Travis Swift

that's what I though on going opposite directions. not sure what they use since they are facing the same direction. thanks for the heads up, i'll tie it again when I get home going opposite directions then.

one last question....the leader to tippet knot. I was taught to tie the surgeons knot by the trout magnet owner a couple years ago.......or I think it is. He has a video on his website. When he ties that knot or something similar the lines are laying in the same direction. Everything I see says to lay them in opposite directions. Which is correct and is this the best connection for that? or should I look at the Albright knot? I tried to tie an alberto knot last night and it just didn't wanna work with a 6x tippet and kept breaking. thoughts?

yes I did, I bought a 9ft 5wt.

zip tie is gone, i took the pic soon as i got home from the store is all. Phil thank you I will stop in. I want to give you some of my trout chatterbaits I'm making to try out anyhow. I have some 6x tippet coming tonight along with the 7x tippet so I should be good to go. I will be coming down Saturday and will be there thru the following Sunday and would love to see and visit with you guys.

here are pictures of both sides of the reel. It's from Cabela's. I rigged it with 2 pound test last night and took it to my local city pond here in Kansas. I caught around 40 bluegill and that was a blast. But then all the sudden, WHAM.....a 4 pound channel cat took my little 1/100th ounce jig! I fought that sucker 15 minutes before I landed it. I'm so stinking addicted now!! Anyhow it got me to thinking about a drag on this thing or not. thanks, travis

Another dumb question. Do fly reels have drags? If so how do you set it?

I remember that Seth and I'm pretty sure he caught it out of one of the brushpiles or laydowns from what I remember. I have asked myself that question thru the years on the hook as well. I'm guessing maybe a 2/0 or 3/0 hook texas rigged like you would fish for bass would work but you would have to make sure they take it good. I'm guessing on a 10 pound plus brown their mouths are plenty big enough for that bait though. I have only caught 1 brown over 20 myself, close to 20 years ago or more. Caught it on a husky jerk and it came out of one of the brush piles down by cooper creek just down from the water fall. I have caught several 18 inchers and a 22 1/2 inch rainbow but not a bigger brown yet. I know your like me though and have seen some fish that make you weak in the knees follow your jerkbait. Do you stare at the water saying "take it, take it" under your breath all the time?

thanks guys. I have a 5x tapered Rio 7.5 feet leader coming and some 6x and 7x tippet coming. Should be good to go. Just something else to play with on vacation mainly. I use a jig and float a lot or a trout magnet and float a lot and just wanted to try something different on occasion. Should be a lot of fun to try and learn something new. It can be a bit intimidating and confusing to figure it out when you don't have someone in person to teach you how to get one set up and what you should need etc. So I appreciate all the answers you guys have given me.

I'll throw my word in on them if you would like Jesters. I started fishing jerkbaits probably 20 years ago on taney and always had my best luck in the summer which is always came fishing the bluff across from lilleys. We always started at the last dock below where sun valley resort was and threw them all the way to cooper creek and would go back up. Back then I threw them on a spinning rod, 6 pound test and my best luck by far was a 5 inch or bigger fire tiger colored floating rapala. I also had luck fishing between the docks from short creek down to sun valley. The other place that was good for me was fishing lilleys side from short creek to lilleys dock, on that side it's shallower and there are a lot of lay downs or brush piles. They seemed to have browns in them a lot back in the day. That was in the 90's and 2000's and I felt like there were more browns in the lake than their are now, but they weren't as big or as many big ones atleast. We used to get a TON of follows back in those days. Seemed like every 3rd cast there was a follower. When you did hook up it was very exciting, they would just go plum stupid when you hooked them on a jerkbait and fought very hard. The last few years when I have thrown one I have thrown the Megabass 110+1 in the Pro Blue color. I throw it on a 7 foot medium Falcon casting rod and spool the reel with 8 pound test pline. I caught several beautiful browns' that way last year. I fish mine with a jerk then a jerk jerk then a jerk then a jerk jerk and don't pause much. I have found threw the years atleast to my personal experience that the water flowing is a major factor, it's been way better for me when they are running water as opposed to not following. I hope Seth doesn't me posting this, not trying to hijack his thread as it was a great thread with a good detailed report. If you want to start a new thread Jesters (and it's a great idea) I would be glad to post this on that thread instead. Just my 2 cents, I have years and years of experience but nothing result wise like Duane and some of the other guys. It's an extremely exciting way to fish taney though! Even if you don't hook up if you have a good set of glasses you will see a lot of fish and I kid you not you will see a lot of BIG browns like this. It really will open your eyes as to what is swimming in taney!

