Phil Lilley

Buster Loving, guide on several lakes in the Tri-Lakes area, spoke in Springfield on Friday evening, February 7th on mainly walleye fishing on Bull Shoals but touched on crappie, bass, white bass and even striper fishing on that lake. Here's the mp3 player- http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/seminar/buster_seminar_2014.mp3 Bill Babler acted a moderator and added to the discussion. I did my best to edit the audio. The mic was stationary and when Buster moved around the room and other spoke, the audio had to be enhanced. Hope it turns out ok for everyone.

Buster Loving, guide on several lakes in the Tri-Lakes area, spoke in Springfield on Friday evening, February 7th on mainly walleye fishing on Bull Shoals but touched on crappie, bass, white bass and even striper fishing on that lake. Here's the mp3 player- http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/seminar/buster_seminar_2014.mp3 Bill Babler acted a moderator and added to the discussion. I did my best to edit the audio. The mic was stationary and when Buster moved around the room and others spoke (especially Bill), the audio had to be enhanced. Hope it turns out ok for everyone.

We've encountered a snow day, then a nice sunny day, then another snow day -- a pattern that snow boarders and skiers would love. As for fishermen, we would like it if we could get ourselves to the lake or stream! Some of would like it if they could just get out of the driveway! But it is beautiful here. The snow accentuates the outcrops on the bluff across the lake from us. Normally, it all blends in as trees and rocks. Monday morning the mist from the lake frosted the trees on the bluff. I ventured out just to show the effect. The camera picked up some unusual colors in the shade of the bluff. This afternoon I went out again to actually catch some fish and did just that. This past weekend we hosted the Roger's Adventure Weekend, a group of anglers who have been fishing their private tournament here on Lake Taneycomo for the past 25+ years. They hold an "invite-only" trout tournament on Saturday complete with attendance prizes and raffles after the contest. It has always been fun time, no matter the weather. Anyhow, quite a few anglers after the weigh-in told me they had caught an extraordinary number of brown trout that day, some as many as 15 browns, mostly on lures such as jigs. No legal browns were weighed in but, like most tournaments, there were stories of "the one that got away." Mike Riffle said he fought a very large brown for quite a while before losing it when it shot under the boat. His line caught the side of the boat and broke! As in any of our tournaments, teams must designate whether they will fish "up or down." If they fish "up," they are allowed to fish above the mouth of Fall Creek (the trophy area), but they cannot weigh in any rainbows in the 12- to 20-inch slot, no matter where the rainbow is caught. If they choose "down," they cannot fish above the mouth of Fall Creek. Only one team fished above Fall Creek out of the field of 54 teams. So the browns that were caught Saturday all were below Fall Creek. The winning weight was 9.02 pounds (eight trout), caught by Shane Matthews and Brandon Buehler. They beat out Joe Whelan and Chad Martens by only .02 pounds. Shane and Brandon told me they fished several places from Fall Creek to Monkey Island and used Gulp Powerbait exclusively. Joe and Chad boated all the way down to lower Taneycomo and fish close to the cable before Powersite Dam and caught their fish on lures, mainly jigs. Joe caught the largest rainbow of the day. Weighing a little over three pounds, it netted him the big fish pot of $530. First and second place finishers pocketed $945 and $680, respectfully. With so many teams, even 10th place earned more than $110. As a side note, Shane's dad Skip is one of the original R.A.W. guys, and Shane started coming to the tournament with his dad when he was a young kid. Now Shane brings up to five teams with him and enjoys the weekend with his friends. Speaking of trout tournaments, our last winter contest is slated for Saturday, Feb. 22. Entry is $50 per two-man team with the top four finishers earning money and a great handcrafted. cedar trophy made by our own Curtis Viscardis. The heaviest rainbow pays $200 and the heaviest legal brown will pay $1,000! See more information, rules and entry form on our resort site. With milder temperatures, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been leaving the water off most afternoons now for the past week or so. This is nice for those fly fishermen who like to wade up below the dam. Guide Duane Doty reported fly fishing to be very good on Monday. He waded in and fished from the flats below outlet #1 clear down to Trophy Run. He said he fished zebra midges mostly because the trout were all over the surface eating midges. But he also used pine squirrels and a Mega Worm (a big white fluffy San Juan worm) and did just as well. Duane reported catching nothing longer than 14 inches, but there were a lot that size caught and released. In the last clip of the video, I was using a spin cast rod and reel and throwing a zebra midge under an indicator five-feet deep. The zebra was a red #14 midge with a black bead. I tied some 6x tippet material onto the four-pound line already on my reel because I like small diameter line when using flies that small. I hooked and landed quite a few rainbows, the largest seen in this clip. What I'm saying here is that you can use flies with this application just as easy as using jigs and sometimes, that zebra midge will catch older, more mature trout that you wouldn't catch on jigs or even bait.

