K Wells

The put in at 215 isn’t much of a put in, so it is easy to overlook on google maps. People basically park on the side of the road and carry whatever canoe or kayak down the hill. It’s not ideal, but it can be done and gives you access to some great holes.

Two friends and myself floated from 215 to Taylor Saturday morning. 90% of the 24 white bass we caught came from just above and just below Taylor. They were few and far between the further up you go. However, we spoke with a guy fishing the gravel bar across from Slagle creek and he said he had been doing well. Assuming we have similar definitions of "well" I would think A guy could get into them up there, but we sure didn't. The water clarity was maybe 12" and the river was moving really well.

I would just recommend getting what you feel like paying for. They all work and they all get holes. However, I did see Steven Rinella get ran over by a moose while wearing some Simms waders on a episode of MeatEater, and the waders seemed fine. After that I just figured that Simms makes a good set of waders. I would strongly suggest that you get wading boots though. When I started fly fishing I just brought along a pair of my old tennis shoes and I had to stack my toes to get them to fit over the waders, which was miserable. After that I upgraded to a pair of my dad's old shoes, since he wears a size or two bigger than me. That worked okay but it was still pretty uncomfortable. That went on for over a year until I went and got myself an appropriate sized wading boot and they were worth every penny.

That's awesome that you get to take a fishing trip with your buds. There is a "Pinned" thread on the Taneycomo forum that has a link to the generation site. I don't go down there often, and I'm sure someone will correct me, but here's the little I know: Check the charts for the day you want to fish, and if the chart shows anywhere close to 55 mwh then you'll be able to find some good wade fishing up near the dam. That is one unit of water, and anything below that is great wade fishing. Somewhere between one unit and two units you lose your ability to get in the water without swimming. At least that is what I've seen near the lower access by the hatchery. I do not typically go to the outlets so I don't know how the water level effects those areas. I hope this helps and I hope someone else can offer more advice.

Thanks guys, most of these have been pretty helpful comments. Thanks for helping me learn a little bit.

I am trying to get to know Crane Creek a little better, and have been doing my best to slow things down a bit and pay better attention to more than just the fish. These are a few of the insects I saw hanging around the creek, could anyone help me identify them? Also what flies would you use to imitate them? Thanks.

How far up the river were you? I had pretty good luck Friday evening at the Taylor bridge access. I used a smaller purple clouser minnow with a 12ft 5IPS sinking leader. I also caught a handful on a #10ish White Wooly Bugger. I had to fish super slow, but I stayed pretty busy all evening. I caught 29 total, but only a handful of them were decent sized. They all put up a great fight!

This rod has not been used much, even though it has some dings and scratches. I don't need a baitcaster for the places I fish, so this impulse buy spent a lot of its life in my father's garage. The dings and scratches are primarily from storing it in a garage and not actually storing it in a nice place where it wouldn't get bumped and knocked over occasionally. To the best of my knowledge everything works fine. If interested, please let me know. As for the price, just make an offer and we'll go from there. This is more about making some room in my house and I am all for helping others get into a sport at a decent price.

The net is covering it up. haha It does look like it is missing part of its face. Thanks everyone for the congratulations. I hope to get back down there after the redds season and try out some of the other holes. I didn't look at the map on here until after I went and I didn't actually fish any of the holes that Tim recommended on the map.

I took my first trip down to Crane Creek today and managed to catch a McCloud. Since I sometimes have a hard enough time catching trout at Taneycomo, I was pretty proud of myself. I caught it and a feisty creek chub just below the baseball fields on an olive wooly bugger, casted down stream and stripped back up at a moderate speed, 6 inches at a time. The picture isn't very good, but I thought I would do it a favor and handle it the least amount possible. Thanks for looking and good luck fishing!

I don't know the specific sizes, but all the ones I fished with had gold beads on them. I mainly let them drift then slowly stripped them back upstream. A few of the bites came on the swing but most of them came when I was stripping. For the most part, they were biting pretty frequent but pretty soft, so it was hard for me to hook up with a lot of them. The other guy down there would wiggle his rod some while stripping it, and that seemed to be working well too.

I will begin by saying that my fishing trips probably aren't an accurate way to judge how the fishing actually is, because I am still learning... a lot. Anyways, today I headed down to Taneycomo to see if I could trick some hungry trout. It was actually only my 4th time ever trout fishing. I got there when they were still running a lot of water, so I sat in the car for a while. After the water slowed down the fishing was great. For the longest time I was pretty much alone. I only fished down below the boat ramp, and I caught 10 trout total. Two of them were caught on a San Juan Worm in fairly shallow water, while the others were all caught on various sizes of olive wooly buggers. The olive wooly buggers seemed to be the key to success, and a few other gentlemen were down there really tearing them up. I was still fishing the San Juan Worm when the first guy showed up and was getting bites every time on the olive wooly. Since I am a beginner, I naturally just started doing what he was doing, which resulted in me learning a new technique was well as catching a lot more fish in a short amount of time. Most of the fish were small, and naturally the biggest ones I saw were hanging out by my feet for a free lunch... Trout are lazy jerks. I did manage to get a few meaty ones, but they all put up a good fight. I still go home happy even if I only catch two, because that means I did something right at least twice!