Phil Lilley

Bill and I put in here a couple of weeks ago- first time. We couldn't figure out where to park! It was only when we pulled out we saw the parking lot up at the top of the hill.

2 units and you fished the gauntlet? They must have shut it down, right?

The Corps of Engineers has been running generators around the clock for the past month and today was no different. There was one running and the lake level was around 704 feet. We fished a couple of hours from fall creek to Lilleys’ Landing and caught a few rainbows and one little brown. Most of the fish came on an F6 silver Flatfish using 4lb mono. The rest of the fish were on orange, chartreuse, and white Powerbait. Most of the fish were only about twelve inches with a couple around fifteen inches. We also managed to see a Bald Eagle just across the lake from the Acacia Club boat ramp!! We also fished above Fall Creek in the trophy area of the lake. We started all the way at the top by the Shepherd of The Hills Hatchery and worked our way back down to Fall Creek. We started out with Miracle Flies on 5x fluorocarbon tippet about four feet under a Palsa. We fished the south bank across from the hatchery and did very well dead drifting. Most of the fish came from just above the island on that side of the lake. We also used sculpin/peach 1/8 ounce and 3/32 ounce jigs and did very well with those. We did catch a few small crappie on jigs along with the trout. Darin, Lilleys Landing

It would depend on water level of Bull... if it was low, it'd be quicker. But I'm not a hydrologist. Good question though.

Trout seemingly are not affected by fronts as much as warmwater fish, in my experience. Water is off... I'd fish.

<img class="alignleft" style="margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px;" title="John Neporadny" src="http://www.ozarkanglers.com.php5-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/girls_gone_crappie-2929-1.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="250" />Blowing snow stings your face and the wind pierces through gloves to numb your hands. Even though the frigid temperatures turn your rod tip into an ice cube after nearly every cast, you tolerate these inconveniences in anticipation of catching the bass of a lifetime. While the lakes in the northern half of the state freeze over during the winter, Lake of the Ozarks usually offers an ice-free spot to catch lunker largemouth bass throughout January and February. Heavyweight bass in this central Missouri reservoir reside along main lake structure and feed on dying shad that succumb to the cold water. A lure resembling the fluttering action of a dying shad, such as a suspending stickbait, works best during this time of year. Fishing pressure will also be minimal since fair-weather fishermen hibernate in their warm homes. Anglers willing to bear the cold for a chance to catch quality wintertime largemouth should pack the thermal underwear and insulated coveralls and head for the lake. Try the following tips for catching Lake of the Ozarks bass during winter. Channel bends in the clear-water stretch from the dam to the 14-mile mark hold schools of big bass during the winter at this reservoir. Any time bass have a channel bend they can move up from the deep water onto a flat and eat shad. Lake of the Ozarks bass tend to congregate below schools of shad in 12 to 20 feet of water. The shad usually suspend 8 to 12 feet deep and bass hang right below them. The fish usually stay 4 to 5 feet under the baitfish so they can follow the shad school around. Even though bass feed on baitfish during this time, some anglers avoid areas loaded with schools of shad because they believe bass have too much food to choose from there. So these local anglers try channel bends with sparse numbers of baitfish where they can work a weighted stickbait without much competition from the natural forage. A 5 1/2-inch medium-diver Rattlin' Rogue or a Luckycraft Pointer 100 in the clown color produces bass during this time. With four or five turns of the reel handle you can make the stickbait dive down to a depth of 4 to 5 feet. If the lure is properly weighted, it will suspend at the same depth or sink slowly. Let the lure sit for about 20 seconds and then twitch it once or twice. A word of caution: the more you twitch the lure, the smaller the fish you will catch. Even though the lure usually only dives down about 5 feet, its action imitates a dying shad, which draws bass out of the depths to strike it. When the weather turns nasty, key on chunk rock points. The worse the weather, the better the fishing so when the wind blows real hard and it's snowing, the fish will come up on the rocky points. If you can stand the cold, this is the best time to catch a 9- or 10-pound bass at the Lake of the Ozarks. This pattern usually lasts until the end of March when the water warms and bass start chasing crankbaits and spinnerbaits. For information on lodging and other facilities at the Lake of the Ozarks or to receive a free 162-page vacation guide, call the Lake of the Ozarks Convention &amp; Visitors Bureau at 1-800-FUN-LAKE or visit the Lake of the Ozarks Convention and Visitors Bureau web site at funlake.com.

Phillip called me and asked me to post that he sold his boat.

What store you you have?

