Phil Lilley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BumlV70QA8

Apple doesn't do flash... on their small devices.

I bet it's a flash thing... I just posted the link and the forum made it a player. http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/ seminar/stone_seminar_2014.mp3 Here's the link again but I put it in 2 lines. Copy and paste it into your browser and put it all together. It should work. You will need a player. Your computer should have one.

This Friday evening, January 31, Bill Babler and I will be at the MDC Nature Center from 7-8:30 p.m. to talk about fishing Lake Taneycomo. Also, representatives from MDC will be there to share information about the health of the lake. Come on by and at least say hi!

Here's the link to the audio for the seminar last evening in Springfield. Friday, January 24, 2014 at The Library, Springfield, MO. http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/seminar/stone_seminar_2014.mp3 Bill Babler was sitting over to the side and his comments were picked up by Stone's mic but I had to raise the volume on the sections he talked so bear with the imperfections. We'll do better next time. http://www.ozarksfishin.com/

28 boats today. Weights were not as good as past years. People said they were either biting short or not all at. Slow and not many good trout. Lots of browns caught though... strange. No keepers but some up to 19 inches. This is an artificial lure tournament so most threw jigs, spoons and small crank baits. No one fished above Fall Creek.

I sent some guys down there yesterday- they couldn't find them either. Hope they didn't move...

Well... Phil Stone spoke on Table Rock. I listened.

Fished Little Red once... would like to learn more about it and get there soon.

I recorded the entire seminar. Should be edited sometime tomorrow.

Right. 30 per day, no length limit.

