Phil Lilley

A better question is how long will it take to clean the upper end out of junk that's washed in. Any time they run MORE water than usual, whether it's from generation or gates, there's stuff from the bottom and edges that gets washed in... and down. That's what is happening now. Me and Duane are heading up shortly. I think it will be cleared up by the time we get up there. The rest of the lake - from here to the dam - will take a while - may be the rest of the day. We will give a report. But we plan to catch a lot of fish...

In the short term, yes. But you should see bigger trout because of the influx of food.

3 units are running. TR 916.4 feet Taney 710.7 feet 15,017 cfs

Tony Wedele just called me and said there's 5 flood gates open at Table Rock Dam. TR's lake level is at 916.31 feet and rising about a tenth every hour. Beaver is rising about the same, may be a little faster. This is the first time I've ever seen the Corps open gates AHEAD of rising water. I don't want to say unprecedented but it may be the cast, and a change in operating procedure. They don't usually open the gates unless TR hits 920 feet. I've asked Tony to get a water temp and to look for any shad that should be coming over the top.

Looks like the Beaver area got the brunt of the rain. I see 5 inches in some places down there. 3.5 to 4 inches up here.

Does anyone have any pictures of the river I can use for OAF and the St. Francis River section? Thanks

No boat.

Paul said the whites were above 10c bridge, in and above the first shoal. I guess it's tough getting past that shoal right now.

Someone at the Corp must have gotten the valve at the dam jambed because the flow hasn't varied much in a while. That's not a bad thing though. Most of us like this slow flow - anywhere from 1,200 to 2,500 c.f.s.. Water temp remains about 44 degrees. There's been several things working here for trout. The Berkley pink Powerworm has been the hottest bait for most anglers, drifting and fishing it under a float 5-6 feet deep from Short Creek down past our dock. Minnows are selling like crazy and they're not using them to fish for crappie! Babler said he drifted them from Fall to Short Creek and caught some nice rainbows. They're using them down around Monkey Island too and doing well. Night crawlers too, in the same streches. They're still hitting spoons - Cleos and Kastmasters. If you've been on social media today you would have seen this picture of Jack Harris and his trophy 25-inch brown caught today on a blue and silver Cleo near the mouth of Cooper Creek. Duane has had some guide trips as well as taking some friends fishing this past week. He's done well throwing jigs in the trophy area - white and white/gray 1/16th ounce up closer to the dam and sculpin/ginger from Lookout to Fall Creek with the Narrows being the hottest area by far. He's using 2-pound line to throw the small jigs. He also had a fly fishing tour this morning in which his clients caught decent numbers on gray scuds under a float. But did the best stripping a sculpin pine squirrel in the Narrows area. It doesn't look like we're going to get the big rain they'd forecasted ealier in the week. Most of the rain will soak in seeing our ground is now pretty dry. We could see a bump in lake levels in which the dam operators may turn up the flow a bit but nothing major... unless they miss their estimates. We'll see.

Lemon Law? Find a good lawyer/angler and have them send Mercury a letter...

Yes

Jack Harris caught this 7.6 pound, 25.25-inch brown this morning trolling a blue and silver Cleo. Released at the dock.

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My friend who fishes the Spring River just emailed and told me OK has lifted the limit on white bass, at least on Spring River. I have not confirmed it... but he said people are catching hoards of them and cleaning hundreds at a time at the ramp.

Our cleaning staff check a bed as soon as they walk into a room to clean. You'll find bed bugs in fine establishments more often than dives... business people who travel all the time are the ones who most times spread them and they tend to stay in nice lodges. Our pest control people told us not to apologize for bed bugs... because it's not our fault that we get them. It would be neglectful if we had them, never checked and let them spread, infecting many people. That's when you find "dives" that have them and don't go to the expense to exterminate them.

Did you know they can be in movie theaters... old cloth seats.

2016. We bought the covers after we got rid of them. They're white - easy to spot the bugs/inspect beds and enclose the mattress so that if we get them again we don't have to throw away a good mattress. They're pricey!

Sounds good. You said it... devils!! We spent $15,000 on mattress protectors that summer. Most people don't know what the lodging industry has to put up with.

Darn... I didn't check them!!

When we'd go in the heated room, me, Duane and Ryan would take turns. 2 of us would stand at the door with a timer and watch the guy who would go in and make sure they didn't have issues with the heat. He'd only stay in for 30 seconds... we timed it. It was hot!

OK... gotta tell it now. It was May/June, our busy season. After 33 years in the biz, we got our first taste of bed bugs. The people who reported them said they had experienced them before and took it all well. Of course they had to go to the extreme to keep from taking them home... take off clothes, put them in a plastic bag with all other belongings to be washed and dried, heat treated. The local company came in and did a chemical treatment first. Supposed to come back and treat again after 10 days to kill one that would hatch. But we had live adults a couple of days later. So they heat treated. Still had bugs. They heat treated again. Still bugs.... all this within a week or more. We're still down... losing business. That's when we found our problem. They were in and behind the wood panel walls! So we tore out all the paneling, ready for more heat. but the company we were dealing with were booked up... bed bug business was booming! So we went out and bought our own heat source... a couple of butane blowers. We heated the room up to 150 and put fans all around to distribute the hot air. For 2 hours we kept it hot, going in every 10 minutes to check everything. Our fans started to fail... and melt. We wanted to make sure no bed bug or bed bug egg would survive. And they didn't. We've had 2 other incidents of bugs but they were minor compared to this. Fun times in the lodging business...

I got a good bed bug story... when I get time I'll share it. The short of it... we took matters in our own hands after our bug company couldn't do the job! And no we didn't burn the build down!