Phil Lilley

A new generation pattern may be emerging this weekend. We've seen no generation for several weeks now but as the dissolved oxygen in Table Rock Lake diminishes, the need for constant generation appears. The question is whether or not it will continue for the next few weeks. The dam operators have been running 35 to 50 megawatts of power this weekend all day and all night. This is 2 units moving water at 2,400 to 3,600 cubic feet per second. Water temperature remains at 57-58 degrees coming out of Table Rock. Dissolved oxygen readings last week ranged from 4 to 6 parts per million which is not bad. You may see trout become inactive at times as well as not fight as hard because of low oxygen. But this is normal for this season below a tailwater... we deal with this every year. Seasonal Issue: Low Dissolved Oxygen and Restricted Flows Fly fishing up below the dam has been outstanding. I haven't personally talked to anyone who's been fishing up there lately so I can't say what's been working but from the pics on Facebook I've seen, they're catching a lot of nice rainbows and browns. The selection would include the usual flies -- scuds, sow bugs, S.J. worms, midges, streamers and sculpins. Streamer fishing seems to be very good, mainly because of the rainbow trout hatch that we're seeing evidence of on the lake. Historically, trout do not have a successful spawn on the lake but we're seeing a lot of small, 2.5 to 3-inch rainbows everywhere on the upper lake so that tells us we did have a hatch. For more information on fly fishing in the wading area below the dam, I've written an article and updated to reflect some changes in the upper lake. Here's the link - Fly Fishing Lake Taneycomo Here's some information on water levels and wading possibilities below the dam - Wading and Water Levels Also visit the Fly Fishing Lake Taneycomo Facebook Page With 2,500 to 3,500 c.f.s. water running, you can boat all the way to the cable BUT you have to know the channel AND be a bit lucky to get there without hitting anything. Plus, if they're running as little as 2,500 c.f.s., you'll be blowing through a lot of anglers wading up close to the dam. Of course if you have a jet engine, you can get up there with little issues as long as you don't get into areas where you'd suck up gravel. But in my opinion, there's plenty of great fly fishing water below the outlet area. If you venture up as high as Trophy Run, you'll find some great jig fishing in that area. Use the straight line method and 2-pound line to throw 1/32nd and 1/16th-ounce jigs. Best colors are white, white/black, sculpin and sculpin/peach (orange head) and black/sculpin. From Lookout Island down to Fall Creek, use the same setup but might go a little heavier - 3/32nd-ounce jig. I'd also try tri-olive dark and an olive/ginger colors. Work from the middle to the channel side of the lake. If you see trout working the surface on the shallow side of the lake, throw a light 1/32nd-ounce jig and work it close to the surface. Fly fishing, fishing a nymph or midge under a float is working, drifting from Lookout to Fall Creek. They are taking smaller scuds - size 16 to 18 in shades of gray, olive and tan colors. They're also taking small zebra midges in red, black and white. Best size are 14's to 18's, depending on how picky they are. Fishing them an average of 5 fee deep if fishing mid to channel side and 2 to 3 feet if fishing the shallow side. If there's a chop on the surface and you see fish midging, striping something... a soft hackle, crackleback, wooly, a leech. Throw and skate a dry like a Renegade or an Elk Hair Caddis. Stay with size 14's to #18's for the emergers and #10's an 12's for the streamers. I haven't been doing well on dries lately but I'd keep an eye out for rising fish along the bluff banks. If you see action, shoot an ant or beetle at them. If they're taking bugs under the trees, they'll surely take a nice dry fly offering. Try a mega worm under a float, either fly or spinning outfit. Use 2-pound line or 6x tippet and fish it 4 to 6 feet deep. Best colors are white or peach. Watch One Cast daily for a current fishing report Night fishing has been popular lately, for good reason. Both browns and rainbows seem to be feeding heavily after dark, especially up in the trophy area. I've taken a boat up above the Narrows and thrown a streamer with good results. I usually cast a Mo Hair Leech in red or purple, #12 using 4x tippet and a 6 weight, 9 foot fly rod. The takes are fast and strong so hold on to you rod. Below Fall Creek, the same marabou jigs apply along with drifting scuds, midges and stripping streamers. Use heavier, 1/16th- to 1/8th-ounce jigs in deeper water and you can get away with using 4-pound like when using these heavier jigs. Night crawlers are still catching mostly rainbows. Again, 4-pound line is fine when using bait. Use just enough weight to get the bait to the bottom, especially if drifting. Sometimes this means using a very small split shot. You don't want it hanging on the bottom when bouncing. Inject air in the worm, floating it off the bottom where a fish are see it quicker. Use only a half worm and hook it once in the middle using a #8 short shanked bronze hook. Salmon eggs and Powerbait is working too. Best colors have been pink and white. Gulp Eggs are good along with Pautzke's salmon eggs with gold glitter. If you're keeping fish, make sure you're running your live well all the time or your trout will die because of the low dissolved oxygen. If you're catch and releasing, don't touch the fish or keep it out of the water for very long at all. Cut the line if the fish swallows the hook... it has a much better chance surviving. If you're fishing for and catch trophies up in the fly water, don't fight the fish to death. Use a net and land it as quick as possible. Don't take it out of the water at all unless you're going to take a quick picture. Don't Catch, Kill and Release. View full article

