Phil Lilley

We'll probably play again - this summer may be. Be ready!!

Well, I've embarked on a journey and I'm not sure where this will take me. This week, Marsha and I are in Coral Springs, FL where I'll play 4 games starting tonight in a tournament put on the the MBA Masters Basketball Association. I'm playing in the 60+ division. There are 10 teams in our group. I got my feet wet a couple of months ago, playing in Cincinnati in another tournament for "old guys". The organization has been around for 37 years and it promotes and sponsors tournaments all over the world for men and women over 40. While they put importance on competition, they promote fellowship and good sportsmanship. We attended their banquet last night and was impressed with their message. There seems to be good solid people in leadership. We practiced at the gym yesterday afternoon... saw some good quality players in the 70+ age group. There's even 2 teams in the 80+ division. It's pretty cool to see men that age still able to get up and down the court. https://mastersbasketballassociation.org

I'm in Florida... flew in today. You know how those travel days go... flights, rent the car, TRAFFIC! They are nuts down here in Broward County!! Then I get a message that the images are gone again on OA. Oh man! Well, I've had Nathan (my tec guy) try to address the https issue with OAF. It's not secure. And we have members that aren't seeing images and getting blocked because it's not secure. The short of it - I use Amazon AWS to store our images. The forum thinks that's risky and shows it's an insecure connection. So we changed a few things - recommended by the forum ppl - and that's when the images went away. So they changed it back. We're at a stalemate, at least for now. We'll continue to try to figure it out.

There are maps here too.

I ran up and did One Cast up at the cable. Had some bites but couldn't connect. Rolled one. But did catch some nice rainbows in the eddies along the bluff below Lookout. Mainly white but did switch to olive/ginger and caught a few. Warmer water should help a bunch, regardless of shad.

They fixed one, I guest took another off line. Must be doing some major upgrading or something.

Hey when are you going??? We're flying out Monday.

Water temp was almost 50 on the south side. It'll probably be a bit higher this evening. That's a good thing, if nothing else.

They opened 5 gates this morning at 9 am. Plus one unit bringing the total to 15,000 cfs. I guess they've got another turbine down for maintenance again. Babler and I were up there when they opened it. Saw one spoonbill floating. No shad... but all last spring when they opened 5 we didn't see any shad. It's a crap shoot. I'll go up this evening and do One Cast up there and see if they like white.

Thank You! Some Branson eateries are now closing 2-3 days a week because the help they have are over worked and they can't find anyone to work. Not sure how many but we're hearing it all over town.

I have a supplier that is trying to sell me these - I don't have room for them BUT I can get some if you want. Don't know the price but they are knockoffs so cheaper than Rooster Tails. PM me.

I've had a tour... pretty cool place.

This is an economics question, not a political one so beware I have my finger on the delete key. Why isn’t this called inflation? Not the shortages but the cost of most things going up so much.

After a rain over the weekend, we're seeing an increase of flow from Table Rock here on Lake Taneycomo. The release rate was a half unit or about 3,400 cubic feet per second, but it has increased to two full units at 7,000 c.f.s. flow. Beaver Lake rose about a foot while Table Rock only rose about nine inches. We are looking at a pretty big rain moving through today and Thursday with a possible rain amount of three to four inches over the whole watershed. That would add as much as three feet of rise to both lakes above us and increase our flow to four full turbines for a couple of weeks. We will have to see how close the forecast is for the White River Watershed. We have to remind ourselves that it is spring time and rains like this are common. I think we've been fortunate so far, not getting these rain events that just sit on us for days. We are thankful. Trout fishing has stayed pretty consistent the last couple of weeks with a lot of rainbows in the upper lake right now. We've seen lots of what we call stocker rainbow that average about 12 inches long. You can distinguish a stocker from a rainbow that's been in the lake for some time by its dull coloring. Rainbows that have been in the lake are clear, colorful and usually pretty plump. We're still finding these stockers in the creeks in downtown Branson. Turkey Creek has been the hottest with Coon and Roark close behind. Fish something, almost anything under a float about five-feet deep and the trout will nab it. The Berkley pink worm is good, but so is a Mega Worm in white or pink. Use a small jig head and put a piece of night crawler on it, or a Gulp egg. Four-pound line is fine as far as line but two-pound is better, especially if the creek gets really clear. Yesterday's One Cast features Blake concentrating on the Cooper Creek flats. They found quite a few hungry trout. The moss is getting pretty thick on the bottom of the lake and it's a pain when trying to drift something like Power Bait or night crawlers. I took out some friends from Mount Valley, Kansas over the weekend and we drifted night crawlers from the mouth of Fall Creek down to our place, Lilleys' Landing. I rigged their lines with 4-pound line, a #8 short shank bronze hook and a small split shot about 24 inches above the hook. The trick was using a size B shot which is pretty light, but heavy enough to get the worm to the bottom. Then if we didn't get bit, we'd reel in and check for moss after a couple of minutes. It didn't take long for the moss to accumulate. We caught plenty of rainbows. The best stretch though was from Trout Hollow down to our dock. Captain Bill Babler reported catching some real nice rainbows using a Mop Fly (sometimes called a Mega Fly) from Lookout to the Narrows. He's using it under an indicator 6 feet deep. The best color is white but he said pink is working too. For line or tippet he's using 5x or 4-pound line. View full article

