Phil Lilley

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.

When I start my fishing reports, the first thing I do is look at Beaver and Table Rock Lake levels plus generation flows, then I can gauge what Lake Taneycomo's flow should be in the near future. Right now Beaver is holding at 1,120.37 feet, just above its seasonal power pool level of 1.120 feet. Operators are running water for about eight hours a day, but the level isn't moving either way. Table Rock is running about 7,000 c.f.s. or two full units 24/7 and its level isn't moving much either. It's almost 12 inches over its pool. My forecast for Taney's flow is more of the same for at least a week, but I wouldn't be surprised if the flow dropped to one unit for a time, maybe this weekend. There's very little rain in the seven-day forecast, so when Table Rock drops close to 915 feet, we may see a serious reduction in flow. Phil Stone's client with a beautiful rainbow caught on a night crawler a couple of days ago. Released. With this 7,000 c.f.s. flow, drift fishing is the norm. But you can do so many things drift fishing. Drift something on the bottom like bait (minnows & night crawlers are best, as well as Gulp Eggs, pink PowerWorm) or flies (egg fly, scuds, shad fly) or small jerk baits. Drift and throw marabou jigs. Drift and fish something under a float like a pink PowerWorm or a marabou jig. Drift and cast a jerk bait, cleo or spinner. Drift and fly fish stripping a streamer or floating a scud under a float. What's the best? The best is the technique you enjoy the most and catch some fish with. Do we always catch? Nope. But it's always fun. What's been working lately? We threw 1/16th- and 3/32nd-ounce jigs yesterday afternoon on One Cast and did pretty well. But I noticed I had better luck using two-pound line over four-pound. I haven't been using two-pound much, but our lake water is getting pretty clear, so it may make a difference in some applications as when throwing jigs. We did catch fish on white and sculpin/peach in the trophy area, but later towards evening I threw a 1/16th- ounce ginger jig with a brown head down closer to the resort and caught some really nice rainbows. I stayed towards the middle of the lake and worked the bottom. Today's One Cast verifies my ginger jig story. Some of our guides have been out this week. They're drifting below Fall Creek and using night crawlers and catching some nice rainbows and an occasional brown trout. Our Missouri Department of Conservation recently stocked about 15,000 brown trout averaging about 10 inches. These trout won't have a lot of color and may resemble rainbows. You'll need to look closely to see whether you have hooked a brown or rainbow. Browns won't have many or any spots on the tail and a rainbow will have lots of spots. View full article

MDC added boulders a few years back and they've created pockets in the gravel where fish hold. I'm not if anything further can be done except put more boulders. It does no good to dig out gravel because it will fill back in. And smaller riprap rock will move when they open flood gates creating possible something that will hurt instead of help the tailwater. The best thing MDC can do is shore up the banks directly below the dam so that more gravel won't wash in when the flow is high.

Pretty little thing... caught 2 of them. Perfect bait fish size. We took the kayaks out today - should have done this earlier in the week. Ended up with 19 trout. Mostly "stocker" size, but fun to catch. Caleb caught a few too. Moving out past the grass line was the ticket. Lots of fish out there that would hit my jig!

Caleb and I went out in the kayaks this afternoon and got out past the moss line. Caught a lot of speckle trout, not very big but lots of fun.

What’s this?

Front moved through last night. Cooler and windy this am with wind out of the north. But still in the 60's. Not complaining. High tide last night at midnight. I went out to the pier at 10:30 and fished for an hour. I finally was able to get bit, catching a speck, 2 catfish and 3 lady fish. Had my line cut once. All on black 1/8th ounce jigs. All released.

Here you go John. Identify this.

Thanks. I released it. Was something else with the 4 pound line. I was ready to break it off if he made a long run. Caught a croaker and a catfish this evening. Saw another dolphin. I tried shrimp, trying to catch some fish for the kids but nothing... strange nothing would touch shrimp. I thought everyone likes shrimp!!

Can you see these videos?

https://www.facebook.com/503474464/posts/10160598525694465/?d=n

https://fb.watch/3fR_rqLOhC/

Not my first speckled trout. But first in a long time

Englewood