Phil Lilley

Was hoping to meet you. Were you fishing at Pointe Royale? We are on the road to TX to see the grandkids. Be back late Saturday. Yea- fishing dies off mid day till in the evening.

BTW - MDC dumped in another load of trout at Cooper an hour ago. Off the ramp again.

Scramble formats are fun. Draw for partners or foursomes if we have enough.

They're starting putting the rocks out on Friday and finishing first of next week. No rocks in the lake yet.

I took a jon up the lake this morning at 7:30 am. Water was running about as low as it will go right now. I was able to get up past Trout Hollow by keeping the boat on plane... and not looking down. About 9 am, I saw 2 bass boats blow up over the shoal there with no problems. But I'm telling you, it's marginal at best. Babler won't do it. After getting past the shoal there, stay in the normal channel and you'll be fine all the way to the dam. It gets deeper as you go up. made one drift with an olive/sculpin 3/32nd jig and caught 3 rainbows. Didn't catch anything till I was past Rocking Chair. No bite, just jigging the jig and it got heavy. Caught a nice smallmouth at the ramp.

Chief - I bowled in college - carried a 205 average. But some hobbies I had to give up!

Heck- we could just get a bunch of tee times and play a friendly, non organized tournament for a few bucks or a hat or two. Don't care how official it is... easier the better I say. Can pick it close-to-the-date to get a good day to play. Love playing on a warm winter day.

Babler is a great golfer but hard to get on the course. 11/12 is deer opener and I'll be in the woods NOT looking for golf balls and wearing orange. Springfield might be a better fit- more guys can play if it's in a central place.

I'm in! I can get more players too. Doesn't matter where. I played at North Woods in Dallas last week at a benefit.

I got out at 5 pm today and took a jon boat to the dam. They were running 4 units- the level at the dam was 706 feet so there was plenty of water everywhere. But it wasn't that way for most of the day. Babler said he hit a gravel bar just below Scotty's Trout Dock. He said it looked like Turkey Creek was the culprit. The bar extended out from the creek and went way out to the middle of the channel. It was shallow enough he messed up his prop good. Like I reported earlier- fishing was very good this morning but it got stinky this afternoon. MDC put in 5000 rainbows at Cooper Creek Access this afternoon- just so you know. Babler said they dumped them off the ramp, not from a boat. I drifted from below outlet #1 past outlet #3, drug an anchor and worked a 1/8th oz olive jig along the north bank. Tried to swing the jig like a stream behind the boat. Caught 8 rainbows on one pass- 3 of which were over 17 inches. 4 were dark males. I drifted on down and caught 4 more rainbows. Was hoping for a brown. Man what a nice evening. Stayed out till way past dark just drifting a scud. No more fish but it didn't matter.

I got out at 5 pm today and took a jon boat to the dam. They were running 4 units- the level at the dam was 706 feet so there was plenty of water everywhere. But it wasn't that way for most of the day. Babler said he hit a gravel bar just below Scotty's Trout Dock. He said it looked like Turkey Creek was the culprit. The bar extended out from the creek and went way out to the middle of the channel. It was shallow enough he messed up his prop good. Like I reported earlier- fishing was very good this morning but it got stinky this afternoon. MDC put in 5000 rainbows at Cooper Creek Access this afternoon- just so you know. Babler said they dumped them off the ramp, not from a boat. I drifted from below outlet #1 past outlet #3, drug an anchor and worked a 1/8th oz olive jig along the north bank. Tried to swing the jig like a stream behind the boat. Caught 8 rainbows on one pass- 3 of which were over 17 inches. 4 were dark males. I drifted on down and caught 4 more rainbows. Was hoping for a brown. Man what a nice evening. Stayed out till way past dark just drifting a scud. No more fish but it didn't matter.

All good points. I can use some on the Beaver Tailwater site and some on the Table Rock site. Just because it's a tailwater site doesn't restrict it to just coldwater species but that's mostly what I'll touch on there. BTW- this is all for a new OA site I'm building with "mini sites" featured on different lakes, rivers, streams and tailwaters. Best to get the information from people who know the area and fish it. Thanks

Haven't been on the water yet but I've heard no prop boats above Trout Hollow- only jets can make it. Shallow spots and logs underwater are dotted from there down- stay in the middle of the channel and you're ok. Fishing very good this am drifting crawlers from TH down to our place. Babler had a nice trip with good rainbows and lost a 26 inch brown.

Zero reproduction so no worries about any redds. No moving water where they're going to place rocks anyhow (no generation). Should not affect any browns moving up.