Wanted to take the kids fishing, crappie fishing. My son is here from the Boston area and Megan and Greg live here. So we four, the son-in-law, Jimmy, and my nephew Levi headed to Aunt's Creek Access this afternoon. Slid both G-3's in the water about 1:30 pm and headed out and up the James. Hit 3 of the docks me and Babler caught our crappie on a few weeks ago- nothing. One dock though had a big ball of shad-thing going. It was pretty cool and the kids got a big kick out of it. We hit 3 more docks- nothing. Fish a little bluff/structure- nothing. Watched 2 pair of eagles buzzing around the bluffs which was cool. Thought that might have been the highlight of the afternoon. Headed back to the ramp and decided to stop at a dock very close to the ramp for one last try. 50 feet of water and found them 10-15 feet deep. Fished with 1/16th oz white or pink or chartreuse jigs (all 3 colors caught fish). They wanted the jig dead still and it took them 3-10 minutes to take it. We caught 10 nice slabs in about 40 minutes and called it. Good thing we came home with something... we were planning a fish fry, which is usually the death of a fishing trip.

Ah... I see. I merged the wrong topics. Here's Itomczyk's post. Not going to try to fix this- I'd mess it up more.

http://ozarkanglers.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=30209 Aeronikl posted this: The SWPA generation schedules web page shows the potential for each dam/powerhouse in their system. I don't pretend to have any inside knowledge - but while each "unit" can run up to the 80 MW, they normally run multilple units at lower outputs - like now, they are running 2 units to only get 30-40 MW's, or down to less than 25. The only things that matter if you plan on wading are the CFS flow rate (directly tied to the MW's being generated) and the tailwater elevation - directly . Since "0" flow elevation of the tailwater is just over 701', subtacting from the current elevation available on the Taneycomo realtime web page or on the computer generated message you can call - you can get the additional depth of the water you will be wading in or around. The flooding this year really changed the river at the top end. Phil Lilley, Leonard and many others have documented this very well - but I will only add that it is definately wider, flatter and more shallow - and I find it very accessable and fishable at 1-2 units - up to 704.5', with flows below 2800 cfs. That doesn't mean you can wade everywhere, but you can get away from the bank in many places and strip streamers or nymph with lighted indicators and not be limited to banging the outlets at night. If you look at the report closely, you will see they change the flows every hour - up and down, as they need to match the power requirements - and you can see and feel the difference. I've never seen so many people wade fishing in so many different locations with the flows we are seeing this weekend. Apologies to the fellow who asked about wading during generation- started a post earlier this evening and I tried to merge it with this topic... it must have deleted it. Never had a problem before. Sorry. But this should help. As for wading the past few days with this generation - I'm not expert but there are those who wade below the dam and they should chime in a give some advice.

Todd- do you have any pictures of the trip. Would be interested in seeing, posting a few. Thanks!

Brian- call your man in the dam.

PM sent

I can do whatever... before church and I'll be there after.

<img title="Akermann's 8" src="http://www.ozarkanglers.com.php5-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/norfork-tailwater/files/2011/12/Akermanns-8.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="207" /> After a morning on the White River, we headed to Akermann's Access, also called the handicap access on the Norfork Tailwater. The parking lot was full, no surprise there. With the White running 6 units and the Norfork shut down, all the wade fishing was there on the Norfork. Still overcast but starting to warm up, we stepped into the river about 1:30 p.m. and headed upstream. There wasn't anyone on the first riffle or the second so I had Bill fish the lower and I walked in on the upper pool. These pools and riffles are pretty shallow but they hold more trout than you'd think. Plus there's pockets and holes in the bed rock that can hold some big trout. It's deceiving. The fish were sipping small midges so I thought a #18 brassie soft hackle would get some attention. All I caught was a little cutthroat and a couple short strikes. Bill had the same luck but he switched quicker than I and was catching rainbows on a #18 grey scud/ #16 olive scud tandem below me. I switched to a #16 black/gold bead zebra over a #18 barbless brown scud, the zebra about 20 inches below a palsa indicator. I fished the flumes of water running through the rocks at the top of the second riffle. The zebra got down quick in the fast water, carrying the scud with it. I started catch rainbow on almost every cast, working down the south side of the river, finding more and more pockets of fish. Nothing big, nothing over 14 inches and as small as 6 inches. None the less, it was fun. We worked these areas for several hours. I noticed, though, that something was changing... the water was quieter. Then I noticed that a rock in front of me was covered with more water than it was 30 minutes prior. Then it was gone. First thing I thought was, the water was coming on at Norfork and I better wade back across. But then - no! The water was coming up from below. The White River was backing up into the Norfork from generation we'd seen rising earlier in the day--it was just getting down to us on the Norfork. The mouth of the Norfork is only about a mile below where we were fishing at Akermann's so the flow of the Norfork is directly affected by the White's level. Something else to consider when you're looking at generation and water levels on the White River System. The fish slowed their feeding, at least on what we were offering so we decided to walk on up to the next shoal which is the bottom boundary of the catch and release area. All the other anglers had gone home and we had it all to ourselves. <img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-147" title="Akermann's 13" src="http://www.ozarkanglers.com.php5-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/norfork-tailwater/files/2011/12/Akermanns-13.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="258" /> <img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-146" title="Akermann's 12" src="http://www.ozarkanglers.com.php5-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/norfork-tailwater/files/2011/12/Akermanns-12.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="219" /> I took pictures of the new rip rap and bank stabilization Ark fish and game did earlier this fall. Pretty impressive. The high water has changed the look of the water up there, although I can't really speak as an expert since I hadn't been to the area for a couple of year. But from what I remember, the water on the north side of the island now is much shallower. The south side is the same. Bill tied on a #14 brown wooly and immediately started hooking rainbows. He was really on them! I stuck with my zebra/midge combo and landed a dozen rainbows before darkness forced us to head to the truck. It was a fine day!

