Phil Lilley

Q sent me this report so I'm passing it on. He and his dad fished Wednesday (yesterday) and did well- bring home 25 and leaving a bunch of short fish. Here's what he had to say - 1/16 oz. chartruese jig head with a smoke colored swimming minnow. Fish were scattered here and there. Honestly they were anywhere between two and 15 ft deep. I don't have a depth finder but that is my best guess. No structure, at least that I could see. We were working the jig painfully slow. Some were on the bank, and some were out deeper. They were not in any one certain pattern.

You're so funny... just because I don't get up at 5 am like you-- but you still get your 8-9 hours in buddy-boy. And it's 8 am at church Sunday for prayer- so there! Fishing... WORK?! Come on! Cleaning, taking care of people at the lodge, cooking, more cleaning - that's work. That just means Becky wears the pants in your house- buddy! You got it made!

Are you a drag fisherman? Are you slipping out in Becky's clothes again and screaming up and down the lake like a crazed ban chi again... I thought theapy had helped this time. Oh well... there's always hope.

You may research the "worker ant hatch" there. I heard about it when I was there last summer. It happened during the first good rain in July I understand. They're huge black ants that come out of the ground and are thick... they get in the river and the fish go nuts on them. I guess they use the big ant patterns and the fish explode on them. But you never know when it's going to happen.

Man- I love fishing below Truman and would like nothing more to get up there and fish a day. If anyone gets a chance- go. It's great fishing.

Thanks for jumping in. It's good to have your viewpoint on things living here so long and seeing all the changes.

You might want to look at this topic http://ozarkanglers.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1890 It's the best info we've had on the forum in a week or so... and it's been consistant- deep water, trees, suspended 12-16 feet deep.

May be just me but I think it's staged... Shufflers.... shuffling spin rods.... Looks like a couple of C of O boys playing hookie.

I got out there on June 26 last summer and just caught the river right after they shut the flow down from the spring runoff. If you're there too early, the river is high and tough to wade. So keep in touch with the guys out there and don't go too early.

Crappie? That's great!

We are waiting on a couple of things... one is getting internet strung to the shop on the dock and another is training Jerry to use the forum. Hopefully by the end of the week we'll have this up and running. It's going to be cool!

The lake has cleared up but the images may seem dark. The west side of the dock is in the shade till afternoon... but the later in the evening the sun really brightens it up. We've noticed since the rains and muddy water alot of trout moved out but as of this morning some have come back. The 11 pound rainbow that was caught over the weekend was certainly the fish trout we'd been watching under the dock for a month or two. But this morning I've seen a couple in the 3-4 pound range. Lots of creek chubs in the afternoon- cool to watch.

New beginnings... that's the theme for this report. After a weekend of rain, Table Rock rising almost 3 feet, the Corp has changed it's format on generation, at least for now. On May 1st, they ran water from 5 am till 10 pm at one unit, 3 feet or about 1200 cfs steady. It pushed all the warm, murky water clear down to Branson and left us with cold, clear water. Tonight they are running one unit again-- they have said they are going to run one unit for an hour every day. We'll see. What did it do to the fishing? Made it a bit easier at least. All the crud floating on the surface has thinned out- not dissappeared altogether but it is better. I fished a bit this evening and the trout seemed to be fairly responsive to my jig and certianly to the zebra midges I threw. I threw a 1/16th oz white jig for an hour before dark tonight--started at Andy's house and worked the channel, working the jig slowly, close to the bottom. I love using a white jig with the water so clear. You can see the jig even 7-8 feet deep and when it dissappears you set the hook. Most of the time I didn't feel a thing but they were there. I caught a dozen rainbows, no browns, on the jig. Caught about the same on a zebra before I switched to a jig- was hoping for a bigger trout on a jig which I didn't really get. Nothing over 14 inches. They were aggressive on the zebra and slow on the jig. Rolan Duffield, our photo forum leader, fished Sunday and Monday and caught alot of rainbows- Sunday in the wind, no generation, he did the best on a 1/100th oz orange headed sculpin jig under a float 5 feet fishing right on the bottom. He fished from Andy's house to the Narrows. On Monday he said the best was a 1/100th oz pink jig drifted under a float in the same water. We are forecasted to get more rain in the next 3 days. We'll see how much and how far TR will come up. The more the better for generation this summer. We need about 8 nore inches.

Got a good laugh from this one... very clever.

Is that a website or publication?

Ealy- thanks for the post. I added your club to the warmwater fishing club list at http://ozarkanglers.com/fishing_clubs.php Let us know if we can do anything else for the club.

My wish list- run it 4 units for an hour, not one unit for 18 hours. Need to blow it out. But obviously, it wasn't on their wish list. Do turbines need to be ran every once in a while, like we run our generator once a week? May be they should read their manual.

Brian and I have been talking about contests for OAF. Photo contest is one we considered. But without setting parameters yet, it's alittle premature to start one. We have to talk further. And about other contests too.

I think the dam's stuck.

Well, they did start running water today (May 1) but it's been running for more than an hour. According to the corp's site, it started at 5 am and is still running between 1400-2000 cfs, about 1 unit. It's really cleared out the water at our place which we are grateful. Haven't heard how it's affected the fishing yet.

If you're looking for a search engine for the forum, there is one at the top right of the index page. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're refering to.

Chris Vitello, MDC, dropped me the following email just a few minutes ago. SWPA hasn't been generating much so as to conserve water for July and August. In lieu of generating now, they're purchasing energy for their customers from other sources. As a reminder, "fishwater" releases begin 1 May at Table Rock. That'll be about one unit for about one hour each day as a minimum. This is good news!!

Darrel Meyer of KC got a surprise catch Saturday in the rain... a once-in-a-lifetime surprise. An 11 lb 5 oz beautiful rainbow biting at his line. He was fishing just upstream from our dock using power bait when luck struck. Not many other details at this time. Four pound line was mentioned to land the beast. Meyer was here at Knox Presbyterian church's annual men's retreat here at Lilleys'.

We only hiked up 1/2 mile- it's good fishing all the way up. Lots of rainbows and dollys and whatever salmon is running at the time. Costs- not sure. Crowds- there will be some because it's so easily accessable. But the days we fished we didn't see very many people.

We were there the first week in August. The campground there is very big and I'd say it was only 10% full if that. You can hike all the way to the falls- the line you're refering to. I think they said it was 2 miles. Lots of bears up there- they say. We saw one - The Russian River Sockeye Run