Should be

Duane- sorry I couldn't make it up there. What a beautiful day to wade fish at Taney!! Thought of it all day while I gutted a unit for remodeling. Hands are sore today. How did you do? I'm really interested in the quality of rainbows you found.

by Marsha Lilley Guide Buster Loving trained for a career in education -- intending to even coach wrestling and football --but the lure of the Ozarks outdoors re-routed him. Growing up in rural Clinton, OK, where he could fish often, his family also vacationed yearly at a relative's DelMar Resort on Taneycomo. "Eventually they would all go to the shows and I would go trout fishing," Loving said. Now he's on the water about 300 days a year, unplussed by half-day trips on different lakes with different clients professionally guiding since 1991. From his home at Rockaway Beach, Loving especially targets Bull Shoals Lake in the winter more than most. "My hope for this year is that Bull Shoals will be lower. The levels there are more of a challenge than the other lakes, especially in the winter." Loving is known for customizing his baits, always looking for improvements to catch largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, spotted bass, rainbow and brown trout, crappie, and seasonal walleye. Although he has experienced many lifetime memory trips for his clients, Loving's personal favorite memory was recorded by K.C. Star outdoor writer Brent Frazee in his "Ultimate Guide to Missouri Fishing" book. "We ran into 20-plus keeper walleye, weighing seven to eight pounds up at the pothole," he remembers -- all recorded on video as well. Loving's son, Buster Loving IV, hopes to continue in the business and acquire his Coast Guard license. He is vice president of the Bass Fishing Club started last year at Branson High School, but plans to first train as a welder after his May graduation. Loving also has a 12-year-old daughter, Rose, attending Branson. His oldest daughter, Sydney, serves as a U.S. Army Medic in Korea since graduating from college. Although Loving used to fish as many as 30 tournaments a year, he has cut that to seven or eight buddy tournaments now. He and partner Greg Dishman of Springfield set a lake record for the Seign the Rock for a CPA Derby in 2012, with a winning limit of five bass weighing 28.6 pounds. "Of course that record was already broken last year," Loving jokes. Although Loving in the past did not mind substitute teaching at Forsyth and Branson and helping his parents, Buster Loving, Jr. and Janice in their former Branson businesses, too, guiding will be his mainstay. "I especially enjoy meeting all the different people -- and being my own boss, " Loving said. "And getting to spend all my time outside rather than in an office. I will just probably do this until I am done." Loving is thankful for his sponsors: Bass Pro Shops, Branson First Stop, Chompers Bait Company, Leland's Lures, Jewel Bait Company, Pro Guide Batteries and Tim Hughes Custom Baits.

Buster Loving will lead a seminar this Friday evening on targeting walleye on Bull Shoals Lake. It will be held at the Springfield Library on South Campbell (south of the James River Express). The seminar is free. It will start at 7 p.m. and will last about 90 minutes. Buster Loving has proven himself to be an authority on walleye fishing, especially on the upper part of Bull Shoals. Actually right now is the best time to target them so come and hear what Buster has to share and then head to the lake!

We watched Danton Abbey during second half... that's about as bad as it gets!

Oh, you must have been on Fall Creek Road....

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/01/4792431/resort-is-an-island-of-calm-in.html http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/02/4793179/so-what-if-its-cold-the-trout.html

It caught all us church-goers this morning here in Branson. The plowers couldn't get the snow off fast enough on 76 so cars pile up on the west bound hill up to the Roark Valley Rd light intersection. We turned off and hid in Bob Evans for a couple of hours. So did a lot of other people. Had planned to have Darin run down in a pontoon on the lake and pick us up at the Landing cause I knew I could get down hill (we're in Marsha's Chrysler 300) but as I pulled up to 76 I saw a clear path between stalled cars so I took a chance. Got home without incident. The roads looked like Atlanta there for a while... My mom, sister and friends are still at First Baptist... fed, warm and going to watch the game there I guess. I REALLY need to get a 4-wheel drive vehicle... been threatening to since the first snow. Lisa's husband Paul will go get them in their Jeep if they want to come home...

That site- flydreamer.com - interesting format. Kinda like facebook. I'd like to find out if it's an application they're using or did they come up with it. I think it would be a nice addition to OA. I joined flydreamer and posted some AK videos. They got 150 views pretty quick.

MWP does check our boat registrations occasionally... not in the last few years though. And they used to on the lake itself when they were separate water patrol. Probably not anymore. USCG Auxiliary has offered to come and inspect our boats for registration and safety this spring. Give us a sticker if we pass. It's voluntary and free.

Damsels in Distress from Sharptail Media on Vimeo. Wonderful Video.

We were experimenting with shad flies and floating indicator flies. Trout were coming up and hitting but not taking them. I got one hook up- small rainbow. Not much else happened. The water was dropping and that's never good. You said you were doing pretty good...

Note: This is at the NATURE CENTER... not the Library. Don't be confused and show up at the wrong venue.