I'll get out tomorrow and see.

Putting some info together on the tailwater. Here are some questions: Boating- if someone was thinking about bringing a boat to fish the Beaver Tailwater, what should he know about the layout? I know some of the 8-mile stretch below the dam is too shallow for even a jon boat, much less a larger boat. Is there good wading at most of the access points? What should a person be mindful of before trying these spots. Difficult? Thanks

The Corp won't let them do it - for boating reasons but more for operation reasons. Anything that holds back flow below the dam creates head pressure and they won't allow it. I'm surprised they've let the water level stay at 702.0 instead of lowering it back to 701.3.

I did see 3 big browns below the Narrows last evening. All 3 were 24 inches or bigger.

They're estimating 2 weeks.

Means they'll be running one unit. Wading is still possible.

Empire Electric is installing a new gate system all the way across the top of Powersite Dam starting today. They estimated the work will take about 2 weeks. For the duration, Taneycomo will be drawn down to allow work to be done at Powersite. To keep the upper lake watered, the Corp will run about 30-40 mw of power from Table Rock Dam and Empire will run the sam amount of water from Powersite. This will put more water, higher level of water in the upper end of Taneycomo with fairly fast current but not much will be noticed down past Cooper Creek. Boating past Trout Hollow will be tricky. It will be shallow! Be careful of bars and stumps even in the middle of the lake and channel. Past Fall Creek will be even more tricky.

Friday, the Corp will leave the water off and MDC will start placing these rocks in the lake. The one area they will put most of the rocks is starting across and upstream from outlet #2 down the south bank to rebar. Andy Austin, out of the Springfield office, has experience at Montauk in their fish habitat project and he will have suggestions where they will place the rocks. They are also eyeing a few places down below Rocking Chair (where the rocks are on the bank). The goal is to create deeper water for fish to hold. They are going to stay away from the middle of the lake so as to not interfere with boat traffic. It starts Friday and will continue into the following week. I don't think they'll be in the lake working on the weekend.

I tried to find an old post on this subject but... it was a long time ago. I mentioned it in my fishing report. Friday, the Corp will leave the water off and MDC will start placing these rocks in the lake. The one area they will put most of the rocks is starting across and upstream from outlet #2 down the south bank to rebar. Andy Austin, out of the Springfield office, has experience at Montauk in their fish habitat project and he will have suggestions where they will place the rocks. They are also eyeing a few places down below Rocking Chair (where the rocks are on the bank). The goal is to create deeper water for fish to hold. They are going to stay away from the middle of the lake so as to not interfere with boat traffic. It starts Friday and will continue into the following week. I don't think they'll be in the lake working on the weekend.

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Friday and Saturday, I got out and fished with a friend from OK - Coy. He doesn't fly fish but that's what we were going to do. High sun and flat water. it was tough but we boated quite a few rainbows. Started at Andy's house below Lookout and worked the shallow side using mink or peppy weight #12 scuds. Always had plenty of tippet under the indicator to keep it on the bottom, scooting along. The takes were slight - had to really pay attention to the float. If we got a chop on the water, the bites picked up. Fished this evening with Paul Clark, a friend from KC. They're drawing the lake down to work on Powersite - last time! After they install these new gates on top of Powersite, no more boards and no more drawdowns. We boated to the Narrows and found it running pretty fast and shallow. I'm uploading a couple of videos on youtube that'll be ready in the morning. Lots of scuds and sow bugs along the gravel edges moving out with the drop of the water. Lots of scuplins too- lots were stranded on the gravel- I rescued a bunch. The rainbows were up on that bank feasting on the bugs, backs out of the water. Paul hadn't fly fished so we stayed out in the main stream and did ok. We did better late, coming back down in front of the resort and catching rainbows on a red #16 zebra midge under an indicator 12 inches and casting to rising trout. They were agressive and fought hard. SPA schedule says they're going to start generation at 7 am tomorrow. This is a normal procedure when they drop the lake- run less than one unit at Table Rock and then pull it through the turbines at Powersite. The lake level down here will still be low. The levels above Fall Creek will be higher, but not real high and the current faster. Below the dam, you won't see much of a level difference, just a unit's worth of current. This is to keep the gravel areas from the dam to Fall Creek watered while the construction is done. On Friday, MDC will start placing boulders in the lake starting up from outlet #2 down past the boat ramp as part of the habitat project. They're planning to work into the following week. That means they'll have the water off for the times they're working those days... but you'll have to share the lake with a couple of front loaders.