Phil Lilley

Generation on Lake Taneycomo has varied widely the last week or so -- all tied to the air temperature. When thermometer dips below freezing and the heaters kick on, dam operators run water to produce that needed electricity. When it warms up, as it will in the next few days, generation will slow and we'll see no current most of the day. That's my best prediction, but I know the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers proves me wrong a lot (smiley face.) The water temperature has dropped another degree. It's 44 degrees now coming from Table Rock Lake. The clarity is still pretty good -- may be five to six feet of visibility. It's been cold, and they have been generating, but trout fishing has been superb! Even when the water was off for most of this past weekend, anglers were catching a lot of trout -- and some good ones, too! We had three keeper browns brought in to our dock Saturday at the end of our private trout tournament. One brown measured just over 20 inches, one brown was about 22 inches and the biggest was longer than 25 inches and weighed 7.5 pounds. We hosted an outdoor writers conference Sunday night through Wednesday morning this week, sponsored by the Conservation Federation of Missouri. We were expecting about 30 writers, but some couldn't make it, literally, because of the ice and snow on the roads. Those who did were treated to some great food, fellowship and fishing. Monday arrived sunny but bitter cold. Some of the guides initally couldn't get their boats off the trailer since they were frozen stuck. But later in the morning, they were abe to take some of the writers out fishing . . . and did they catch trout! Tuesday, the weather turned off wintery cold, and the water was running hard in the morning, but those who braved the elements enjoyed some big trout, including these beautiful browns and rainbows. Most of the trout were either caught on a MegaBass 100+ or an 1/8th-ounce white/gray marabou jig, drifting from the dam down to Lookout Island with three to four units running. In the afternoon, the fish switched from hitting white to darker colors like sculpin/peach and brown/burnt orange. With the high quantity of small rainbows still up there, anglers are catching numbers of trout, but the big ones have moved up and may be, just maybe, feasting on some shad coming through the dam. Tuesday afternoon, drifting from Lookout down through the Narrows, we found a good number of trout in this area. We caught them on dark and light colored jigs, mainly 1/8th ounce. The water was running at 705 feet with two units. This is the first time I've done well fishing this stretch in a while. The Narrows, of course, has a ton of fish in it, and they're hitting on just about anything. Ken White, a writer from the Stockton area, was catching them on an 1/8th-ounce Kastmaster, gold/green or gold/red on Monday. The pink Berkley worm is still a hot lure. Bill Babler, guiding for the writers Tuesday, actually put one client on a keeper brown on a pink worm down close to Monkey Island! That's pretty uncommon, a brown taking a pink worm. Drifting night crawlers is catching some really nice rainbows, drifting from Fall Creek to Trout Hollow. Seems like there are a lot of rainbows that have moved downstream out of the trophy area to this stretch, and they usually prefer natural baits versus Powerbaits. Jig fishing has really taken off, it seems. Throwing a jig, no matter whether the water is running or not, is producing big numbers and some big trout, too. Depending on how much water is running, the best choice would be an 1/8th- or a 3/32nd- ounce jig using four-pound line. If the water is running pretty slowly, or there's no generation, dropping to a 1/16th-ounce jig would be better. You also have to drop to two-pound line to throw that small of a jig. The jig-and-float rig is working, too. We did well using a brown/orange head 1/125th-ounce jig Monday about four feet below a float, using two-pound line. I also tried a black/brown and a sculpin/ginger and caught rainbows on both.