and to be honest I half way though this would make Phil some money too....I mean if he bought 16 jars of powerbait for $15.39, an Duane bought 16 jars, and Ryan bought 16 jars etc I figured he could about quadruple the money by reselling them. I kinda figured this might be cheaper than he buys them for to resell.

good, thank goodness some saw this helpful and valuable.

all of the above. I get way way more bites on 2 pound test line fishing jigs than I do 4 pound test. it's way smaller and allows the jig to sinker faster etc. plus.....it's fun!

I tie all my own trout jigs size 3/32nd and 1/8th so I do know how to tie but have not tied a fly.......yet

thanks for the info so far everyone, I appreciate it. I'm probably going to mainly stick to micro type jigs and float this first trip but might venture into other flies a little as well depending on how the week goes. On the Mega Worm that I have tied up, I tied it in white with the baby blanket yarn....how do you fish those, do you fish them with a float or do you fish them on the bottom. I have them tied with a both a jig head and with a plain hook.

thanks for the info Seth!

I use 2 pound line on my jig rods all the time so I figured might as well go with 2 pound tippet on the fly rod. But maybe the tippet is a different animal than regular 2 pound line?

also should I stick with that 7x fluro tippet or do the 6x fluro tippet instead? again how long of a tippet do I want/need?

I bought my first fly rod last night (9ft 5wt as recommended from members on here). It was an expensive one on sale that came spooled with the line and leader attached. I also grabbed some 7x Seaguar Fluorocarbon tippet that I'm going to attach to the leader. How long of a tipped do I need to tie on the leader? My plan is to fish a PJ's sculpin/peach 1/125th ounce jig and float to start with on this trip and see how that goes. I will be fishing it from a boat the whole time, forgot to mention that. I also attempted to tie my own mega worms which I might try out as well. I'm going to stop at Lilleys and grab a few flys......what are good ones to start with? Also how do you tie a tandem or dropper rig when you guys fish 2 at a time. Do you just tie the second fly off from the hook bend of the first one? I thought about tying some sort of tandem midge or a midge off the jig etc. Thanks in advance everyone. This post has been promoted to an article

Good report as always Seth! I'm headed down next Saturday for 8 days and can't wait. I plan to throw the usual jigs, but also a jerkbait a lot more than the past years. I'm also going to throw a swimbait and or a big glide bait hoping to entice a bigger brown. Also I just bought my first fly rod last night so I'm going to tinker with that and try to learn how to fish with one. Last but not least I'm going to spend a lot of time on lower taney trying to learn the bass fishing a lot more as well. I plan to throw some big trout imitating swimbaits down there to see if any monsters wanna play. That's my plan for now till I get down there. Glad you had a great trip!

Duane have you tried fishing any of these methods below the branson landing? As I fish that area from say Bee creek on down I can't help but think there has to be some big browns in that area that aren't messed with much. The gold mine up or down the lake a mile or so in particular looks great to me with deep water, steep bluffs and a lot of bait fish? Or the area's even further down?

trout magnet SOS 6'6 medium light trout rod is really a great rod and only $35 each

I'm not Bill but I throw my Chatterbaits on the 7'2 MH, moderate fast action swimjig Falcon Rod and love it for that. And the Amistad in my opinion is the best jig and worm rod on the market. Just my .2cents

I'm not saying anyone is being disrespectful. Just saying this is usually a spot to talk fishing and help on Taney. And I made the post to be helpful about a little fishing bait. AND I was attempting to be funny by saying if people like to get off topic or argue at all Tablerock is the forum for that. Cause they love to talk about tournaments and eating bass over there I promise

Come on guys this was a post about a little pink worm that catches trout. The Taney forum is for helping each other and being friendly. If you wanna get political and argue etc go to the Tablerock forum it's much more suited for this kind of talk