This place is a real gem. Beautiful lake, great amenities and very good rates for what you get. The lake is full of structure - cedar trees dot the shores. Both steep and shallow banks. Info says it has gizzard shad but no mention of threadfins. No crawfish... my son in law set traps and didn't come up with anything. We found brush piles and cedars with fish but couldn't get them to bite very well. Did catch blue gill, small spots and a few nice crappie. Tried to buy minnows but everyone was out. Had the lake to ourselves Wednesday and Thursday and most of Friday... that was crazy. No structures in view on the lake except the park/put-in... only trees and the Boston Mountains. The cabins we stayed in were awesome. 2-bedroom 2-bath, big roomy great room with kitchen. We're booking 4 cabins next fall for a week - at least. $150 a night - can't beat it. The lodges were closed due to Covid... so the whole park was pretty quiet. The campground was busy but it was on the other side of the visitor's center. Hardly any birds in the woods around the cabins... that was strange. Lots of deer.

@timsfly Tim Homesley said he did very well fishing below the dam this morning. Caught a lot of nice rainbows including a 23 incher.

Headed there with the family this week. Not sure how much fishing we'll do but probably will go blue gill fishing with the kids. Anyone fish it?

Didn't see much activity until I got down below the rootwad - or the Big Hole. As the sun came up, I saw quite a few big trout, probably browns, jumping further down lake, more like in the Rocking Chair hole. Did see a few 20 inch browns work their way up to the skinny water. Going to have to come up with new names for that area... there's no rebar hole anymore... and the stump isn't in play either. Most of the water comes over the bar, down the middle of the lake basically. It was the first time I'd been up there with the water off during the day in about 2 years.

Woke up early this morning. Drove to the dam with a couple of spinning rods and jigs and my DO meter. Didn't do much as far as fishing. Took readings from above outlet #1 down to the "big hole". They are all labeled. The one that really surprised me was the .2 reading above outlet #1. I rebooted the meter a couple of times to make sure something wasn't wrong with it. Of course, as I moved down and took more readings, I knew it was working correctly. I didn't see any sculpins - nothing - above outlet #1, of course. But from outlet #1 down I saw plenty of fish -- sculpins and small rainbows. Some of the rainbows were as small as 2 inches long.

I know I'm stating the obvious to boaters who know... it's boating 101. Port to Port. I see ppl on this lake all the time cutting across to my right instead of staying on their right. They see a straighter line instead of staying port to port. They don''t know. We balk at the boater's license here at the marina because there's a lot of young adults that want to rent a boat and can't because we can't issue the temp license - because they've already been issued one (that's the limit - one) and they won't take the time to get the real license. But may be everyone should be required to take some kind of simple exam of basic boating navigation.

You should be able to click "Add files" and choose your pics. But not sure on the 5.

I mentioned this on today's One Cast but thought I'd write it out here. It's somewhat interesting. Yesterday the fishing was just fishing, no catching. No one hardly. We had some video work done for a commercial and tried to catch some picture fish for it... I fished most of the morning without a bite. Blake even tried behind the dock and only caught one. I took a DO reading at the dock - 3.6 ppm. 58 degrees. Not good. Took several more in different locations - no better than 3.9. They started running water, 2 units. I boated to the dam and took another readying - 3.7 ppm. Still not good. Catching improved but only slightly. I sent all the readings to Shane Bush (MDC fisheries biologist). He was concerned. Not sure if he called someone at the Corp but the Corp caught it and changed how they run water. Shane forwarded me this email this morning - So my guess - and that is all it is - is that the Corp had not been injecting liquid oxygen and caught it, changing the nameplate. Now they can and will run water at 32 MW without injecting O2 but if they run more, then they'll have to inject. Already seeing a change in fishing today. I got 4.9 this morning at the dock and up by Lookout.

BS dropped 6 inches in 24 hours... guess they're in a hurry. Nice catches.

I put in on TR this morning to take a couple of boys fishing..... had scuds swimming around in my livewell.

