Phil Lilley

Rain has returned to the Ozarks. And after watching my source of future rainfall amounts, we're getting about what NOAA predicted. We received three inches of rain last night with similar amounts dropped into the Table Rock watershed, but fortunately it appears Beaver Lake was spared. That will help us in the long run. Generally, one inch of rain equals a one-foot rise on Table Rock. With the lake level starting at 913 feet, we may see a rise to about 917 feet. This will not trigger any automatic flows from Table Rock Dam, but we may see releases in the neighborhood of 11,000 cubic feet per second, or four units of generation. Table Rock's level has to crest above 920 feet before spill gates come into play. So for Lake Taneycomo we're looking at moderate generation for the next couple of weeks. Drift fishing will be the norm for most anglers, although as soon as the creeks clear out, I'm sure there will be big numbers of trout taking shelter in the warmer and calmer water. Salem Kellenberger 16-inch brown - Released The creeks to target would be Bull, Bee, Coon, Roark, Turkey, Cooper and Short creeks. Really, any side water that's fed by ground water will be warmer than the 42 degree water coming through Table Rock's Dam. Yes, trout are coldwater fish, but 42 is chillier than they like. They would prefer 50-55 degree water over 42 any day. So would their food. A spring rain like this one will wash worms into the lake . . . lots of night crawlers. We should see a lot of worms in the bellies of trout below these creek mouths. Minnows and night crawlers will be the bait of choice after a good rain. And if you're fly fishing, the San Juan Worm would be a good fly to try. I drifted a minnow on Friday out in front of the resort and had three good bites. The first, I had a large minnow on a #8 hook. The bite was a good one, but I evidently didn't let him take it long enough -- although I missed the fish, my minnow showed scars of a fish with teeth. It was almost bit in half, which means my bite came from a brown trout. I sure hate missing those bites! But I did nail a few rainbows on Saturday late afternoon including a nice 18-incher in front of Lazy Valley Resort. This week, we've been hammering the upper lake, using white jigs and shad flies, hoping to find evidence of any threadfin shad coming through the turbines at the dam. So far I don't think we've seen any shad. We're catching a few trout on white, but that's pretty typical all during the year. Table Rock's surface water temperature is starting to warm up, but the water below the surface is still in the low 40's. Threadfin shad don't do well in this cold water so we should see shad dying for most of the spring. Hopefully some will make down to 130 feet deep at the dam and get sucked through the turbines. With the low flows this winter, the green algae we see on the bottom of our lake has been pretty thick. We haven't had enough hard flows to kick it loose yet. But with this rain, I'm hoping the heavier flows will dislodge and clear out some of this stuff and at the same time roll some gravel and move some scuds out of their safe places into our trout's mouths. In the spring, we usually see our trout beefing up on scuds, and drifting scud flies on the bottom becomes the number one technique of choice for plump catches. We will see! Conner Walker caught this 20” Rainbow in the trophy area using an 1/8oz. white jig - Released Way too windy Saturday at the dam but boatloads of anglers were out trying. White jigs were reportedly hot in the morning, but they had cooled off by the time I arrived. Ended up finding some rainbows and did One Cast showing how I caught them. Basically I had to fish a scud under a float, keeping it from dragging on the bottom. There's too much algae to drag a fly across the bottom. I used a spinning outfit with a weighted float and a split shot about 20 inches from the scud. I fished a #12 gray and a #14 rainbow/dubbing scud and both caught fish. We had a 25-inch rainbow come in, caught on an 1/8th-ounce white jig in the Narrows area Saturday afternoon. Released. Anglers are also catching trout drifting orange Gulp Power Eggs from above our place at Lilley's down past Cooper Creek. Also white is doing pretty well, too. But remember night crawlers and minnows -- they have a much better chance catching a trophy brown or rainbow. View full article

They are predicting 4-7 inches over the 4-day weekend for the whole area. They'll bring the big water through, probably not spill gates but 4 units for sure. That will clean out the algae, move some scuds and cause a scud-feast. May be bring in some shad too. I was hoping for some down water this spring but that's not going to happen now. On to the spring patterns.

Wow....

The moss was bad. After days of slow generation, I guess the bottom loaded up with it. They “flushed” the lake with 3 units for a couple of hours and it all broke loose. Our water is very clear too for this time of year. It all adds up I guess.

If they're like salmon, it's smell. But I don't know if they're like salmon...

As far as high water, the Corp is managing water differently than they did 20 years ago. Used to they’d pull the lakes down way below their power pool levels in the winter so make room for spring rains. Not sure of the exact year but they raised those pool levels so that the White River would get a higher minimal flow. Rain patterns changed and now we get flooded one out of 4 years on average basically. Will the rains go back to “normal” or swing the other way? Probably. But until then I’m not getting my hopes up anytime soon.

They're hitting midges here on Taney too.

Love the report. Enjoy the down water. Oh what did you catch them on?

Look at the top bar. See the square that kinda looks like a newspaper? That’s the “ new content” button.

I uninstalled Tapatalk along time ago. It didn’t work very well.

Me and Duane were talking this morning about shad kill. There is a good population of threadfin shad living in Lake Taneycomo... we tend to forget about that. They live in the lower half of the lake where the water temp tends to be higher but I wonder how far up lake would you find them? Reason being... they should be dying on our lake like the other area lakes. Bass and trout should be feasting on them. We were also talking about below Powersite Dam - in Bull Shoals. If shad are dying above the dam and getting sucked through the turbines there, walleye and brown trout, among other fish, should be getting a good dose of shad. That sounds like fun!