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1732" title="White River on OzarkAnglers.com" src="http://www.ozarkanglers.com.php5-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/white-river/files/2011/12/IMG_9999.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="255" /> Bill and I put in at Wildcat Shoal Access this morning at 7:15 a.m.. Generation was brisk and rising. Schedule stated they would run 300 mw by 8 a.m. which should reach us by 10 a.m.. Then they would back down to 125 by mid afternoon which we weren't sticking around for. It seemed like the water came early and stayed late. This is the area Tom and I fished last Wednesday at low tide. There was 9 feet of water over the shoal where there was 18 inches 7 days ago.<!--more--> We boated up to the narrows and started there. Drifted and fished the bluff bank down. I was throwing a white 1/8th oz jig and Bill was working a brown trout style jerk bait (I'll have to have him report exactly what lure he was using). We scored first and fairly often, catching browns between 14 and 18 inches. White struck out so I went to olive- nothing, the sculpin/peach and they liked that better. I caught a decent cutthroat (pic) plus a few browns (up to 17 inches) and rainbows. <img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1729" title="White River on OzarkAnglers.com" src="http://www.ozarkanglers.com.php5-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/white-river/files/2011/12/IMG_9993.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="208" /> We drifted down to below the 62 bridge before heading back up. Bill also tried a chuck-n-duck rig and an egg fly and caught several rainbows and one brown. I did try throw some articulated streamers but I didn't have a sink tip so I couldn't get down to the fish, so I'm told. Makes sense though. Cloudy and cold- never warmed up like we thought it would. Wind switched a couple of times making it tough to jig fish. We pulled out at 11:30 a.m. and headed for the Norfork Tailwater but first had to have some BBQ for lunch. <img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1731" title="White River on OzarkAnglers.com" src="http://www.ozarkanglers.com.php5-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/white-river/files/2011/12/IMG_9995.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="270" /> <img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1730" title="White River on OzarkAnglers.com" src="http://www.ozarkanglers.com.php5-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/white-river/files/2011/12/IMG_9994.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="248" />

Thanks for joining. I've thought about starting something on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers but haven't had much interest expressed here on the forum. They are both I would say part of the Ozarks so - we'll see. Are there any forums or sites anglers follow that cover those rivers and fishing?

Yea- the lake is noticeablly higher and current slower compared to this summer. No problems with one unit + to get up there.

IF you have cash and IF you don't mind a little mold, there are good buys. Some houses haven't been occupied since the flood, nor have some been even fixed. Not sure of their situations. I know Dino said he's selling. I love that house!! But even in its condition he'd be asking a lot. It's across from Fall Creek.

I got out for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon. Equivalent of 2 units running. Drifted the bluff bank from Lookout down. Nothing but a smallie on a olive/sculpin 1/8th oz jig so switched to white. They started hammering them. Wasn't planning on going to the dam but decided to after seeing they were on white. Not as good below the dam as I thought it would be. Not until I put on a float and a dirty old 1/16th oz white jig did they start hitting but it was short. Missed alot of bites. Fished it 5 feet under the indicator. Caught 8 nice rainbows on the one drift. Wind got tough so I called it and headed in. Don't think they've seen any shad but seeing some shad below the Norfork Dam last week got me thinking...

Yea- Forsyth Bait. Not sure you can find the owner though. Wish I could remember his name...

They won't yell anymore... the bar is gone.

We you just drifting on some flats or down the channel? How was the current? Good sign for the coming spring season.

Gosh I didn't see this. Sorry. Taney Electric, Fall Creek Rd 417-334-0400 I'll have Ryan (works for us) type something out tomorrow. He rebuilds our starters and the ones that he can't we take to Taney Electric.