Phil Lilley

Chaver added a link to his first post and I disabled it. At first glance, he may be a spammer. We will see. Be warned, spamming will not be tolerated on this forum.

Expand the boundaries of the Jacks Fork River, Big Piney River, Meramec River, and Big River Special Management Areas. What do they mean by this? Not acquainted with these rivers so don't know if this is good or bad.

Congrats... I think you broke a record. 6 duplicate posts! I fixed it

If you live in SW Missouri and join TU you'll be automatically put in the chapter. Otherwise, you have to ask when you join.

We have scheduled a Branson Chapter of Trout Unlimited meeting at the Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery Visitor's Center on Thursday, September 15th at 7 p.m.. We will discuss the chapter's resurgence and nominate new officers for the chapter. There has been a suggestion that the chapter be renamed Springfield/Branson Chapter in order to get more people north and west of Branson involved. Another meeting has been scheduled for October 13th at the Hatchery. Among other things, we will hold elections for officers nominated. Pass the word!

Not yet.

With little change in weather patterns, rainfall throughout the month of July, generation patterns on Taneycomo have been fairly consistent. Most days dam operators are running a half unit, 25-35 megawatts of power, at night through the morning, then kicking on any where from 100 to 150 megawatts, or up to two full units, from mid-afternoon until sunset. There have been a few days when they've had the dam completely shut down with no water running, but they've been few and far between with no rhyme or reason why. Water clarity is pretty much back to normal. It's very clear -- clear enough that some of us are thinking about using 7x tippet (very small, light line). Water temperature is still a cool 49 degrees coming from the dam. We should be in good shape heading into the fall season. The midges here on the lake have been out of control! They start hatching at sunset and continue to come off into the night at huge numbers. They're hatching in the day time, too, at normal numbers, but in the morning everything is covered with dead bugs. Now you might think our trout are keying in on them, and they are at times. Duane Doty witnessed it Saturday morning on a guide trip. He started at 6 a.m. just above our dock fishing the trout worm under an indicator. All of a sudden, a school of trout came to the surface and started porpoising, eating midges as fast as they could. Duane said the midges were so thick above their heads that they almost couldn't see through them. They followed the school all the way up the lake and around the corner, all the while catching rainbows on their worms. Midge larva hatch out of the silt on the bottom of the lake and make their way to the surface. These are easy morsels for fish to pick off, and I'm sure they do. We use zebra midges under an indicator to fool trout into biting. Guide Steve Dickey, reports that a #16 black or olive zebra has been working in the trophy area but notes that it has to be "one-inch" from the bottom. "They just aren't coming up to eat it, it has to be right in front of their face." Steve says the scud bite in the trophy area is good if the water is running. A #16 or #8 olive or tan scud has been working the best, as long as it is on the bottom for the fish to take it. Chuck Gries, fishing guide, keyed in on midge fishing Saturday morning, too. We saw him finish his trip across the lake from our dock, his clients hooking doubles as we watched. I asked him what were they using, and he said black or brown zebra midges under an indicator eight-feet deep. He was using 6x tippet. I'd imagine he was using a small split shot to get a fly down that far. Duane has had other trips, and he's done well drifting a mega worm either on a drift rig or under an indicator. A mega worm is a big, fluffy white yarn worm fly. Throwing jigs has been slow, which is another head-scratcher. We catching a few fish, especially from the dam down to Lookout, but the rest of the lake is slow. Back when the lake water was off-color, the trout wanted to chase them. Now they want it floating with the current - and won't pursue it. It's very strange, and disappointing, since throwing jigs is our favorite way to fish for trout. Drifting bait below Fall Creek is catching fish. Night crawlers are by far the best. I've talked to several people this week that have said they've caught more and bigger rainbows on worms than Gulp Eggs or Powerbait. And there don't seem to be any slow areas right now. We've had groups that have fished exclusively from Fall to Short Creeks, and others that have gone down to Monkey Island and the Landing and all have done well. One gentleman told me they went down to the lower dam (Powersite) to let the kids swim and ended up catching a lot of trout down there on Powerbait. He said the surface temperature was 72 degrees, but they caught their fish in deep water. There is a new technique that's catching trout. Bill Babler, fishing guide, showed me he was taking Berkley's pink Power Worms and pinching them into 1.5- to 2-inch segments and putting them on a small 1/125-ounce jig head. Using two-pound line, he fishes them under an indicator five- to eight-feet deep. I've been playing around with it and have done pretty well. Friday morning, I took my cousin's grandson out fishing. His family was here for his sister's World Series fast-pitch softball tournament. We didn't get out till 8:30 a.m. when the sun was already peaking over the bluff across from the resort, but with 35 megawatts of water running, we started fishing the pink worms and stayed in the shade of the bluff. Hunter caught his first rainbow trout pretty quickly. Being from Texas, he doesn't see many trout. He has fished in the Gulf and caught speckled trout but not coldwater trout. He ended up with 10 rainbows, all caught on the pink worm. Bill says he'll switch to a pink Trout Magnet if the bite is short. The worm is scented and doesn't have a split tail unlike the Magnet, and you can leave the worm on longer than the Magnet. Guide's Secret: Spin a bead of thread onto the shank of your jig hook and use Super Glue to stick the worm or Magnet to the hook. This will keep it from sliding down the hook. After Report Trip: It never fails that soon after I write a fishing report I will gain new information that either changes my previous report or adds to it. This one is an add. Saturday evening I fished after my dock shift. I wanted to try out Chuck's deep midge technique. I boated up close to Fall Creek with a half-unit running and rigged my fly rod with a small, hard foam indicator and nine feet of 6x tippet with two#14 Zebra Midges tied on. I had 18 inches of tippet between them, one black with nickle head and rib and the other a rusty midge. I drifted and fished the deep channel which varied in water depth from eight to 12 feet. I was concerned that the weight of the two midges mighty not be heavy enough to take the flies down, but there didn't seem to be any issues. I caught a dozen rainbows before I got to Short Creek and missed half that many strikes. View full article