Hope to see lots of trout enthusiasts Friday at the MDC Nature Center. Bill Babler and myself will be there to talk trout fishing, fly and spin. MDC's best, Shane Bush, fisheries biologist and Clint Hale, Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery manager, will be there to provide some good information about Taneycomo's health as well as MDC's management plan. I think Clint and Shane want to review what's going on with the brown trout population. Doors open at 6:30. We have to be out of the building by 9 p.m.

I was in a hurry when editing the video. I see I missed the last text edit.

Still having fun with the new cameras... Winter keeps hanging on. Single digits last night but warming towards the weekend. Today's 40 degrees felt like the tropics. And the winds were civil. And, the trout bit! No generation this afternoon. The video is an attempt to show all the jigs and flies our trout are biting on today. What didn't work? What's NOT in the video--an olive micro jig or a ginger 1/100th ounce Bassnapper jig. I was fishing close to Short Creek the whole time. On the fly rod, I was using 6x tippet and fishing from 4 to 6 feet deep depending on the depth of water. The spinning rod--was using 4-pound Trilene XL 4-pounnd line. If you can't read the by-lines, I caught rainbows on a black half-micro jig, a purple half-micro jig, a pink half-micro jig with a chrome head, red zebra midge, a black zebra midge, orange head 1/32nd ounce brown/orange jig, 1/32nd ounce purple jig, and a 1/32nd ounce white jig. My camera somehow did not film a catch with a 1/125th ounce sculpin jig (fly rod). Point is they are really biting good when the water isn't running right not, especially on a jig and float. By the way, you can see what the levels have been this past week by visiting Ozarkangler's Lake Taneycomo Levels Page. I was amazed at the size of rainbows we're catching down at the Landing right now. I caught 2 rainbows this afternoon that would have gone a pound at least. That's for all you R.A.W. guys this weekend. Oh yea- and release all the crappies please! Just kidding. The crappies are scattered all up and down the bank, out over the weed beds from Scotty's to the Fish House and even further down. Don't be scared to get out 80 feet from the bank and fish 4 to 8 feet deep with jigs or minnows. I think it's better if there's a little current. Back to trout... Same old bait is doing the best. A Gulp white egg with another color on a #8 hook fished on the bottom or under a float on a jig head 4 to 6 feet deep is best. Air injected night crawlers is working well too. Four-pound line is perfectly fine. Our water still has some color to it. Water temperature, by the way, is 43 degrees, down 2 degrees in the last couple of weeks. Spoons are catching mostly stocker rainbows, not much to the size but jigs are catching a little bigger trout. Last weekend, a lot of guys told me they caught brown trout, not just one or two but several. Most of them were throwing or trolling medium crank baits and jigs. No legal browns that I know of but some pushing 19 inches. That's a good sign. I have no report for wading below the dam during no generation but it has to be good. We've been catching some real nice rainbows close to the cable down past Big Hole drifting and throwing white jigs so I know they're up there. The shad run was small, and now more than a week has past since we've seen any signs of shad. We only caught rainbows on white down about 1000 yards below the cable and didn't catch any trout with big bellies below the Big Hole. That doesn't mean we've had our chance and it's over. . . we've had shad runs as late as May in past years. Table Rock Lake is prime for a shad kill. It's water is in the upper 30's in some areas. We are waiting with baited breath! If you're fishing a straight jig, no float, during this low water (no generation), I'd suggest throwing as small as jig as the wind will let you. What I mean by that is when the wind blows fairly hard, it's tough to throw a small jig. But if the wind is calm, you can drop to a 1/32nd ounce jig, although you would have to use small diameter line like 2-pound or even less. You can get away with using 4-pound line with 1/8th and 3/32nd ounce line but I'd drop to 2-pound if using 1/16th-ounce and less. Stay with the normal colors--sculpin, white, black, brown, sculpin/ginger or orange, olive, white/gray and purple. Brett Rader told me purple was the hot color for him when I saw him on the water the other day. He was right--I've caught good rainbows on purple the last few days.

Good way to get a topic deleted...

Bill, it's been a long time since you've been "in trouble" so don't sell yourself short. I think both you and Eric showed you are professionals. Thanks

Gentlemen, I regret posting these videos. My intent was not to compare or judge them. I posted them as video fishing reports. I didn't see this coming at all. Yes we share fishing information here. Bill is the best... and Bill receives cold shoulders from a lot of his piers because he so free with good, timely information. He is the moderator on this forum and yes it is probably the most viewed fishing forum for Table Rock Lake. Eric Prey has been judged here as a fishing guide who only posts fishing reports for personal gain and copy/pastes reports on numerous fishing sites. He has also been unfairly compared to a Table Rock legend. Eric and others are trying to make a modest living at what he loves to do. This topic hurts his image, and it's all because I chose to post his video. I would delete this but the damage is done.

I'm sorry I posted the videos... Sorry, Eric.

Not sure what you mean.

Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World host, Timmy Horton (BASSMASTER) float fishes with Longboat Outfitters for a two day Ozarks river adventure down the North Fork of the White River. Full Outdoor Channel Episode.