On an evening fishing trip on Lake Taneycomo, you may have swatted at a swarm of bugs over head, assuming they were mosquitoes. But you were flailing at some of your best fishing buddies. Midges -- not mosquitoes – swarm on Taneycomo and the trout you were targeting absolutely love those tiny bugs. If you were fly fishing, their presence should have cued you to tie on a midge pattern. Midges, or true flies, are part of the order Diptera. The presence of a single pair of wings distinguishes true flies from other insects with “fly” in their name, such as dragonflies and mayflies. Diptera is a large order, containing an estimated 240,000 species of mosquitoes, gnats and midges. There are others, as well, but for now, those are the flies that interest fishermen. Enough background science; let’s talk fishing. The most popular midge we fish here on Lake Taneycomo is the zebra midge. It best imitates the midge in the stage where it’s rising in the water from the bottom to the surface to hatch. This is where it’s easiest to be taken by our hungry trout. Just imagine a small pupa drifting slowly towards the surface. All a rainbow has to do is cruise around just below the surface and eat. They don’t have to chase them down, and, therefore, expend very little energy. All we have to do is drop a zebra midge in front of them and they’ll take it, at least most of the time if they’re feeding. There are literally dozens and dozens of types of midges. Their size and color differ widely, so you can imagine how many different midge patterns there are. But I’ve found there are a few go-to patterns that work most of the time. You can make them as simple or as complicated as you want. I like simple, and I like to catch fish, so I stay with a few patterns and colors and do well enough to satisfy my fish catching addiction. First, where do you look for rainbows feeding on midges? Everywhere. Midges can hatch on every square inch of Lake Taneycomo—any lake or stream for that matter. The depth of water makes no difference. Late afternoon and evening seem to be the best times to look for hatches, but again, they can hatch at all hours of the day, and night. Clouds, wind, weather patterns and even generation all trigger hatches. One of my favorite areas to look for midging trout is above Fall Creek in Taneycomo’s trophy area. The water is not as deep, and I find this factor enhances my chance of catching fish, Plus there are more trout per cubic foot of water than other parts of the lower lake. More trout means more competition for food and, therefore, more aggressive strikes. The other area is out in front of my resort (Lilleys' Landing). In the evenings, if they're not running too much water or if the water is off and not moving, I love to go out and fish the last 45 minutes of the day for midging rainbows. If they are fallen leaves on the lake's surface, trout till hang under them and that's where I target them. You can identify trout feeding on midges by their rises or dimples on the water’s surface. There are three distinctive signs of varied “takes” displayed by trout when they feed. “Tailing” is when you see only the trout’s tail rise out of the water. He is feeding on pupa under the water’s surface. “Midging” is where the nose of the trout just barely rises above the surface and takes a midge pupa that has attached itself on the underside film and is about ready to emerge into a fly. The third is when trout chase and take a “dry” or a midge that has hatched and is on the surface drying its wings. These trout make a splash, or at times, come all the way out of the water, their momentum thrusting them through the surface and into the air. Any of these signs signal that trout are actively feeding and you should target them using a midge pattern. For the purpose of this article, I’ll stay with identifying ways to present zebra midges, although there are other types of midge patterns such as thread midges, soft hackles, emergers, brassies and many others. Color and size vary with what the trout are seeing and liking. My go-to colors are red and black any where from a #14 to #18 in size. I like gold or nickel tungsten beads with red or black and copper with olive or rust thread with copper wire wrap. There’s also a pattern called primrose and pearl (P&P), which is tied using pearl flash with a copper wire wrap. Then there's the Rusty, a rust color thread body, black bead and black wire wrap. And the Ugly which is a dark green thread body, black bead and black wire wrap. Zebras are almost always fished under an indicator, suspended under the surface at varied depths. Depth is dictated by where the trout are “cruising” since you want to put it right in front of their faces. I tend to like to aim at feeding trout. I see a rise and throw at it. It’s really a lot of fun for us fly casters. Having to cast both long and short casts, landing the fly within a foot from where you last saw a rise is challenging and good practice for accuracy. The reward is a nice rainbow on the end of your line. I use a small palsa float or something that is small and light enough to go under if the fly is taken ever so slightly. This also helps when I’m fishing in very shallow water and I don’t want to spook a school of trout when they’re feeding. I also use a long leader for the same reason. We present a zebra midge in deeper water as well. This is where we get creative . . . Tandem rigs using a zebra along with a scud, egg, a san juan worm or even a micro jig can be very productive. The depth depends on the depth of water as well as where you think trout are holding in the column. If you’re using a scud as a second fly, it should be the bottom fly. Fish it close, if not on the bottom, with the zebra tied about 18 inches from the scud. If there’s a fly pattern that’s foolproof, this is it. Fishing a zebra midge on Taneycomo is by far one of the best ways to catch big numbers and big trout on our lake.