Phil Lilley

Haven't been rambling... Lots of generation for this time of year. They can do it cause the water temp is low (50) and the DO isn't that bad. The trout weren't catching below the dam on down are strong and fight fairly hard... not winter or springtime hard but not sluggish like they could be. Looks like they're only going to run one tomorrow all day... that's nice fish water if you're in a boat. Wading below the dam, well that's not too bad. You can wade the edges and get out of the big bar below outlet #3. I'd look before you wade out too far- those trout probably will be hugging the banks. Look out for people in camo boat blasting tame Canada Geese tomorrow am... esp a AK renegade and his crew down by Lookout. Tomorrow is opening for goose season and they're thick - right Duane? They've been scouting them the last couple of days. Feathers will be flying. What do you think about the sunshine??? Talked to alot of anglers today including some guides that said fishing was really tough. You saw the stocking boat online yesterday... there's lots of trout. Vince said they were biting their jigs short. Not sure why they bit our night crawlers so well and not others today. But that's fishing. They'll bite better tomorrow... for someone. Hopefully for Brad and the OSU crowd.

We will pray for wisdom and grace.

Had a trip this am. Took Toby and Don from Florida up to catch some trout. Got to the cable and dropped some jigs to start. White, sculpin, sculpin/orange and olive 1/8th caught 6-7 nice rainbows on 4 drifts from the cable to KOA. Not real good though but the rainbows were nice size. Took a pic of the guys in outlet #1. Those poor trout... Duane told me a gal caught a 10 lb rainbow in the outlet a couple of hours after Sappington caught his. Released. We boated down to Fall Creek at 10 am and drifted crawlers to Short Creek. Stayed in the middle and caught 8 to take home and 8 more for fun. Sun is out. Not used to it. Fish didn't mind. Not a huge morning but not bad either. Don caught a rock and this... a piece of roof tin.

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Got out this morning. Boated to the dam. Started with jigs and ended with jigs. Sculpin 1/8th first- one drift and caught 2 rainbows, both below Rocking Chair. Second - 1/8th white. Caught a brown at RC and 2 rainbows at the boat ramp. Next - peach 1/8th oz. This time I could see trout picking at it but not eating it so I trimmed the tail. Caught 3- one above RC and 2 below. Nothing above outlet #3. Guides were having a hard time catching anything in the trophy area today- yesterday too. Babler did real well drifting crawlers from Fall Creek down. Nice rainbows too. Wish he'd report... I know - too busy.

They don't come up here much but this time they starting dumping rainbows right where you see it - at the top of our dock. Guys on the dock were excited!

Regular fly rod with indicator about 18 inches from the fly. May be a split shot.

It could have been over a minute... I held the boat in the current with the trolling motor. They didn't have a net. He didn't allow it to run very far. #5 lb tippet is pretty big but he was fishing right in the flume of the outlet so you can get away with it there.

No - seconds.

Running 3 units I'd say but not full. We was using a #16 tan scud tied kind of fat and 5 lb tippet.

John Sappington, a local guide, caught and released this rainbow in outlet #1 this morning about 10:30 am. I was drifting by and saw him hook and landed it (took about 45 seconds to land) so I pulled to the bank and went up to see and take a pic. 30 inches, 19.75 inch girth I was told. Female- eggs running out. They kept her in the water most of the time and she swam off fine. Saw lots of trout in the outlet with very few browns, if any. That's troubling. The outlet was full of anglers too. The sow swam out towards the lake but chances are she'll be back in the flume of the outlet to be caught again.

Brian- how did the river fare in the past rains?

Naw... I just break off flies on every 5-20 trout usually. Too lazy.

Sometimes my typed words don't follow my thinking so let me clarify. When I referred to using 6 and 7x and fighting a trout too hard I was thinking about big browns specifically - over 26 inches. You can be skillful, or lucky, and land one with 6x and not kill him but chances are in very low DO conditions you'll hurt him, maybe kill him. Knowing how to fight a big fish is important, as mentioned. Good examples. Slipping it on the gravel - if I don't have a net, I'll work the fish in shallow enough water that I can control him... not up on a dry bank. Again, poor use of words.

Looks like they're going to run it tomorrow about the same as they did today. One early building to 2 mid day and 3 late afternoon-evening.

Back from fishing. Not going to do a report cause I spent most of my time messing with a few rainbow that were taking something off the surface in some dead water below the dam. I tried several dries and dropped some midges below the dries and nothing bit. Had some lookers. This place is where I see big browns in September. I saw none. Suckers and rainbows. I did work a white jig along the north bank down and caught one 14 inch brown. Another drift produced 3 rainbows on a sculpin 1/8th oz jig. Did go to the cable looking again along the north bank. Lots and lots of trout, mainly rainbows, from the cable to outlet #1. Some in the mouth of the outlet and then pretty sparse from there down, that I could see. They were running 2-3 units pretty good and it was getting dark so my vision wasn't that good and the bottom is dark thru there. Water temp 50.

Well... I've taken up Facebook and I like the way I can post on my account and it goes out to most of my "friends" news feeds. I started accumulating friends who have "fishy" profile pics and so far I'm up to almost 1500 friends. The cool thing about this is that I've visited with lots of anglers from all over the world that I never would have if it weren't for facebook. I don't play games... I block 'em. In saying that, here on the forum, I don't like to start new topics just to make an observation about my lake, what I see and what I think about what I see. Like this morning... last nights rain muddied up the lake. They ran water earlier than scheduled and now it's cleared up. So I thought I'd try this... going to pinned this topic and let it run. I won't post fishing reports here, only short observations and thought. We'll see how it works out. Now, after working a commercial sander on my deck for the last 2 hours... I'm going fishing.

That's tough to say. Best thing is to have a fishing buddy with you to help net the fish quicker. In saying that, it would be cool if anglers on Taney unite and help each other land fish faster. I mean total strangers. Just thought of that concept. But it would help. We do it all the time when catching salmon and rainbows up north just because it would take 2-3 times longer to land a big fish in current by yourself verses someone netting it for you. Beyond that - if you use 7x tippet and hook a big trout, you'll fight him too long guaranteed. Even 6x. Unless you get real lucky and slip him on the gravel or into a net early, you'll probably fight it to it's death if using light tippet. But it's hard to catch one with 5x or larger... so it's a dilemma, one I'm not sure you can get around.

Pebble Project Update-Please take a few minutes. Dear Fishermen, Welcome home! Thanks for signing up for the fisherman’s list-serve this summer. Here is a brief update on the resistance effort to the proposed Pebble project and hardrock mining in the BB watershed. Two main happenings over the summer included: 1) Two law suites were filed by Bristol Bay residents and stakeholders against the State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources.... Read More on Kate Taylor's Blog, Rogue Angels

Gosh- I didn't identify these guys. The Wheat Brothers from Springfield. If you ever want these guys to play at a function, send them a PM... they are great!!

YOu should be scared!

Oh my gosh!! First a squirrel and now a BEAR?!?!?!?!?!? No thank you!!

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I think I've posted this before- MDC have experimented with triloid browns in the past. So there are troloid browns in Taney already but not recently stocked.