Phil Lilley

I didn't know what else to title this as... I hope this doesn't go in a bad direction but it's worth mentioning. It's an interesting mindset people have at least in Beverly, MA. My son married and stayed in Beverly after attending a school in the area. They've been there for over 10 years. They have 3 kids and wanted to get a lab last year. Their choices - go to a shelter and pick out a dog. But there aren't any actual dogs at the shelters... they see dogs from other states that are available, mainly in the Midwest. And they start at 4 figures, plus transportation. Then you have to go to a school and they determent if you're the right person to own a pet. And of course, the animal has to be fixed. That's true here locally too, if the animal comes from a shelter. Caleb bought a lab from a friend of mine who lives in SE Kansas. He picked it up last summer while they were here visiting. Getting the dog back home on the airline was a challenge, not to mention the dog locked him out of the van at the airport in Boston... at midnight. They're visiting this week. They didn't bring the dog. Getting someone to board the dog was difficult. They want to have one litter with River, a female, so she's not fixed. No boarder anywhere will take a dog that's not fixed. Maybe it's for different reasons other than they wants all dogs fixed... may be it's a pain to have a female in heat at the boarders, not that River was in heat. I don't know. But this is what made me scratch my head. Their friends, neighbors and family members (Maggie's) really have taken issue with them NOT getting River fixed. It seems to be the general attitude in that area. Caleb said that people think the only people who should own dogs that aren't fixed are licensed breeders and even they're called "puppy mills" and are looked down on. He said it's crazy... a lot of people WANT to own dogs but it's so hard and expensive. And there aren't enough animals in New England because all dogs are fixed to they have to go to places where dogs aren't fixed to buy dogs.... even muts. Regardless, they have to be shipped in from places other than New England.

He’s pulling down some serious ad money with his channel. Somebody likes his content. I’ve always thought if One Cast was on a bass lake like Table Rock, I’d have more traffic. I told @Bill Babler he should start it but he’s too techno deficient. 😝

I'm waiting for One Cast to finish and thought I'd throw up a report. Running 7k over the top and 7k under the bottom. Two units are still not working but no one is complaining! I still haven't taken a temp reading at the dam but the spill water should be at least 7-8 degrees warmer. Some shad have been seen in the water and they are hitting white jigs a little but not like they should. Scuds are super hot right now. 3/16 oz weight on a drift rig but make the leader 5 feet from the weight to the first fly. Then another scud 24 inches apart. #12 or #14 gray or tan. Watch today's one cast. Blake did well from FC down. I'll post the link when it's uploaded.

Oh my gosh... they've cut the water back now on both dams, right? Our fish are gorging themselves with this high water. It's crazy how fat they are.

Awesome rainbow. But I thought you were talking about a trout.

This is the time of year we get the most traffic on the forum. Why? We are coming out of the winter cold weeks and the fishing is getting good - some would say the best of the year. And everybody wants to know the golden answer to the question - are the fish biting.... where and on what? We are starting to see more fishing reports as well as lake/river condition reports which are just as important. That's a good thing... I hope more members will come of out their "lurker" status and post more reports. I do appreciate those who post year round including fish24/7. I for one need to post more often. We do a video every day so I don't think of writing a report as often. Hey - a lot of people do not like tournaments. I'm conflicted about the ones we do. We have ALOT of ppl ask when they call for reservations if there's a tournament that weekend because they WON'T come if there is. The thought is that if there's a tournament the lake will be busy - rude boaters running over everyone. Truth is it's that way every weekend in the winter regardless if there's a tournament but you can't convince ppl of that. Tournaments in general get a bad rap from those who don't fish them... and they do deserve at least part of that reputation. Bad boat educate happens every day on our lakes by all classifications of ppl. Tournament boaters eek out regular boaters in the rude category probably because they're in more of a hurry.

Looks like they are going to hold Beaver, run Table Rock at 14k for a while and hold Bull Shoals. That has been the trend going back a few years now. Beaver will go to the top of their pool, then dump. They'll try to keep Table Rock at about 920 feet till June. BS is the big bath tub that will hold it all. The reason TR Dam is running spill gates is evidently 2 units are down. If TR hits 920, they'll open more gates and wider.

They pay a big fine... or fees... depends on how you view it. Makes no difference if you got the money to pay and want a view.

Jumped in at the right time... just after conservation cafe closed. Thanks

But only 2 units running...

Got it thanks. Bally Sports

Anyone have an experience at this? What's the best way? I'd want to watch the home games too - no blackout games. Is that possible?

On my browser, it starts in 2018. You have to scroll WAY down to present day. But starting late Feb he's uploaded a bunch of short videos that are telling. You can see some of them but you have to download and install the program Telegram which I'm not inclined to do. You can bet intelligence agencies are looking at his stuff! I found this after reading a new release about this guy. Googled just his name and videos and found it.

I'm catching at least one brown trout each time I go out now. All very oversized trout, thick and strong.

At 1100 this morning, we will be closing all spillway gates at Table Rock Dam.

https://t.me/s/RKadyrov_95/311 Check this out.

Paul Crews and I hit the Hickory Ramp about 10 this morning and it didn't take long to find fish. Headed up river only a few hundred yards and spotted some whites on the live scope cruising around. Caught a few but that wasn't what we were there for... we wanted some crappies. We hit a few brush piles in that area and found fish... actually we found crappies at all the places we went. We found them anywhere there was wood, almost. We caught them in 6 feet of water and 23 feet of water. We boated down lake maybe 3 miles and hit some places Paul had fished before. And we finished north of 86 bridge and found them in the channel on big and small brush. We used 4-6 lb line, 1/6th oz jig heads and Bobby Garland baits - the color didn't matter really. Water was stained - good color - about 55 when we started and 61 towards 5 pm when we quit. We caught a lot of shorts - alot. I think we kept 18 but we did throw back some just-10-inchers, esp at the beginning of the day. The white Paul is holding weighed 3.3 pounds. Paul said it was probably the biggest he's ever caught.

That's probably it. TR is cresting at 916.5. Beaver is about 2 feet high now but they aren't running anything. Yet. Run baby run.

Man I don’t know. Uncharted territory. Never had 2 turbines down at the same time. I haven’t looked at rain totals today. I’m assuming NW Arkansas got more rain that we did, thus more release.

From the Corps- At 1030 this morning, we will open Table Rock spillway gates 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 to 1 foot each due to hydropower unit outages. Along with spillway gate 4 that is already open, the final setting will be 8 gates at 1 foot. The spillway release will be approximately 7,900 cfs, and the combined release with hydropower will be approximately 14,500 cfs.

I've been following this guy.

That sounds challenging. Fun too. Hope the water level stays decent for you guys down there this spring! Thanks for posting the report!!

What's cool is we're finding great fish outside the trophy area. Our guides now are talking their clients into releasing the nicer rainbows and only keeping the "eaters".

I love this place too. It would be hard to put a number on how many wonderful people I've met through this forum. Pretty incredible. Thanks to all...