Phil Lilley

Hoppers are a thing... but not all the time and not everywhere. I haven't been out enough to figure out the pattern but I've best fishing the bluff down from Lookout to the Narrows when they're running at least 2 units. Other times, not as good but still draw some takes. Off the dock - mix up some dough bait using tuna oil and wheat bread. And oh, gold glitter.

Hope your O2 holds up. Ours is real good for late August. Temp 54. They are blasting in the pm. 240! Keeps it cleaned out.

Taking Marsha to a game in a couple of weeks. Plan to spend the night in St Louis. Looking for something nice and handy to the stadium. Thanks

They've always had good growth rates... when there's food there. Less fish, more food. We haven't had a high water even since 2016 so theoretically, we haven't lost any browns to Bull Shoals, or very few. So our population of browns should be very high. It only took Taney to grow a 40 pounder (triploid) so why shouldn't we see a ton of big fish this fall/winter. Let's hope for decent water quality conditions this fall. It shouldn't be too bad I believe.

I caught this 21” brown on a dry last evening across from the resort. Awesome! I love that they’re taking dries!!

This really has been building over the last three or four years. The numbers of trout over 20 inches caught and released and reported has been increasing monthly. These fish are just getting bigger and bigger. 2- 30 inch rainbows within a week caught is extremely impressive. Our fishery, because of the ever growing population of big trout, is changing the way we fish. Big fish eat bigger food. They eat more food, more varieties. So now we are seeing trout eat big streamers and more bigger flies on the surface. I think this trend will continue as long as people keep releasing these trophies. The department of conservation deserves a lot of credit for the adjustment of stocking numbers of trout as well as the trophy area. But also our guides for strongly advocating catch a release with their clients. I can’t remember the last time we saw a guide bring in a 20 inch trout and clean it. That’s pretty amazing.

But I find all kinds of line around our rental props… are you talking about “smart braid”? 😂

This is edited correctly...

Like I told Travis, I killed a nice rainbow last week on One Cast throwing a dry fly. Hooked it deep in the gills. It was bleeding real bad when netted. Cut the line and let it go. Didn't swim off well. Probably died. Caught another 2 days before that - same thing. But this one didn't bleed. Cut the line and it swam off. May have lived, may be not. It happens. The only way not to kill a fish is to not fish.

Yeah. Travis and I had a private conversation. It didn’t. Hook mortality. I told him it happens. I killed at least one rainbow last week using a dry fly, maybe 2. Hooked deep in the gills. Nothing I could have done about it. Both on one cast too.

Did the rainbow make it? We’ve had trouble with ppl bringing fish in to be put in our tank but the water in their live wells is too warm and kills them.

Branson Landing….. hummm

Dry fly bite is getting better.

Any details?

But it doesn't work... it doesn't take you to the schedule. Have to call...

Sandy I got your email. I need the correct email to add to the account. My email is lilley @ lilleyslanding.com

Are we seeing the new "minimum flow" here on Lake Taneycomo? Back in the mid 1990's, the Missouri Department of Conservation conducted tests to determine the ideal minimum flow for our lake. It was in conjunction with the same tests the Arkansas Game and Fish did below Bull Shoals Dam on the White River. Arkansas was able to get legislation passed in Congress to establish minimum flow there while our fisheries department took a "wait and see" position. I don't remember what the findings were for our lake, but they have to be pretty similar to the flow we're seeing right now. That's about 1,240 cubic feet per second or 17 megawatts of power generated. This isn't the flow all the time, though. We're seeing bumps in generation up to 2,900 c.f.s., and more. But it is an interesting flow, for boaters and anglers wading up below the dam. We fly fishermen like to strip and swing flies -- and both are especially working up below the dam. Working a sculpin along the bottom is catching good rainbows and browns while swinging and stripping soft hackles are fooling big rainbows. Number six and eight sculpins, most of which are weighted to sink and run close to the bottom, are working simply because we have a lot of sculpins in the lake and the trout are keying in on them. Trout aren't line shy with these big flies -- use six- to- eight-pound fluorocarbon tippet. Soft hackles are fished just on or just below the surface in what we call the "film." They imitate a midge that's coming out of its shell before drying its wings and flying off. Use 6x tippet and a #14 or #16 black soft hackle. Trout usually take it on the swing or when stripping it back. Micro jigs under a float are working really well. Some guides are adding a zebra midge dropped to it. Tan or black are the best colors, using 6x tippet and fishing them anywhere from four- to seven-feet deep. Early and late in the day, they won't be as deep, but when the sun gets high, fish them deeper, of course, in deeper water. The cerise San Juan Worm, along with a scud dropper, is working well up in the trophy area. You can sink them down with just a split shot or use a slip float and fish them under the float with the weight on the bottom. Add the flies using the drop shot method above the weight 12- to 18-inches apart. Again, 6x tippet is fine. Our water temperature coming out of the dam is about 54-55 degrees, and I've been recording dissolved oxygen readings between six and eight parts per million. That's not bad at all, but we will start to see oxygen readings drop here in the next couple of months. Boaters have been using Gulp Eggs in white or red down in the Branson Landing area and picking up limits of stocker rainbows. Try adding an egg to a small jig head and fish it under a float four- to five-feet deep. Spoons are also working lake side, catching mainly stocker rainbows, but a few lucky anglers are hooking big browns every once in a while. Of course, night crawlers are still the top bait for catching big browns more often. The generation outlook for the month is as follows: Very little flows generally with pulses in the afternoon into the evening when the temperatures are high. If we don't get much rain this fall,, look for this to continue through autumn and the brown trout spawn. Image Credit: Duane Doty, Ozark Trout Runners View full article

CAM, our local food pantry, is relocating to a new building. It's well needed warehouse space and offices. The units there are not working and new inventory is hard to find. So we're hoping to find a couple of used units. Now I can't answer the tech questions... even like how large. I know the old ones are on the ground and are 10 ton units. We need 2. I can get more info if needed - I think.

Lovely!

I applied a patch (upgrade) and it works now.

Anyone else having trouble uploading images? Jut checking before I send in a ticket.

The one clip when I pulled the sockeye away from Austin... he had missed twice so I led the salmon away from his net and put it in the net leaning on the bank - which already had a sockeye in it. It was pretty funny...