Phil Lilley

26 inch solid 10 pound rainbow this morning. Beautiful fish.

I guess the shad are still pouring in. Huge numbers. I still can’t get anyone to tell me if it’s just over the top or through the turbines. I need to go up and see today. Seems like way too many to be over just 2 gates. Tony sent me this last evening. It’s a ball of shad on the surface below the dam. He said even though there’s Tom’s in the water, the white bite is good.

They're pretty aggressive eaters... but I think the constant flow of water helps their population better than food. They seem like they always get plenty to eat.

Don't forget sculpins.

When I went up lake yesterday about 5 pm, I was met by a wall of shad in the water about a mile below the dam. After 2 drifts from the dam to Lookout and only catching one rainbow, I fished on down and caught them good against the bluff bank. This morning I'm getting pics from guides showing big schools of threadfin shad in the water. Nonstop. I haven't gotten confirmation but I think they're coming through the turbines as well as over the 2 spill gates.

I don't understand either. They have said they want to keep the chain of lakes "balanced" but that's not happening. I am grateful they're running this water out of TR right now although I think we'll see a reduction real soon. UNLESS they start dumping Beaver. TR power pool changes to 917 soon. That will slow the flow down I guess.

16k cfs isn't going to do it though. I just looked. We're running 18k here. But they might kick it back shortly.

There's not a ton of rain in the 20 day forecast so may be just may be BS may have a low water summer. I mean kinda normal.

It is definitely spring time here on Lake Taneyomo! Spring rain has fallen and our water is running hard. We've seen spill gates open for most of the month of March which makes fishing both hard and good. It, of course, makes fishing off the bank or docks very hard because of the speed and depth of the water. And some anglers find the big, fast water even difficult for boat fishing. But for those who have tried, some are rewarded with great catches. When the current is fast on any body of water, food is dislodged and moved. In our case, the bugs that live on the bottom of the lake in the algae and gravel and rocks, get kicked up and washed downstream. Our trout position themselves to benefit in this scenario, holding in eddies, behind rocks and logs and in low spots in the lake. Ideally, what we do as anglers is drift something that looks like these bugs in the current and put it where the fish hold up waiting for bugs to drift by. I wish I had a Gopro video of a trout holding on the bottom, watching him move and pick off scuds drifting by. I can see it in my mind's eye. He doesn't have much time to react or he'll miss his chance. Does the color and size of the scud make a difference? Do our trout have the ability to make a split second decision to refuse a bug that doesn't look quite right? It seems so. Our guides tell me that when it's slow, they'll change one little thing -- the size or color of the fly which will trigger a good drift of catching fish. It's hard to believe but it's true. Those fish can tell! Another thing. Is the way we rig the flies and weight important when drifting? It seems so. Our guides rig one of two ways (that I know of.) They use a "Euro-style" rig and a traditional drift rig. https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/catch-more-trout-on-a-bounce-rig/ This is the slip-bobber rig most guides are using. But others, Like Tony Weldele, use a straight line rig with the flies tied on the end of the line and the weight tied on a snap swivel sliding on the line above the flies. Both are catching fish, but Tony's technique is much easier to rig/tie and user friendly. I'm spending a lot of time in the report talking about rigging because it is very important if you want successful fishing on Taneycomo during this high water, spring season. Flies-- scuds, of course, are the best flies to use because that's what the trout are eating the most of, but pairing a scud with another fly can help attract more strikes. A lot of our guides use a bright-colored egg as an attractor fly, tying it above the scud. You can also use a bright, big San Juan Worm as a second fly. With this release (15,000 to 20,000 cubic feet per second), we're using size 10 and 12 scuds and in various gray, brown and olive colors. Line size is mostly four pound but if you like using two pound, of course, that's fine, too. The best drift has been from Fall Creek to Short Creek, staying in the middle to the inside of the bend. Drifting from the dam down to Fall Creek has been productive, too, but the numbers aren't quite as good. Some have been drifting on down from Short Creek to our place (Lilleys' Landing) and catching fish on scuds. Even some of the bigger browns have been caught in this area. The "white bite" is hit-and-miss at best. This has been confusing for me and others because we have seen a good number of thread fin shad wash into the lake from the spill gates. Yet our trout have not been very responsive to shad imitations. It's not that we're not catching any trout on white jigs and shad flies. . . we're just not catching them as well as we think we should be. But we continue to try and to instruct anglers to try them, too, because you never know when our fish will start feeding again on white. When they do, you really want to be armed with a pocket full of white jigs! View full article

I've been frustrated with my personal success with drifting fishing with a scud lately - when Tony and other guides have been catching numbers and size. So I asked Tony to show how it's done. This was the first time he led on One Cast. I'm about to write a report so I won't elaborate here but it's been pretty good for most people - even the Sunday angler is getting lucky and landing some big browns and a few rainbows. Had a guy bring in a 24 inch brown to clean the other day. His first time trout fishing.

Sometimes the "story" of the rod and its imperfections is better than a perfectly crafted one.

More shad spotted yesterday, all the way down to Short Creek. Fished last evening and did fair. Not consistent yet. Trout aren’t fat yet either. 1/16th oz white jig seems better than an 1/8th. Guides are still fishing scuds and doing real good. #12 brown is best.

Fishing was pretty good. They did like white so maybe seen some shad. We didn't see any. Scud bite is going to be really good though. Stopped some guys from anchoring in the middle of the lake on the way up... just don't understand the logic. And they certainly aren't going to catch anything!!!!!!!!

That’s allot of rain for less than 24 hours.

I’m seeing allot of 5, 5.5 and 6 inches on the north side, James River area. Table Rock is jumping .2 feet per hour. Crest?? TRDam is releasing 15,000 now and I expect 20,000 tomorrow at some point. I’m going to do one cast this evening. To the dam- throw white jigs of course.

So far the King River is the only spot not affected by the rain - SO FAR. Supposed to rain most of today. But 4+ inches so far over most of Table Rock. That should equate to a 4-5 foot rise.

You gotta catch one on one of my jigs.... Any fish will do.

Or the easiest way would be to somehow get the original cast or mold.

First thing is to acquire one and look it over. Again, I know nothing about bass jigs - what makes one better than the other. I know our "trout" jigs are made to drop in a circle in the water column. It's not my design but copied from Jerry Dudley's jig. The jig mold would have to be carved out by our cnc machine which involves hours of programing and trial and error. When we get it up and running, and have time, we can give it a shot.

We are purchasing a full line of jig making equipment from a guy that lives in Crane. He has hundreds of mold casts and a ton of stuff (hooks, racks, paint, lead), along with the casting machine and vulcanizer. We'll take possession of it in June but won't be setup to use it for a while. It's a long term investment. I know he makes jigs for a lot of local guides and shops. We will ease into it slowly but eventually make a business out of it. First thing we need to do is figure out a place to set it all up. We have no room for it presently. It would be cool to develop a line of jigs just for this area - jigs like you guys are talking about. And you guys could help create them.

Love jig fishing! I got out this evening. White 1/16 oz jig against the bluff from the resort caught 10 in 30 minutes. Stockers mainly. Scuds definitely is the ticket if you can stand to just drift.

Water looks great. Thanks for the report!