Fishing with a marabou jig is easy. There, I said it. You may think it looks hard but it isn't. What jig fishing is, is acutely focused -- and productive. I don't want to say it's intense (to scare you off), but it kind of is. It's not for the fainthearted. It's not for the daydreamer. It's not for the guy who wants to spend a laid back day on the lake trolling a cow bell or a line out with the end tied to his big toe. You have to pay attention and you have to be quick on the draw -- yes, as if in a gun fight. If you're too slow or your equipment isn't aligned right, you might not live to fish another day. Well, it's not quite that intense. Throwing a Jig Straight Line, No Float I'm not going to spend much time with equipment. You just need a six-foot (give or take six inches), medium/light action with a weight-appropriate reel and four-pound line. Jigs -- I either use my own hand-tied jigs, but mostly I use PJ's Finesse Jigs, a line I sell in my fly shop. The whole idea of a marabou jig is to make it look alive to a fish. The fluid action of the feathers makes it look like it's a real creature in water when it's moved up and down. The weighted head allows the jig to rock end to end, again appearing to look as if it's swimming or diving. In my fishing experience, I have more success making the jig dive or drop in the water. This, I believe, convinces my targeted fish that this small bait fish is crippled or dying, and crippled and dying bait fish get eaten in nature, period. In most cases, I do best if I get my jig close to the bottom of the lake where I'm fishing. This isn't always the case but 90% of the time it is, especially if the water I'm fishing is more than seven feet deep. Why? Most times, that's where the fish are. In this video, you see me raising the rod sharply and lowering it slowly. I'm popping the jig up, then letting it drift to the bottom with control. I'm using my wrist more than my arm and I'm not moving my rod very far. I'm not popping it up and dropping the line to create slack. I do this to keep in touch with the jig so that when I get a strike I'll feel it. Here I'm slowing the boat in current. The water is going faster than I am, so I can let the jig swing down below the boat. I'm holding the rod angled at about 9 to 10 o'clock, lifting the rod tip slowly to make the jig rise and fall. Tricky part: I keep the boat moving at a speed that lets the jig drop at the depth I want. If I'm going too slow, the jig won't get down far enough. Too fast and it drops to the bottom and I get hung up. I can adjust by reeling more or even letting more line out by opening the bale and lifting the rod, closing the bale and lowering the rod back down slowly, keeping a fairly tight line in case I get a bite. At the end of the drift when the jig is directly behind the boat, pause! That's when you get the most strikes. Here the wind is blowing downstream so I'm again keeping the boat moving slower than the current with the trolling motor. I keep my rod low and the line close to the water so as not to let the wind affect my retrieve. I don't even lift the rod tip but keep it angled at about 8 to 9 o'clock to work the jig in the current. The trick is to keep the jig down close to the bottom and swinging down below the boat. Duane Doty isn't an amateur when it comes to jig fishing. He's a fishing guide both in the Branson area as well as in southwest Alaska. Here he works the jig slower, keeping the jig moving close to the bottom while jigging slightly. You will tend to catch more rocks and lose jigs doing this, but I tell people that if you're not losing jigs every once in a while, you're not close enough to the bottom. At the hook up, Duane is jigging up and feels the fish. As I've said before, the fish will take the jig on the fall almost every time. Either you'll feel the strike while the jig is falling or feel the fish on the jig up. You have to be ready for either, setting the hook hard and fast. Knowing where the jig is in relation to the boat and the bottom of the lake is essential to working the jig correctly. A tight, straight line helps but too tight causes the jig to ride up too far off the bottom. Then there's dropping the jig. Sometimes you have to allow slack in the line so that the jig falls quickly, enough to trigger a strike. Be in control of the jig and know what the jig is doing -- where it is in relation to the bottom -- and you will hook more fish. Use the trolling motor to keep the boat moving slower than the current. This helps you control your line, especially when there's wind blowing either up or down lake. Experience is the best teacher. Practice makes perfect. Both are excellent expressions for fishing jigs and it all comes from time on the water. Feel the bite, see the bite, be the bite. There are three ways to identify a strike. The first and easiest is to "feel the bite." If a trout strikes hard and your line is fairly tight, then you'll feel a tap. If he just swims along and eats it without a hard tap, the line just feels sluggish or heavy all of a sudden. The second way is to "see the bite." Watch the line as it drops from your rod tip to the water. If you get a strike, your line will move, usually up or tighter for just a split second. The other way is that it goes slack prematurely. Imagine your jig dropping in the water and it hits bottom. The line goes slack. You lift it up head high and drop it again; it hits bottom at the same place in the same amount of time. You lift it up again head high and drop it, but this time it stops halfway down and your line goes slack. Wait, halfway down? What happened? Something stopped it. That something is a fish. It's in his mouth and you need to set the hook. The same thing occurs when working a jig in current. Watch the line closely, and if it appears to go slack for no good reason, like it hit the bottom, then set the hook. It's probably a fish. The third technique of identifying a strike is the tongue-in cheek "Be the bite." This one is hard to explain. This is when you don't see anything, you don't feel anything, but you just know something's different. It's instinct. It happens so fast that you don't have time to process what just happened. You set the hook and a fish is there on the end of your line. How you knew it was there you just can't explain. All I can say is -- practice! Jig and Float Again, I'm not going to cover equipment, only conditions and technique. Generation on Taneycomo comes in many varieties from a slow, shallow release to a full four turbines that's fast and deep. For jig and float, the slower the better. The ideal drift, I believe, is 50 cubic feet per second (one unit) running at Table Rock Dam. You can get a boat up to the cable below the dam fairly easy and the speed and depth of the water isn't such that you can't get a 1/100th-ounce jig down below the float. If more than three units or 165 c.f.s. are running, it's pretty tough to keep a jig in a position to successfully catch trout. Anywhere in between is good with some adjustments. When drifting, I like to keep my boat pointing upstream and fish out of the side of the boat. I know some anglers like to keep the boat sideways and fish downstream of the boat. Either will work. The idea is to not fish for trout that you're disturbing first by drifting over or close to them. Also I think the wind will dictate how you position the boat. Work with the conditions you're given. Regardless of how you're fishing from the boat, once you've cast out, keep the boat in a position away and moving the same speed as your float. Also it's important to mend your line so that you're not dragging the float in any way. Any drag on the float will cause the jig to rise and move in a strange fashion in the water column, peculiar to the fish anyhow. It's crucial to make your lure to look as natural as possible to the fish. Depth is important. Most times it's a matter of trying different depths to find out what works best. Generally I start with five feet between the float and jig and go from there. If you're dragging the bottom, move it up. If you're not getting bit, move it deeper.

Good. I tend to watch him closer, especially when we're running. Hasn't slowed him down.

Crappie- Roark is too cold. Stay on main lake. Fish between Scotty's and the mouth of Roark. A friend and his dad caught 70 in 2 hours. All released. Most were small ones though.

