Phil Lilley

You won't find a better friend and fishing buddy anywhere. Rolan is a master fly fisher and can still shoot under 80 any day of the week! I'm still trying to best him in either sport! He taught me how to tie flies. His Peppy Scud is the best fly on Taneycomo. I'm honored to have fished with you in many of God's awesome fishing destinations and I look forward to many more years of fishing next to you, here on Taney and other Ozark waters. Hope you have a blessed day today! Get out and play 18 for me!

I had a big sale yesterday in the shop. Almost $300 in feathers. They bought several $35-$40 rooster saddle necks that have been on the rack for years along with a bunch other necks and saddles. And it wasn't to a fly tyer... it was to a hair salon owner. She didn't bat an eye on the price of the necks, nor the final tab. Asked if there were any other fly shops in town - they were from Springfield. This isn't the first sale to a hair salon... I don't think I can replace what they bought either. Wapsi is out of most necks, especially the grizzly colors. This new fad is hurting supply and driving the price up on feather materials.

Going to add- A client came over from Kansas to fish for the day. They took a boat up to the trophy area and started at Lookout. Water was clear above Fall Creek, they reported. Very windy, blowing downstream. They threw, with spinning gear, 1/16th and 3/32nd oz sculpin/ginger jigs and let the wind push them downstream, drifting the jigs along. They were moving fast enough the jigs didn't get to the bottom. They caught a bunch of nice rainbows up to 19 inches doing this. I'm sure Kelly will report when he gets back home tonight. Bob from St Louis is here for the weekend. He said the same jig caught him some great rainbows yesterday in the trophy area with one unit running. Today they didn't run any water.

No. Nothing. Any other grumpy comments?

http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/MzcyNzgyOTM1 It's pretty cool. I set the poll up.

6- 8. Probably 6 for that bait. Bill will have to answer the style question.

How are those minnows working? Is blue working?

Taney up here is alittle off color. Wonder what it looks like at the Pothole today? Wonder if Bull Creek is flowing brown? Not sure how much rain we got but the water temp should be decent. I'd think it would help catching whites unless there's a bunch of trash in the water.... from the rains.

It’s spring! Trees have popped out the last few days. Everything is green. It’s a great time to be an outdoors lover. Mild temperatures and little rainfall means very little generation for Taneycomo. They’ve been running water in the evenings for a few hours and this is good for the lake. Algae has been growing during the day in the upper end of the lake and after a couple of days it builds up. When the water kicks on, it breaks lose and washes down lake. It’s nice being on a tailwater for several reasons and this is one good reason. Catch has been pretty good the last couple of weeks. MDC has been stocking rainbows often so the population has been good, especially up in our area of the lake. Even fishing off our dock, as well as the Cooper Creek public dock, as been fruitful. Mainly bait off the dock—night crawlers and Power Bait. Out in the boats, the creek mouths are still producing some trout. Even on up in the creeks, where the water is alittle warmer, trout fishing is good. In Roark Creek, I’ve been down there looking for crappie and notice a lot of rainbows midging the surface. Try a rooster tail or small stick bait in the creeks, as well as a jig and float. The water in the creeks is warmer and you’ll find those trout more active and more readily will chase down a lure than trout in the lake. Also there’s a bunch of trout in the Monkey Island area as well as between Short and Fall Creeks. Again, jig and float works. Drop a micro or marabou jig down 4 to 6 feet deep. Good colors have been olive, brown, sculpin, tan and pink in that order. Because they haven’t been running as much water, our water isn’t as clear as it’s been so 4-pound line is fine to use. A couple of weeks ago, I was advising anglers to drop to 2-pound line because our water was so clear but not necessary now, unless you’re using small flies or jigs—then I would say to go to 2-pound line or even less. Don’t think the channel or deeper water is the only place to look for fish. Sometimes I’ve found that trout move to shallow places where boats and people aren’t. Move around! Try new areas. I see people sitting in the same spot for hours not catching. When guides go out, they are constantly moving around, especially if they’re not catching fish. Air injected night crawlers and minnows have been catching more trout than any other live bait, bar none.

Galena isn't that far but I think they go up to Hootentown... anyone?

Was hoping something was going on behind the scenes... those responses appeared poor to say the least. There are people and guides on the forum who frequent the Bull Shoals forum but not very many compared to other lakes.

Martin- when I think of you I think of mushrooms... I wonder why? Those are great pointers. Deep and crank baits. Babler says he catches the biggest crappies when throwing big stick baits for bass.

