Phil Lilley

My comment - this subject has been pounded again and again and as far as I can see no one has changed their mind or stance. If anyone has changed their mind because of these conversations, I'd like to know. Changing a stance because of these conversations is not impossible... if it's happened, it would motivate me to see these discussions in a different light. BUT as long as the discussion remains a discussion and not a yelling match, I see no harm. May be I need to change the rules to say it's ok to discuss weather, catch and release and politics as long as it stays civil... ok, not politics. That's a lost cause!

Eddie Waggoner of Parsons, KS caught this 6.30 pound black on lower Taneycomo late this afternoon. They were fishing coves, finding 60 degree water and lots of beds. They did say they didn't see many fish on the beds though. Caught this on a tube fishing a downed tree. Caught a 5 pound black off the same log. All were released.

The Coast Guard is blessed to have Duane Doty in their ranks... he has served us in war in Iraq on the front lines and now will escort anglers on awesome fishing trips here and in Alaska. He works hard. He's a selfless man who is totally dedicated and loves his wife, his family and his friends. Doty - I'm honored to be your friend and look forward to our fishing adventures in the future, God willing. Congrats!!

Generation pattern: After a significant rain, Table Rock Lake rises above 917 feet which triggers the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers to release the maximum amount of water through their turbines until the lake stabilizes and then drops below 917. Then the Corps cuts generation back. That's what we've seen here in the last five days. Thursday night last week, we received an inch of rain here in Branson, but some areas to the south and west of us gained as much as five inches. Beaver Lake jumped up and so did Table Rock. We saw four units of water from Friday until late Monday afternoon. The Southwest Power Administration schedule says today we're looking at one unit in the morning, increasing to 2 early in the afternoon increasing to 3 later, into the evening. The water was actually completely off early, then started generation at 7 a.m. As the lake levels drop, so will generation levels on Taneycomo. While three units are running, it's fairly easy to get and keep your bait on the bottom, as long as the wind isn't playing havoc with your drift. Your bait has to be on or close to the bottom to get bit. There's been a few hot spots we've found while drifting either Gulp Powerbait or night crawlers. The first place starts at the mouth of Fall Creek and down about 1/4 mile. Another spot starts at the Riverpointe ramp down to the mouth of Short Creek staying on the south side. This water is deep where the area was washed out in the 2011 flood. The next good area is drifting from 1/4 mile above Monkey Island down through the island to the Highway 65 bridge. One report I heard involved boating down lake to Rockaway Beach. One of our guides caught quite a few rainbows throwing spoons from a half mile above the mouth of Bull Creek down to Bull Creek. When fishing night crawlers from Fall Creek to Short, remember to break the worm in half, hook the worm right in the middle of the worm, letting it hang off each side of the hook. When you get a bite, let the fish take the worm before setting the hook. Above Fall Creek, now that there's less water running, catching should improve. Guide Bill Babler has been catching trout drifting a floating rebel or Trout Magnet Crank Bait (Hawk) on a drift rig from the dam down to Trophy Run. Steve Dicky has either been using a float to drift a scud/egg fly rig or drifting a shad fly or white wooly bugger using a drift rig and doing well. I've gone out in the evenings and thrown 1/8th-ounce jigs from the dam down to Fall Creek and done fair. This morning while the lake level was rising, I fished white, sculpin/ginger, black and ginger colored jigs. The trout liked the ginger color the best. All but one brown, they were holding pretty tightly to the bluff bank and in the eddies. Drifted the small crank bait and a miracle fly on a rig and caught fish, too.

Never met Martin but traded emails with him over the years. I was wondering the other day if he was finding his morels this spring.

http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x2002148349/Kid-s-Day-slated-at-Roaring-River

They started running water.... nevermind.

In case you didn't call this morning, for you locals, the water is off this morning. SPA schedule says it's supposed to be running one unit. Not sure how long it will be off though.

This nest is located above Fall Creek and across the lake (east side) up in the slew about 300 yards. One young eagle in the nest that we could see.

My brother-in-law, Paul Henderson, floated from Steel Creek to Erbie. But he said the better fishing would be below Erbie. He caught quite a few smallmouth bass on a 3-inch tube, silver, red metal or green pumpkin seed, fishing the ends of the runs, dumping into big pools with chunk rock. Water was extremely clear and they drug quite a bit on their float.

