Phil Lilley

Fishing Report by Col. Ron, fishing guide on lower Bull Shoals and the White River: With the hot, high sun, the walleyes are moving out deeper. 77 degrees up by Oakland today, the best FOW was 25 to 28. Slow death, crawlers and leeches on bottom bouncers worked great. I had a fly trip cancel on me, didn't get out there until 11am, managed to keep three over twenty, 5 for the day. Got pushed off the water by all the boats at 2:00pm. http://colronguide.com/

I doubt if you find much there. Turkey doesn't have much water in it when there's no rain. Very few springs. I'd think Bull Creek would be better but again, all creeks are low right now.

http://www.swpa.gov/gen/fri.htm Says 100 mw from 2 - 10 pm.

Did you go? Sounds like there's some good rainbows up there!!

Don't worry about it. Tell your friends about him, send him some business. He'd much rather have that than another $10.

Seriously... you're got to have that gift - 1. Being in a boat with ALL kinds of people (ask Babler about his trip the other day )) 2. On the lake but not being about to fish. 3. The best guides make $70k but check out the business expenses closely (already mentioned). 4. Do it every day for 30 days or more, 85 out of 90 days. You NEED to guide every day you can to make it work. And the hours are long and hard, if you do it right. 5. Be a self promoter. You won't be able to pay someone, that's for sure. 6. Have to get a 6-pack license. Good times!!! ... and you LOVE it! You have to love it or people won't want to go fishing with you. I'm sure I missed some points.

Yea- Babler's butt puckered when he read that I bet I should have said "I" would be satisfied with $20 but you got to understand I don't guide much (for $$) and don't make my living at it. It all depends on the job the guide did - just like everyone is saying. Can't really compare it to servers though. Big difference is pay scale as far as hourly wage. A guide here gets $350 for an eight hour trip - $43.75 per hour BUT he has another hour to three hours of travel/prep time before and after the trip. Then he has expenses - boat, truck, equipment, bait/lures, insurance and self employment tax. Lodge takes a minimum of 10%, sometimes more. Have I talked ya out of being a guide yet???

This is Phil Lilley with the fishing report for Lake Taneycomo. Our lake is full of fish! It doesn't hurt when the State of Missouri releases more than 70,000 trout just this month into Lake Taneycomo, not to mention all the trout that were already in the lake with prior stockings. That's a lot of fish! Then add all the other species of fish in our lake -- crappie, bass, blue gill, a few walleye and other kinds. I think you could say that we have the all-round Best of Both Worlds here in Branson. We've gotten little rain in the last few weeks, and our lakes have all dropped below power pool. We've seen generation here on Taneycomo get slower and slower, reduced more and more. They've been running water different each day- check out SPA's generation schedule daily to see what they are going to run. Trout Magnets have become the go-to lure here on the lake this spring. Our guides picked them up and have been using them with great success lately. Guide Steve Dicky said he thinks there are so many small minnows in the upper lake right now, that the trout are keying in on them for food, and the Trout Magnets are a good match to use to imitate them. But cotton candy? That's the best color this week which, of course, is mainly pink in color. Steve says the TM imitates a small fry (very small, immature minnow). Another guide, Bill Babler, says his trout are taking the TM as it falls on after the cast. Trout Magnets are a short, skinny soft plastic "grub" of sorts with a split tail. They're strung on a small jig head hook. Trout Magnet also provides the jig hook which is unique to TM. It's head is flat and slanted which makes the jig fall erratically. Babler thinks this is why they take the jig on the drop. Both guides emphasize that the tippet or line you're using must be fluorocarbon, not monofilament, because our water is so clear fish actually will turn away if they see the line. Fluorocarbon refracts light, bends it, so it's less visible in water. Here's a good article on the differences. Most anglers add about three to five feet of "tippet" to the end of their line instead of filling your whole spool with fluorocarbon -- it's much more expensive than monofilament, plus it has a different feel. Mono stretches and fluorocarbon doesn't. Our guides are also doing well on micro and marabou jigs under a float, also. They use olive or ginger micros when there's no generation and pink when there is. Brown, sculpin and white marabou jigs are good at 1/125th ounce with no generation and 1/32nd ounce with the water is running. Look for the chop! Chop on the water is crucial with fishing a jig and float. Fish them five- to six-feet deep generally. Night crawlers are undoubtedly catching the larger rainbows lately. A few have been caught on live minnows. Brown trout will take minnows and worms rather than Power Bait. But rainbows are also taking Gulp eggs in green, white or orange. Go to two pound line for more bites and only use a small split shot to get the bait down if the water is off, no generation. Inject your night crawler with air to float it off the bottom using a blow bottle (sold in most tackle shops). Trout fishing is very good right now, so that means you'll probably release more trout than you keep. REMEMBER, when releasing trout: #1. Try not to handle the trout with dry hands or especially a dry rag. This will remove its protective body coat of slime and eventually kill the fish. #2. If the hook is deep in the fish's mouth, don't try to take it; just hold the trout up and cut the line close to its mouth and let it drop back in the water. #3. Four trout is your daily limit. You CAN keep fishing if you've caught your limit, but culling -- swapping out fish from a live well or stringer for a new fish -- is illegal. Agents will be out in force this weekend checking licenses and watching for people keeping too many fish. Zebra #16 black with a copper head has been the fly most are using up above Fall Creek. Steve Dicky says he's fishing it deeper than most -- up to five-feet deep in the channel and doing well. He's using 6x fluorocarbon as his tippet. Last evening I tried something different -- at least for me. Lincoln Hunt, a teacher friend from Dallas, comes every summer to help us out some around the resort as well as to plays golf and fish . . . a lot. This is his favorite fly fishing technique. I even texted him while catching rainbows on the dry, something that's a thrill for any fly fisher! I was using a #8 stimulator as my indicator with a #16 black zebra dropper 18 inches under the dry. Using 3x mono tippet to the stimulator and 6x fluorocarbon to the dropper. I started on the bluff side of the lake below Lookout but quickly moved to the shallow side of the lake after seeing the bluff side of a dead zone. The wind was out of the west, blowing directly into the bluff, so the surface of the water was dead calm from the bank out 40 feet. I believe that stillness is the kiss of death for catching anything, so I headed to the other side where there was a great chop on the surface. I put the boat in as shallow of water as my trolling motor could stand and cast out to the deeper water. Last spring's rain/flood moved a lot of gravel around on that part of the lake, so you have to pay close attention to how deep of water you're fishing when working down that stretch. It changes constantly. I kept my flies in two to three feet of water, but no deeper. There was good action most of the evening with rainbows taking the zebra mostly. I caught three rainbows with a dozen more misses on the stimulator. One very nice rainbow on the dry (video) was the largest of the evening, but I saw several other rainbows working the surface that were much larger.