Car pool from Branson... anyone wanting to ride up, let me know.

I'm using 4-pound, Trilene XL Green

We've been on a wild roller coaster ride temperature wise and the wind is giving us fits but winter trout fishing remains pretty good the last couple of weeks. Water temperature has dropped to 45 degrees. Compared to Table Rock that's pretty balmy--it's in the mid 30's on some parts of that lake. The US Corp of Engineers have been running water almost every day and night for months but there was a couple of days the last week where they shut it down during the afternoon. No way to know when they might do that again. With these cold days I believe they'll keep running it but if the temperatures get over 60 degrees, we may see some down time. We have not seem any hard generation though. Mostly 1-3 units. I reported on that we've seen evidence of thread fin shad coming through the turbines at Table Rock Dam here in the last couple of weeks. Not a lot but enough for our trout to be very interested in anything white. This curiosity only extends about half mile below the dam though. White marabou jigs, shad flies and small silver shad-type crank baits have worked well. The trout we're catching have big bellies, full of shad. We haven't caught any monsters but many rainbows between 15 and 19 inches. With the wind giving us fits, we've been going to a jig and float. It's easier to handle in the wind but using it does mean you have to keep the boat in line with the float and that takes some work. Depending on generation, I've been using a 1/32nd ounce white jig when they're running 2 units or less and a 1/16th ounce jig when they're running more. I'm setting the float about 6 to 7 feet deep. If the wind isn't bad, throw a 1/8th ounce white jig and work it off the bottom. Other color jigs have been working up below the dam. Brown, sculpin, purple, gray and sculpin/ginger as well as a brown/orange headed jig when using a float. Captain Steve Dickey called in a fishing today. You need flash to open and listen to his message: Our guests had good fishing off our dock last weekend despite the water running. And drift fishing from Fall Creek to our place proved to be the hot spot for most. The best was Gulp Power Bait Eggs, one white and one orange or pink. Also night crawlers and minnows worked too. Crappie continue to be caught down at the Landing. It's rare, at least for me, to catch anything but trout on Taneycomo so it's been fun. We're finding them anywhere from Scotty's Trout Dock down through the Branson Landing on the Branson side of the lake. They're about 6 to 8 feet deep, mostly suspended in 14 to 20 feet of water. There is some structure in the water and they are holding to it but for the most part they're scattered up and down the bank. We're catching our crappies on a variety of lures and minnows. Set your float at 7 feet deep and fish a minnow about 50 feet off the shoreline. Also throwing white or gray 1/8th ounce jigs and trying to work them about 7 feet deep. I've even trolled with them down the bank. There are some really nice slabs being caught. Note: All fish pics are from Steve Dickey's guide trips this past week or so.

I would think so... yes.

That was me...

Just a short post about where and how we're catching crappies on Lake Taneycomo right now. We're finding them on the Branson side of the lake from Scotty's Trout Dock down to Roark Creek. Most seem to be 6-7 feet deep suspended in 10 to 24 feet of water. Seems like they're sitting on or just in the weed beds along the bank. There are a few lay downs and if you can find them they are around them. Minnows under a float 7 feet deep has worked. I've caught them trolling a jig or swimming minnow along the bank about 40 feet off the bank. And throwing jigs (white or brown) towards the bank and working them back to the boat. Size depends on wind-- smaller the better. There seems to be a big number of crappies right now, mostly scattered so you have to move around. I think you can catch them from the bank too. Again, depends on wind- it's been tough the last few days.

Planning on it. Probably just audio

The crappie video didn't turn out. Was shot looking in the sun. I was afraid if that.

January 24th – Phillip Stone, Tournament Kicker Bass & Electronics – Springfield Library (South Campbell) 7-8:30 p.m. Free Stone will be teaching techniques in catching big bass in tournaments. He will review types of bait, patterns, types of structure and banks that produce locations where big fish live. He’ll also discuss electronics and equipment that has proven to be successful.

Pat- we had to have the eye removed. Fungal infection. It was too far gone to save.

Doubt if I have time to work up the crappie video today... the trout vid is much more entertaining. Besides, all you see is Duane in the background catching fish and I'm catching nil!