made my day, could've went home right then and been happy. Glad i didn't though it was one of the better mornings of fishing I've had in some time. Caught a ton of fish, more specifically 14 browns. All where small, one did measure in at 11" its in the 4th picture below. Had three rainbows that measured 17". Most fish where caught by dead drifting buggers, and copper johns. All browns where caught a brown whooly buggers. Water clarity was great, and the flow was perfect. Can't wait to get back out there. oh, forgot to mention i fished the watts area.

Looks like the lake has dropped almost a foot in the last 24 hours. hopefully they will keep releasing at this rate for a while, its now over 9100 cfs. Optamistically, it could be down to 632 in about a week.

Thanks for the info 7017, will hit the bench to tie some up. Anyone else out there with any info? thanks

Awsome, keep it coming. In regards to RR, is the catch and release area-i believe its zone 2- the best place to fly fish.

Well it looks like they will be dumping water at LIR for a while, so I was thinking about taking a 2-3 day trip up to the Roaring river, and beaver tailwater area. I have never fished there before and really don't know much about them. I'm looking for any advice and information (flies, good areas, what to look for, what to aviod, and that type of stuff), you guys have on these areas. Thanks

I was out there a couple of times this past week, including this morning and they were following the schedule. Fishing was good, but not great. Algae is getting pretty bad already, making it a pain to drift a midge near the bottom. Last time i checked Tenkiller was nearly 10ft above normal, making me think that DaddyO is correct.