by John Berry I have been a camper most of my life. I started with the Cub Scouts and continued camping through my tenure with Boy Scouts and Explorers. I achieved the lofty level of Eagle Scout and had some wonderful adventures including Kamp Kiakima, overnight canoe floats and sleeping in caves on spelunking expeditions. A three year stint in the Army included two tours in Viet Nam and a lot of time in the boonies living out of my rucksack. Once I was a civilian again, I took up loaded bicycle touring and went on long multi day trips that include overnight camping in such diverse locations as the Natchez trace, the Feliciana region of Louisiana and Ireland. Read More . . .

Here is Russ Stovall's Elk River fishing report, just in time for the Memorial Weekend. Rivers are low because of the lack of spring rains this year but the water is still wet and cool and perfect for a float and fish. Hear Russ's full report by clicking HERE. Hog Heaven Canoe Rental and Campground

Most of the guides would be thrilled with a $20 tip.

I fish for them in the dam area every year- usually start in June but it's early... June pattern should work right now. Points - 12-18 feet of water. Drop a cricket or piece of night crawler to the bottom and crank up once or twice. Move around and find the right depth. Last year I fished north and south of the Branson Belle - those gravel banks were full of gills.

Kris Nelson, fishing guide on Lake Taneycomo, called in a fishing report today from a guide trip he took this morning. A lot less people on the lake today. Nice breeze and great temperatures! Trout fishing continues to be very good and should be this coming holiday weekend. Hear Kris's fishing report by clicking HERE.

We went a last weekend (5/12) with my daughter and son-in-law who live just a few minutes from there. It's pretty incredible- it's a preserve in the city with a impressive modern structure in the middle. The art I've heard is so good that ppl from the east coast are asking why it's in the Midwest where it can't be appreciated... that should tell you the value of it. A lot of great American history can be seen in some of the original paintings but of course there's the art that some of us would browse by with only a quick glance. I'd go - even if you're not an art lover. Once won't hurt ya.

It a type of bait. I'm sure there's more than one company making it. If you watch the video you'll see why they call it that.

There are lots of similar arguments in fishing circles... Some think fly fishers are purists (some are). Some think anglers who use corn should be shot. Baiters vs lurers. Trollers vs casters. Noodlers vs I'm not sure what... Swamp People vs Axe Men. Everyone is different and has an opinion. It's ok to share it, just be civil about it.

Keep it civil... or steer it back that way or this topic goes away.

I'm going to move this to the Elk River forum because it won't be seen by the guys who you need to hear from here in General Angling

The Corp changed the url a month ago and I updated my images. But I might have missed some. The link on the forum works. I'll check the others.

You can now download and subscribe to the Ozark Trout Bum Podcast on iTunes!! Pretty exciting stuff!

I could post what Vontage transcribes from the call... here's Bill's from yesterday: Yes, it's Bill Butler with wire route through Skype service as well as Landing resort in Marina with the Mace 17th. Like can you come across fishing report. Lots and lots of trips today I'm like Kenny Connell. I had to. First one started at about 7:00AM. A great trip really with Tim and Carol from Texas water fluctuation today was was made to thing just a little bit more difficult than yesterday. Not nearly the number is coming to the boat fishing pretty much the same locations from fall Creek down to Lilly's. When I got there at 7/2 a unit running. They kicked that up to one and immediately cut it off. I don't know what they're gonna say as far as the generation schedule but I kinda know what happened and it was on and off and on and off all day made for a little bit of the test day but it's still the numbers came in pretty good with some really nice brown truck today. Brown tried up to 1718 inches I think I had that 13 Brown so was a big day

I'm trying to make this as simple as I can to GET guides to provide reports for you. Bill writes reports... but have you ever seen a report from Kris Nelson? Col Ron? And Tim's call in reports are priceless, IMO. Some people, guides don't like to type, can't type. This is a way to offer them a way to share fishing info. Others - a way to share more info, more often. Heck- I have suggested that when a guide gets done with his trip, call it in on the drive home. Simple. That hasn't caught on yet.

Punch Bait - anyone ever use this stuff? Man the catfish love it!