What Dutch said - they're awesome.

Heard something interesting yesterday. The guys at Tri Lakes Marine said my G3's are going to take another 4 weeks because.... of the long 2-week freeze we had back in February. It seems the petroleum plants in Texas closed because of the cold temps. So because of that Styrofoam manufactures couldn't get any petroleum product and THAT's why everything is delayed. We won't get our bass boats now till late June, early July.

Blake and I ran over to Beaver Creek this evening. The ramp on the main lake is open but barely. Ran up the creek - 5 pm. WT 55 most places but as low as 52.5. We stopped and fished in the field on the left past the bluff and found some small whites in 3-5 FOW around the bushes. Started One Cast... then hit a few more places. Didn't do much. Went all the way to the Maiden Hole - Blake had never been on Beaver before so I showed him around. Saw schools of blue gill up there but only caught a couple on a jig. Back down to the field before the sun went down. Fish were boiling all over the place - in and out of the bushes. Blake threw his 110+ purple jerk bait (I'll get the name later) and crushed the blacks. He might have had 5 over 3 pounds. I can judge trout pretty good but not bass so... they may have been as heavy as 5 pounds... you'll have to watch the video and see. He put them back in pretty quick - to get back to catching. I threw a jig and caught a few but using 2-pound line and hooking that big of fish around bushes didn't work well at first. I did catch another big blue gill and a nice white. That was fun though... caught it just at the right time. All blacks and spots were released of course. We kept a few whites and blue gill for the table. Video to follow.

Wow... need to run down there. Thanks for keeping us up on the hatch.

Update - the ramp is open and the parking lot is out of the water too.

I don't want to assume but is the ramp in the park useable? Might head over there late today, fish after dark. I haven't fished for whites in Beaver at night in a lot of years.

Yesterday, I was picked as part of a 12-man jury here in Taney County. Two day trial I was told. Never been called to served and was actually looking forward to the experience. But it only took 4 minutes for the judge to dismiss us this morning, leaving 2 days with nothing to do (yeah right!). I wanted to go somewhere and catch crappie or white bass or both. I left the resort not knowing where I'd go. A series of turns led me to Shadow Rock Park at the mouth of Swan Creek on Bull Shoals. I'd been there on Saturday and didn't do that good but I had 3 rookies with me. I wanted to give it another chance. Spent some time below Powersite - around the rock pile where I was seeing a bunch of fish on the Livescope but no takers. Water temp 48. Worked the east bank down quite a ways - nothing. Caught a brown trout there on Saturday. Headed to Swan. Pulled in about 5:30 pm. Water temp 58. Looked around the mouth and didn't see much. Went to the bend across from the park and got a bite over close to the edge of the field. Short story - I fished the field, 3 feet of water and caught a bunch of big blue gill. Then I found the crappie, one white and a walleye (short). Quite a bit of action - all on the field and most in 3-4 feet of water. All on a white/blue 3/32nd oz jig. Video to follow.