Next time we see a MHP guy down here we're going to ask why kayaks aren't included in the all-round light requirement. May be it's just motored boated? Don't know. But if I had a kayak biz I'd put lights on them. I guess the white strobe lights I put on my jons made them legal... I didn't know about the rule when I bought them. I bought them because we thought it would be smart... just took 30 years to grow that brain.

I don't remember what I saw or why I said that...

Glad this topic thread has run its course... thanks for keeping it civil. I'm lockin' it up.

Interesting. Sorry about the ticket....

My profanity filter had a hard time with this...

I'm breaking my own rule, kinda. But I will weigh in. I too don't like anyone who's running. My vote hinges on who may be appointed to the Supreme Court and how it may look for several generations. For that reason I can't vote for the progressive candidate.

Me too

Here's the problem with fog, at least on our lake. At times the fog bunches up and has thick and thin spots. You'll be running safely and then hit a small, thick patch and have to slow down. Bright sun light really distorts the fog and is easy not to see the thick spots. It's a tricky situation at best and even with the best intentions mistakes are made and you have a close call. If you're in a boat that throws a big wake when just underway then you may do more damage with your wake than running. And it's not just kayaks... my jon boats have been swamped by big wakes, to the point of sinking. You do the best you can out there and pray nothing bad happens but inedibly bad things do happen.

I've thought about asking for a permit to make the section out in front of the dock no wake like Scotty's but I don't think it's needed... the reason he has his is because the lake is so narrow at that point.

Since he has buoys all the way across the lake, it's no wake between the lines. I only have one out at each end. It's the same as a ramp or swimming area. But like I said, mine are out too far. I'll have to pull them in a bit.

I'm not real sure why this has become a pissing contest between big and little boats, those who can and cannot afford boats. Or guides verses everybody else. Not the point of this conversation at all. I am on my dock every day and I'm on the water quite a bit. The fog doesn't clear the lake usually before 9 am and kayaks that are put in at the dam are going my place in the fog before the fog clears. That means they've paddled 5 miles in thick fog, no lights, small profile. Even if they're at the side, they are hard to see over the bow of a boat traveling even at low speeds. If you're an experienced paddler, you've got the best chance of not getting hurt. Seventy percent of the ppl who kayak on Taney are novice. And we haven't even talked about the stand=up boards... no ability to get out of the way fast and most not wearing life jackets. Not exaggerating... @MSUFisherBear is right.you have to be smart and careful when you're in any body of water and swimming with big boats. Taney is no different. Buoys - we've had more ppl not observe our new buoys since we've put them out than before and I think it's because they're out too far. Rhonda is right. The guy who ran aground was running in daylight. He dropped something on the floor and was trying to get it. I think we've all done that - reached for something. This guy paid a price but lived to fish another day. He was fortunate, blessed.

Because we've only put out one buoy each end of our property it's a no wake from the buoys to the dock. We have cheated out a ways too far... May have to pull them in a bit.

Those are generated by Google. They're Google Ads. Not part of the site software. Don't click on them if they look suspicious.

Beautiful country. It shows God's awesome handiwork.

They're thick here too. So are the midges. Crazy.

Was it here?

Where was the note exactly? Where did it appear on the site? Did it look like a note that would appear normally on OAF? I need more info so I can turn it in.