Map - pre Table Rock Lake. Cool find. There's a dock at the mouth of Swan Creek, what's the name? Lots of texts there I'd love to read. See the names of spots, what they were called back then. Even the golf course on E76 - I used to play there. It's where Holiday Hills is now but it was 9 holes and there was an a-frame near the road that was the "club house". Very rocky course.

I would think with high water for the last few years and minimal fishing pressure, BS should be fishing quite well.

I changed the font - this looks to be the darkest, boldest. I applied for a phone app (invision). Never saw this option before. Might be interesting.

I think I increased the overall font size. See if this made a difference.

On your phone or computer?

Ads - they're all over my screen. Played with the settings a long time ago, then tried to dial them back because it seemed they were overbearing. I seemed everything I tried I couldn't get rid of most of them except turning them all off. I don't think I'm making any more money by having them all up... I'll try to get rid of some of them again and see what happens. I could try to change the skin... This was a "major" upgrade with lots of new additions. But I should have learned... if it's not broke, don't fix it. It was fine the way it was. But I can't go back now.

Yes I have... no big ones.

Anyone else? Not sure I can do that from my end.

Unedited... I wanted to get this out because there's some interesting info about small rainbows and the shocking survey from last night. I may add more and of course, some might be edited after Marsha gets through with it Generation has all but halted on Lake Taneycomo this week, something we haven't seen for a couple of years! With no flow comes the new reality of what the lake now looks like at low water... and it's changed quite a bit. We have noticed that the lake seems lower than it used to be, but again, it's been a long time since we've seen this and ALOT of water has gone over the dam in those 2-3 years. It's changed the bottom in many areas, especially in the trophy area. Just below the dam, the gravel has moved down and filled in holes. Runs have moved, changed. It's changed where fish hold. It's changed how anglers fish the wading areas below the dam. But more thing has changed -- the trout today are much bigger and healthier than they've been in many, many years. The channel at the Narrows is much narrower and not as deep. Some of our guides have said they've hit bottom trying to go through. There's a big gravel island at the Narrows too - one you can get off and wade from! The gravel is covered with algae but it's also full of bugs - sow bugs, little worms and scuds. There's sculpin all over the bottom too. Pondweed. It's an aquatic vegetation that grows all over our lake in the summer. It's a real menace on the lower lake, choking off docks and banks. But up here, it houses tons of bugs and small fish. Lately, we've seen quite a few small rainbows. When I say small I mean 3 to 5 inches long. These trout are full finned, beautiful colors, and appear to be naturally spawned in the lake, not stocked. There's been some discussion on this, guides, locals and conservation experts. One thought makes sense. We've had a good, natural spawn this last winter/spring, which may or may not happen each year. Because of the additional pondweed in the lake, especially in the trophy area, these rainbows have survived being eaten and are thriving. Thursday night, Missouri Department of Conservation officials performed a shock survey in which several boats shocked, took measurements and released fish in the upper lake. One thing they found is when they shocked the pondweed beds, it would light up with small fish - rainbows, chubs, sculpins and other small forage fish. Oxygen readings since the water hasn't been running have stayed well above 6 parts per million which is good. Fish are fighting real well with no signs of faltering. But we have noticed with people who use live wells that don't keep the water running all the time on their catch, those fish die pretty quick. Keeping trout out of the water for a long time will stress it to the point it will not survive release. Please don't ~Catch, Kill and Release~. Be very careful with your catch if you want to release them. Cut the line if the hook is buried in the fish's mouth. Handle them with a wet hand or a wet cloth, if you have to handle them at all. There's been a lot of algae break off the bottom and float to the surface. We see this every year about this time. It can be a pain to fish through but it doesn't hurt the fish. We've noticed with rainbows have sought the cover of this stuff and take midges off the surface right in the middle of it. We've been catching these feeding trout on several small lures under a float any where from 6 inches to 5 feet deep. I've been fly fishing and using Zebra Midges, size 16 in bright red and green, the P&P (primrose and pearl), brown and even white. The olive micro jig has been working good as well as the Berkley Pink Worm. Use 2-pound line for the best effort but 4-pound line is good. Our water clarity isn't the best since they aren't running much water. Night crawlers are still king of the big trout and the hot area is from the Riverpointe Estates boat ramp to Short Creek. Use 4-pound line, a small split shot and a #8 short shanked, bronze hook. I'd put the shot about 18 inches above the hook and use half a worm, hooking it one time in the middle and inject a little air in the worm using a syringe. This will float the worm off the bottom. With the water off, we're throwing 1/32nd ounce jigs using 2-pound line and doing pretty well working the jigs close to the surface, especially during low light times - early, late and on cloudy days. Dark colors are working the best - black, olive, sculpin, brown and combination colors. Keep switching till you find the one they want. View full article

Had one issue so far... repaired. Any more? Let us know.