Phil Lilley

Generation has been consistent the past few weeks. Dam officials have run "fish water" from about midnight until noon each day and then up to three or four units until late at night. With temperatures in the mid 90's, Table Rock's turbines are turning out much needed electricity.I call "fish water" the generation to the tune of 20 megawatts, or less than one unit. The top of the spillway at Powersite Dam is still damaged from the May flood, so it's letting more water through than normal, dropping Taneycomo's level below 701.3 feet. This causes major problems, exposing a lot of gravel flats uplake that normally are covered with water, so the water is run to keep them covered until the dam is fixed. Navigating the lake above Fall Creek is extremely tricky, so much so that a lot of our guides can't get their boats above the Narrows, a shallow, narrow spot in the lake about three-fourths a mile above Fall Creek. But it's makes for some interesting wading and fly fishing! The cars . . . the drama of the cars in the lake continues. But there is word that they are to be pulled out Friday and Saturday morning, July 21 and 22. Long story short, a local wrecker service is pulling them out at no charge. We'll see if he gets it done since it won't be easy. Our lake temperature is holding at 57 degrees, not increasing for a month now. Dissolved oxygen levels remain at good levels, too. There is some concern about the amount of water moved out of Table Rock over the last three months due to the flood in May. Cold water is pulled out of Table Rock at 130 feet, and when too much is pulled out too early in the summer/fall season, the water that's left becomes stagnate, not good for our trout. So we are thankful the water is looking pretty good in this hot part of the summer. http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/topic/17240-quick-link-lake-levels/ We've seen and heard of a lot of big trout reports all this week, both browns and rainbows. Most have been caught on bait but some on jigs. Almost all have been released to be caught again. Night crawlers has been the hot bait all summer. I took a couple of friends and their kids out this morning fishing. They were running less than one unit as we headed up to Fall Creek, mainly to see the cars in the lake. But that's where we started drifting. I had four-pound line on the reels, using a small #7/0 split shot (about 1/16th ounce) 18 inches above a #8 short shank hook. I wanted to use the smallest weight needed to throw out the line, letting the bait sink to the bottom. The kids were novice anglers, so I didn't want them confused between the feel of bites and the feel of bumping the bottom. I pinched a worm in half and hooked it once in the middle, letting it hand off each side (I don't hide the hook). It didn't take long to hear, "Fish on!" Lily hooked her first trout! Gavin was the second, but his attention turned to being the net man for the rest of the morning. Keagan wasn't far behind, catching two in a row. It was hard keeping all the lines in the water. All and all, they caught their limits plus a couple and kept four for lunch. Randy and Tracy Kemp are regular guests of ours who have been here all week. Randy started fishing with jigs a few summers ago -- may have been last summer when he started. He told me he showed Tracy how to use them this trip and she's been out fishing him. "She hasn't asked to use Powerbait at all this week." And they've caught some nice trout. Below is a brown she caught on a sculpin jig. The stretch from Fall Creek to Short Creek has been pretty good, but a lot of people have been going down as far as the Branson Landing and doing well. Beside night crawlers, orange and chartreuse Powerbait Gulp Eggs have been enticing bites. The size of rainbows has been up this summer, too. We're not seeing many really small rainbows as we did in summers past. Above Fall Creek, if you can get above the Narrows in the morning, trout are really starting to take zebra midges under an indicator early, before the sun hits the water. Also working are fishing a Miracle Fly (egg fly on a jig head) and a San Juan Worm dropper (bacon and eggs as Duane calls it) under an indicator six- to seven-feet deep. I've been testing out my dry flies fairly often -- a beetle, ant or a hopper -- with limited success. It may be too early, but they should be producing bites shortly. In the afternoons, fishing has been tough with three units running. I've tried throwing jigs with limited success. I did find some warm water species in slack water close to the dam. Yes, they're still up there. Crappie, red ears, smallmouth bass and spotted bass. I'm catching them on a sculpin 1/8th-ounce jigs. Also catching a few nice rainbows in the same places. This post has been promoted to an article

Not at all... I love Tom's play-by-play.

Couple more from this morning, compliments of Bill Babler.

In my reference, it's a 20-inch plus trout.

Jimmy tells me we've had 5 trophy trout reported today so far. The girl with the rainbow is one. The last photo is two. I have a rainbow in the tank recovering is 3 (no pic yet). I'll have to check on 4 and 5.

Haven't had a lot of time to write a report... it's been mixed but mainly good. My jigs haven't done that well but bait rules, mainly night crawlers. Here are some pics. The first 5 are from Bill Babler and most are from the trophy area it looks like. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sean Hudson caught and released this beautiful 23-inch brown trout this morning. He's been fishing here since 2001 and it's the largest trout he's caught. He'll have a replica made of his trophy. The brown was a triploid. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Duane caught this one off the dock on a white jig yesterday morning.

Love it! I told Duane we needed to get the drone out. We're planning on showing the areas on the lake that's changed with the drone as soon as the water is right. We should wait till Powersite is fixed and the lake level returns to "normal", but we may not. Before and after, may be.

http://www.kspr.com/content/news/Cars-swept-away-by-flood-remain-underwater-in-Lake-Taneycomo-434711203.html May be we've been wrong on our car count... they must be piled up in the hole just below the mouth of the creek. First I've heard about Tuesday and Wednesday. Hope it happens this time.

He gave fishing advice to hundreds probably over the years. Had many anglers come by the shop and ask about flies he had given them to use. He was a giving individual.

Vehicles in Lake Taneycomo just below the mouth of Fall Creek. They were washed in the lake by a flash flood on Memorial Weekend. DRN was supposed to have them removed today but there's no sign of any work. There are 7 vehicles. No generation this morning.

https://bonniercorp.ticketspice.com/barrett-sovereign-tour-bcl Big Event! Looks like fun.