The only way they don't get power from Table Rock water is if it goes over the top of the dam, not through the turbines. Winter draw downs are a thing of the past. Some of the reason why is the new set of power pool levels, initiated when they upped the minimum flow below Bull Shoals.

They only ran 3 units and that wasn't 24 hours. It varied each day. They could have run much more.

Yeah but why didn't they generate full tilt? They never got over 3/4 power - haven't run all 4 units full tilt yet this year. Back in the fall, they were working on turbines and couldn't run all 4 if they wanted to. I'm still scratching my head...

As everyone knows in the Midwest (and North Mexico), we're coming out of a extremely cold weather event. This cold spell will have a huge impact on Lake Taneycomo going forward. Why do I say that? Because we get our water from Table Rock, and in many places on that lake, its surface is frozen from bank to bank. Because it's so deep, the lake will hold this cold water clear through the summer and into the fall months. We'll probably see temperatures in the upper 30's on Taneycomo later in April and May, maybe into June. And water temps in the fall will not rise into the mid 50's like in years past. This will greatly help water quality for our fall fishing season. Threadfin shad are not found in lakes to the north of us. Those lakes get too cold in the winter to sustain a good population of this species of bait fish. So this cold spell will affect threadfins in all three White River lakes -- Beaver, Table Rock and Bull Shoals. We may see some shad die on lower Taneycomo, too. Anglers were already reporting dead shad on Table Rock last weekend. Even with the warmer winters we've been having, shad die-offs are not uncommon. But with Table Rock's water temps diving into the 30's, we should see massive shad kills lake wide. If these shad start dying in the dam area, and they reach the depths of 130 feet, we should see threadfins come through the turbines into Lake Taneycomo. There's no way to know when this may occur. But typically we see "shad runs" in March on up into May. We've seen them as late as June and July. You just never know. One thing that would help suck these shad through is heavy generation. During this cold spell, the most generation we've seen is about 150 megawatts or three units, three-quarters of the maximum capacity of the system. Not sure why operators didn't run it a full capacity with the demand for power. They're now running two units during morning hours and backing it down to less than one in the afternoons. Table Rock is almost a foot below its seasonal power pool of 914 feet. Going forward, our weather looks to be mild and relatively dry, so look for minimal generation with possible periods of no generation. Trout fishing has been pretty good. It does seem like it's much better when generation drops to the 2,500 cubic feet per second flow that we're seeing in the afternoons. Our water temp has dropped from 43 to 41 in the last two weeks and will probably drop even more in the coming weeks. The Elfrink Tournament last weekend did not show quite the weights we've had at the last three contests, but they were still much better than past years. The bright, sunny day with very little wind maybe did not help. Most trout were caught on jigs, but a few of the big trout were caught on jerk baits early in the day. This was a catch-n-release tournament with artificial-only lures and flies. Reports did come in of rainbows caught close to the cable at the dam that were spitting up shad. But because the dam is not running much water, they aren't coming through in droves . . . yet. There's only a little rain in the forecast, so we might not see much generation for a while. A lot of anglers fished a jig or fly under a float. Sculpin/ginger and black were hot colors. Fish them close to the bottom wherever you fish unless it's a cloudy, dark day or the wind is blowing and there's a chop on the surface. Then fish them four-to five-feet deep. Use a small jig -- from 1/125th to a 1/50th-ounce jig and use two-pound line or 6x tippet. Our water is clear enough that two-pound line will make a big difference. Of course, you can use either a fly or spinning rod when fishing a jig and float. There are a lot of trout down in the Branson Landing area, but these are mainly freshly-stocked rainbows. You can catch them on casting spoons and spinners as well as a jig and float. If you're drifting something on the bottom, use just enough weight to get the bait to the bottom and that's all. Just a small split shot will do. Minnows and night crawlers usually catch bigger trout -- those that have been in the lake a long time and are accustomed to eating more natural things. But you'll catch fish on Berkley PowerBai, too, Gulp being the easiest and best to use. Duane and I were talking the other morning about shad kill. There is a good population of threadfin shad living in Lake Taneycomo which we tend to forget about. They live in the lower half of the lake where the water temp tends to be higher, but I wonder how far up lake could you find them? The reason being that they should be dying like in other area lakes. Bass and trout should be feasting on them. We've also talked about below Powersite Dam -- in Bull Shoals. If shad are dying above the dam and getting sucked through the turbines there, walleye and brown trout, among other fish, should be getting a good dose of shad. That sounds like fun! View full article

Saw someone ice fishing on TR (Facebook). When's the last time that happened?! 70's?

Ours is still on... come down and fish for troutskys...

I'll add .heic

-18 on my truck dash this morning at 7 am. It's always colder down here in the valley. Taney's water is down from 43 to 40. Shad don't typically come through the turbines unless they're cranking it... but this isn't typical. I'll yell from the rooftops if we see any.

The bearded one is John McCloskey. He’s on the river guiding his clients this month. And Jason is one of John’s clients from Georgia. I know them both from Alaska.

Yes I was holding my brown out a bit. But I’d say he was about 24-inches.

Put in at Wildcat last evening and fished an hour. Water was dropping out. Caught 9 rainbows and 1 brown on a 1/16-ounce jig. This morning we boated from Wildcat to lower Gaston’s and drifted all the way back, 290 mw, 20,000 cfs. White 1/8-ounce jigs mainly but I caught my brown on an 1/8-ounce sculpin/peach jig, sculpin head.

All big rainbows were released in great shape. Again, saw some very nice trout brought in. Most of these were caught on jigs but the winners, I think they used night crawlers - not sure. No browns weighed in... surprising.