Phil Lilley

I have one more video to post... I spent a little less than 2 weeks at Naknek River Camp and Katmai Trophy Lodge, owned by the Johnson family the first of June. I helped get both places ready for clients - building a new cabin, putting boats in, hauling junk/trash (big job in AK), putting the docks in the river after the ice wiped them out over winter. Opening day on the river was June 8th and I fished the 8th and 9th, mainly in front of NRC. Every year is different... and I haven't been there opening since 2007. But there didn't seem to be the number of big rainbows around like I'm used to. But did catch numbers... alot of small rainbows. Used exclusively my jigs -- black and purple was b y far the best. There are leaches in the river, along with sculpins, lamprey and of course smolt. It was in the high 60's when I arrived and in the 40's when I left - typical AK weather. But it was a great trip. Hope to go back later in the fall... when plane tickets get a lot cheaper! They're double right now to head north.

Where’s Tyler’s pictures

The weatherman has been busy updating his forecast for our area. A few days ago it looked like rain every day this week, with an expected total of more than four inches, which would have sent our lakes soaring upwards and opened the flood gates again. But it's changed -- several times. Most of the rain stopped south of us and moved to the east, although Texas and Oklahoma are expected to be hammered. Beaver Lake is at 1128.6 feet right now and holding. Officials are running water to the tune of about 3,000 cubic feet per second. Table Rock Lake's level has dropped to 917.6 feet Officials there are running about 9,600 c.f.s., and that's keeping the lake steady, barring any more rain. My guess is that we'll see this flow for at least a week or more, especially seeing some rain in the forecast. The water temperature coming from Table Rock is just under 45 degrees. Dam operators ran the spill gates for almost a month, which dumped a fair amount of trout delicacies into our lake -- threadfin shad and other small fry. So fishing with most anything white from the cable below the dam down to the third outlet has netted some great rainbows and a few browns, along with a bass or walleye every once in a while. Right now, scuds rule. Scuds are the nickname for our freshwater shrimp that live in the lake. The scud fly is a hook with fur tied on it, basically, and yes another name for the fly is a "fur bug" or "furbee." We're drifting them on the bottom using a little weight or floating them under a float close to the bottom. We're using sizes 8 to size 10 in gray mostly but rainbow, olive and brown are working well, too. Four-pound line is fine, and the weight size is dictated mostly by location on the lake -- the farther up on the lake, the faster the current is. You need more weight in faster current but less as you drift away from the dam in slower current. As generation slows, and it will, you'll need to switch to less weight, but more importantly, you'll need to use a smaller scud. The trout tend to get educated and start passing on the bigger scuds, A lot of our guides are using a double fly rig with an egg fly and a scud tied about 24 inches apart. You can also try a San Juan Worm instead of the egg. This technique has worked from the dam down well past Trout Hollow Resort. I caught some rainbows yesterday below Trout Hollow on a jig, but they were fat with scuds. I have had limited success lately throwing sculpin 1/16th-ounce jigs on two-pound line above and below Fall Creek. I'm working the middle of the lake and throwing mainly to the shallow side, working the jig pretty slowly. I'm actually catching quality rainbows below Fall Creek, almost as good as those in the trophy area. Fishing off our dock is fair. The water is still running pretty fast, and it's difficult to keep the bait down on the bottom, but people are catching their limits, it just takes a while. Salmon eggs are working pretty well along with night crawlers. View full article

Looks to me they are going to hold TR's level where it is for a while. Beaver - they won't be in a hurry to drop it either.... they never do till later in the summer. The rain forecast has steadily diminished over the last 24 hours. We'll see what comes next week as far as rain but we might be entering our drier summer pattern.

Release them all! I've been telling people for years they don't taste good. Naw... keep the small ones.

We won our first game. Played guys from Spanish Harlem. Fun guys. But we got killed Wednesday. Bunch of college-proven guys that could play! I missed today’s game but they got beat again. One more tomorrow.

Nathan said they got it all fixed. Let me know if anyone has any issues!!

Thanks everyone. We’re in Tampa on the way home. Family is all good. Dave was a blessed man who stepped over to the next step in the driver seat and car keys in hand, just like he wanted it. We’d planned to talk to him next week about his driving...

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