Again????

No I didn't take any. Steve Brigman was their photographer so we'll have a bunch of pictures shortly. I'll share.

Was invited to fish this tournament by Lane Shumaker today. Gosh what a nice event! Yesterday they took us all up to the back of Dogwood Canyon to shoot. I can't tell you exactly what we shot but they were 320 sniper rifles (I think). Renaissance brought in 2 Marine Camp Pendleton sniper instructors to demonstrate and then let each one of us shoot targets at 200, 300 and 430 yards. Most of us hit the targets, I was 1 of 3. One guy hit the head (8x6 inch target) at 430. The rifles were built by the marines themselves and were not gov't issue. Pretty awesome stuff! We were treated to a nice dinner at Big Cedar, over night at Spring Valley Lodge and then almost 6 hours of fishing this morning. Renaissance brought in 15 pros to fish with 30 guests. The winners were Pete Wenners and Danny Cox (pitcher for the St Louis Cardinals). They're 3rd angler could not make it so they boated just over 12 pounds between the 2 of them. We only ended up with 2 keepers (smallies) caught by Lane. Lane actually caught 3 other keepers but the pro could only have 2 of the 5 fish weighed in. Gregg Bettis (Our other angler), and I caught several 14 inch smallies and both lost keepers at the boat. Great time! Now for a fishing report. Water in most places was very clear and low to mid 60's. We didn't look for or see fish on the beds but anglers did say they saw and they did catch some bass on beds. Lane said most beds are deep - 10 to 15 feet deep. We fished with and caught our fish on either a shaky head, a tube or grub. I fished mainly a grub, smoke, and got my bites in 13 to 20 feet of water. We didn't catch much up shallow at all. Wenners and Cox caught all their fish on topwater! Pete said he had been fishing corners of docks close to spawning banks. He said this by far was the best topwater day so far this season. Others caught fish on topwater but most fished shaky heads, grubs and tubes. Pretty equal I'd say. If you could find any colored water, the bite was better. We found some in the last 30 minutes in Clevenger Cove, right side, but it was too little too late for us. I felt out of my element... haven't fished for bass in a very long time.

You added another feather in your cap - Grandpa. They change your life, Doty!

I knew I'd catch it on the shorts...

I frantically was trying to find out what was running... making that noise... when I opened this thread. First I thought it was the google ad or someone hacked the site with a mp3 file. Annoying is an understatement!!

http://www.ozarkanglers.com/lake-taneycomo/2012/05/03/dotys-night-fly-fishing-report-may-3/2412-autosave/" rel="attachment wp-att-2418">

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I use facebook. Use it for keeping up with friends, family. Use if for our business, church. It's a good tool. I don't really seek out fishing stuff on it though. To be honest, facebook is direct competition for OA and OAF. But it is what it is. I don't begrudge people who use facebook for their fishing stuff. I believe a forum is a better medium to share information to a broader audience. But that's not what some want to do - and again I understand it. I'll be very honest - I've wanted to have a site built to incorporate the forum and website into a combined site, integrated with social media like facebook. The developers said they could build a social site around fishing- they'd be nothing like it. But the cost, 6 figures, put a damper on the idea. I don't have the business savy to do it. I think fishermen will keep coming back to the forum for one simple reason - because there are good anglers here to love to share information, and as long as you all stay, OAF will do ok.

We have 2 G-3's in our rental fleet plus I used them as my own when they weren't rented. First I love Yamahas - have used them for 10 years and have had little trouble with them. The G-3 is great for the money. I like how the handle and fish. I'd get at least a 90 hp or you'll have problems getting out of the hole with more than one person in the boat. I do use 2 strokes. The 4 stroke may create problems with weight but not sure.

I think he took it back... Regardless, we need to move past this.

I've been told the white bass are thick upper Bull Shoals between Barker and the dam. "Easy to catch".

I had a long post written this morning before I had to run off to church. I was going to exert my "admin authority" and rebuke, delete and ban. Now that was funny! I've been thinking about requiring all members, now and in the future, to use only their real name as screen names. I think it would have helped in this topic. It's easy to talk smack when you're not invested personally. And it's an unfair advantage when you battle a person who's name is known and yours in not. But don't worry- that won't happen... any time soon. Lighten up, everybody. Go fishing, then write us a fishing report with pictures!