Just finished cleaning fish. 4 of us had 33 whites. 7 were sows and 2 of them were spawned out. So were some of the males. We caught most of them on purple. Stood out waste deep, casted out across and just let it bounce the bottom. Caught most of mine at a 45 degree angle downstream on the swing. Tom caught his just holding it almost straight downstream. I was using 1/8th oz heads and he was using 1/16th oz heads. Man it was a great night to be out. Moon was not full but it lit up everything. Lots of activity down there at night- ppl getting stuck in their trucks across the river, boats trying to pull out at the ramp, hearing guys brag about snagging walleye and doubling their limit of whites... you know voices carry along way across water Thanks for the great food and showing us it's done... Doty's!!

Shane (MDC Biologists) said when they shocked he was surprised to see mainly black crappie. I found one crappie that had 2 small red ears in its belly yesterday. It was a female but with so much in its stomach, the eggs were crowded out. One was about 1.25 inch and the other was almost 2 inches.

Was told there's a bunch of nice cutts in the river right now. Must be nice to live so close to such an awesome trout fishery! Thanks for the pics.

Should have kept my mouth shut. They ran water hard 2 evenings ago. I bet it cooled the water down below the dam after the weekend with little generation.

I'm out... too tired. Going tomorrow night for sure. Hope you slay them.

We left the cove at 11:20 am. We were in 2 boats- a red G-3 and an old beat up gray Landau. We caught a bunch of small bass too.

I ordered and received some awesome jig hooks from these guys- and reasonable. http://www.captainhookswarehouse.com/ I got the Matzuo lead heads in all 3 weights. Very sharp and very strong. I'm VERY impressed!! http://www.captainhookswarehouse.com/index.cfm?page=products&manid=0&catid=32&sizeid=0&view=1&offset=11

Heck- I would have given them a couple gallons of gas if it meant not running out of gas on the lake under those conditions. Either that or lend them a car so that they could run up the hill to the gas station.

Heard they hauled out bunches of limits of whites last evening into the night last night- fishing from the Forsyth side of the lake from the bank. Purple swimming minnows was the best. I'm hoping to be over there about 9-10 pm.... If you see me, I'll have some OAF stickers to give out.

Put in at Bridgeport this am about 7:15. Should have been there at 6:30. Fog on the lake- pretty sight. Headed down to first arm on the left and started there. Two boats of us- 5 anglers. Chartruse swimming minnows the best using 1/16th oz heads. At first they were close to the bank, then as the sun came up they moved off. Caught them good for the first hour, then it was here and there. Some up close to the bank is 8-12 feet of water but most were off the bank up to 50 feet in 18-25 feet of water and close to the bottom. There were some guys using minnows out in the middle of the arm- up out close to the mouth and they were catching crappie too. A guy on the dock there catching but he said he was only catching small males. We ended up keeping 36. Half females this time and we didn't catch many short crappie- not as many as last week. Water was clearer than last week- 60 degrees. I bet ya money they're going to be close if not on the banks tonight and in the morning.

I wanted to get out and get some good fish pics today.... with spring time in full swing, trees popping and all. We boated up to Lookout Island with the water off and started there with fly rods in hand. The wind was kicking from the north... south... east and west. I've never been blown so much from all directions! But it made a good chop on the water, the water being off color from the rains the night before. We tied on zebra midges, rusty #16's and started catching rainbows. We set the indicators at 3 feet and fished the bluff side, hoping for big, colorful rainbows but we couldn't come up with any. We caught "silver bullets" one after the other. Good fighters but not picture-worthy. Ran into Steve Dickey, one of our guides on the water, and they were catching rainbows on olive micro jigs. He said they'd caught some nice ones so we switched and continued to catch small rainbows. They did like the micros better though. We broke for lunch about 1 pm- headed to the sushi bar in town. Back out, we fished the lower end of the trophy area around the Narrows and continued to catch rainbows, mostly small but there were some nicer ones. Still nothing good enough to get the camera out. Did take some pics of the dogwoods on the bluff. It's funny how some days all you can catch are small rainbows and all of a sudden, the lunkers appear. Not for us, not today. But catching was very good today.

What if.... A marina on a lake like Table Rock didn't sell gas to a boater and the boater ran out of gas on a big lake, wind was up and white caps swamped the boat and people died.... it could have happened yesterday. Bill said the white caps were rolling on the lake and there wasn't anyone around to help them. If there's no provision for emergency cases such as this one now, there will be in the future if it causes someone to drown... because of (shall I dare to use the word...) gov't red tape.

OK Fish and Game have a cleaning station set up close to Twin Bridges where they will dress/process your spoonbill... they take the eggs and they sell them. Says they made $9 million last year???!! They're building a new station down the road toward Miami.