Now I've been told generation will be off Friday (tomorrow) morning and Saturday morning till noon. I guess they'll work on the cars tomorrow... not sure. They aren't drawing down the lake, only not running water. Because of the baffles being down at Powersite, the lake will drop below normal.

I found the trout chasing my jigs... especially in the shallower water around the island and flat. They'd chase, I'd stop the retrieve and they'd nail it.

Now they're saying they will drop the lake to remove the cars from the Fall Creek area on Saturday.

We're going to try to get some drone shots of the Narrows and other spots that have changed when they drop the water out (when they drop the water out). The water is still stained and will be till this winter probably so it's hard to see down in it more than a few feet. But I'm excited by the changes, especially when there's very low water flows. Some of the areas will offer nice wading opportunities.

Not doing it yet. But the water is off right now and the lake is low.

This trip consisted of 3 groups of friends and family coming up and spending time in SW Alaska with me. First, John Johnson from Kingfisher, OK brought his contengent of friends, 15 in all, up for a week starting June 24th. Most of his group come to Taneycomo every February. Ths sockeye are generally running by the last week of June but they had other plans this year. They trickled in all week, not giving us very many chances of catching. The hope is to catch enough to bring a 50 lb box home but most of the guys had to buy fresh salmon from one of the commercial fishery places in town. But the rainbows and king salmon fishing was very good so they had fun. Most flew to Brooks Camp to see the bears. The river we're on, the Naknek, was too low to get the big boat across the lake plus the wind was bad most of the week. The weather was cold and rainy most days. It didn't get out of the mid 50's, low in the 40's. The rainbows were feeding of baby salmon schooling down the river from the lake to the ocean. We threw a gitzit at them and they crushed it. They also took an 1/8th ounce black jig pretty good - you know who was throwing that! They liked the sculpin and sculpin/ginger too. John Moore from Springfield caught the biggest rainbow - 31.5 inches long. We had one just under 29 inches too and several 25-26 inchers. They trolled for kings down river, also boating up into Big Creek where they thew big spinners and big streamers. Several 40-pound-plus kings were caught and released. The next group was a good friend and his brother, Paul and Walt Crews. They came in early Saturday and left Tuesday. The sockeye made an appearance starting Sunday but in a big way Monday when an estimated 225,000 came up the river. We limited (5) each day they were there, using the old chuck-and-duck method with a 7 wt fly rod. They also fished for the rainbows and did well. We flew to Brooks and saw bears all over the place. On Tuesday, my daughter Megan and her husband Jimmy arrived. It was their first time to Alaska. Arriving with them was the sun and warm, dry weather. Sunny and 70 the rest of the week. We also caught our limit of sockeye each day. Megan was the queen of sockeye, hooking twice as many salmon as Jimmy - they are very competitive. But Jimmy landed more. Megan kept putting too much pressure on the fish as it headed towards the net each time. She had a string of 5 casts and 5 hookups at one point. We had a lot of fun! We boated to Brooks Camp on Thursday. The lake was glass going over - it was amazing. 35 miles across and we were probably the only boat on the huge lake. There the bears were waiting. The bridge across the river was closed because of a family of sleeping bears so we headed through the marsh and up the river to the falls platform, only us fishermen can do in our waders. We dodged bears looking for salmon and got to the falls. We got right on the upper platform and spent some time watching one bear catching and eating fish, then another wondered in. After we got our fill of the bears, we walked to the top of the river and Brooks Lake. Megan went with James and showed her how to throw a dry fly - an elk hair caddis. She caught a couple of rainbows right off. I tied on a streamer Duane had tied for me - a salmon smolt pattern. I hooked up quick and landed my biggest Brooks rainbow - about 21 inches. Then Jimmy hooked his first and it was a beast! Probably measured 24 inches and much heavier than mine - almost looked like a sockeye. We made our way down the river to the falls. We watched a mother bears wrestling with her 3 cubs in a pool off the river. That was cool! Didn't get a good video of them though - my gopro doesn't do well with distances. We walked around the falls and ended up skipping the lower half because of the time - and there were way too many bears to fish around. We did see another mom and 3 cubs chasing fish, then bolting when they came around the corner and saw a big bore walking towards them. They snorted just like a deer would at trouble. We ended the Naknek fishing trip out in front of camp catching rainbows late in the evening. Sunday, we flew to Anchorage and rented a car and droved to Whittier. There we went out on a 4 hour cruise to view some of the glaciers in that area. Gorgous area, lots of birds, a few seals and lots of history. Overnight flight out of Anchorage, delays getting into Chicago put us back in Springfield at 8 pm Monday. Here are a couple of videos I've posted so far.

It was sooooooo nice being away from all media and internet. So no, I didn't broadcast anything while gone. What little internet is up there - it's super slow. I'm back and will post shortly.

OK, the server admin changed some things and he said it should work now... Please test.

In Anchorage for a 7 hour layover. Nice here... 65 degrees and sunny. Report from the river - they caught limits of sockeye everyday this week but the big numbers are yet to come in to the river.

First leg is done. Played golf here in Denver with a childhood friend. A few good shots but not many. I never could catch fish or play golf in Colorado... not sure why. May be it's the think air. Long day tomorrow... be in Anchorage by noon (AK time) but have a 7 hour layover there. Fishing report - most places in AK are reporting good a good sockeye run. Naknek River is in good shape.

Looks like fun...

You didn't include a fish...

Leaving tomorrow for about 3 weeks. Naknek River Camp. Will have some friends each week including my daughter Megan and her husband Jimmy the last 5 days. Sounds like there's a good sockeye run underway. Will post pics when I get to good WiFi.