Phil Lilley

15-16 was the highest for Taney

Looks like BS isn't going to hit flood pool so no changes to this pattern. Amazing the amount of water BS can take, esp at the upper end of the pool.

This was 12 years ago. Back then the talk was about all the concrete being used to fill what people called a "leak" at Beaver Dam. To be honest, I haven't heard anything about it since.

Yes he did. Last time I heard he was up at Pommey. I'll have to go back and read it. Actually all the old threads around flood times would be educational.

Starting to look greener already here. Be clear up lake. Me and Duane will go up to the dam and do One Cast shortly. You'll see how we do. It will definitely all be clear by tomorrow. Well, down to Branson at least. Then there's flood gates... may be tomorrow. We'll see.

Nice. Pretty country.

That's a mature one... pretty.

There's just a slight bump.

Yes

We got 3.25 inches total. BS got killed - 4-6 over the whole lake. I got an email from the Corps this morning. Said most likely see heavy flows this weekend from TR. Should get another email at any time. I will share. I'm hoping for 25,000 cfs or less from TR. That's 15k from turbines and 10k over the top. We can still get on our dock at that flow.

You're right... very stressful. That's why I don't criticize the Corps very often. It's an easy job if you have a crystal ball.

I hear a lot of stories from actual Corps to emergency management people and all of it makes my head spin. And when it spins, I tend to get confused. But... I heard from multiple people that in 2015-16 when the lake got the highest, they considered using the auxiliary spillway. It had something to do with the tailwater release - the elevation of the water and the earthened dam. Or something else on the Taney side of the dam. They felt like they couldn't go any higher for some reason. It had to be something important to be considering "Armageddon". It was something they had not considered previously - like when they built the dam. Again, it could be all smoke too. Nothing official for sure. I do know during the LAST one - 2017? - the fire department guys came down and told me to evacuate. They were throwing around the figure 140,000 cfs. That scared the crap of out us. But of course it didn't happen.

Auxiliary spillway being used would take out all of down town Branson up the hill to the hospital, might take out BS Dam unless they match the flow but then there's the initial push of water they'd have to control. Then everything below BS - how many towns? They (Congress) needs to rethink this whole process. I misspoke... congress doesn't think. A hydrologist engineer needs to come up with a new plan cause this one isn't working.

We've had 2.5 inches so far today but not even close as much west of here - over TR. North - James River - got more but not much over an inch. Another line coming through but it's not dumping a lot of rain, yet. It's moving pretty fast. BS got HAMMERED! 2-5 inches of rain. Just got an email from the Corps saying they are going to release water at TR "this weekend". I don't see how with BS being in its position. TR will get to flood stage sometime in the next 3-4 days unless the rain models are wrong. And so far, for most events, they've understated the rain. I'll get another email later today with specifics.

I will shortly.... I bet.

What a week makes in time. This week on Lake Taneycomo, the water is off, no generation. And even my good friends and fishing guides are asking, "why???". It's pretty simple really. Everything downstream is flooded and there's no place to move the water to without adding to the flood waters. There are 2 reasons why the dam operators would start moving serious water through the White River System: Rainfall runoff would take all 3 lakes to their flood pool levels or The flood waters on the White River at Newport, Arkansas drop to safe levels. Here's some links to sites that are worth watching: https://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/pages/data/tabular/htm/bulsdam.htm https://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/pages/data/tabular/htm/newport.htm https://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/pages/reports/remote/white.htm This one shows, among other things, the percentage of storage for each lake. We normally go by lake level (feet) but when managing the lakes, the Corps goes by percentages. Beaver - 86% Table Rock - 56% Bull Shoals - 88% As you can see, Table Rock Lake has the most room for runoff. Of course, Taneycomo is just a pass-through lake. At the Newport (Ar) gage, you can see it is at 24 and flood stage is 26 feet. Regulating stage is 12 and the 5-year average is 19 feet. As this drops, Bull Shoals will be allowed to release water from its dam and thus starting the chain reaction at the other days... moving water through the system. But this won't happen until the White drops out through the Mississippi River. We're hoping for a dry spell all through the White River Basin. For now, we're seeing either no generation or just a little generation during the afternoon this week. This is a nice change of pace for those who like to fish slower water, or those of us who live to fly fish, we can get out and wade. And yes, fly fishing has been excellent. I've been boating up to the Narrows and Lookout Island, getting out of the boat and wading those areas and fishing a scud, namely a Perfect Scud we carry in the shop made by Jeremy Hunt. I'm fishing a #14 gray using 4x tippet and a small hard foam indicator about 2 to 4 feet deep. The fly is weights and I really don't need a split shot, especially if the water isn't running. There are lots of great quality rainbows at the Narrows right now, as you can see in this video I shot the other day. Watching this on your phone won't give you the full value of this video. The best way to get the most out of it is to go home and watch it on a big screen TV and turn off all the lights. You'll see rainbows beating the gravel for scuds and sow bugs, you'll see them pick them off as they drift down... you'll even see one fish chomp on some rocks and when he spits them out, a small scud comes out of its mouth too. Yes I did run my scud in front of the camera... that was the point of the video. And I did catch a couple in the first 3 minutes. But I got so much more out of just filming the actions of the rainbows as they went about their business rooting out bugs from the moss and gravel. I did catch a lot of rainbows, no browns, on the #14 Perfect Scud both Monday and Tuesday. But I think any other scud pattern will work. In this video, I shot scuds that were trapped in a pool of water. Note the orange in the body. I think it wouldn't hurt to tie a little orange in the body of your fly. I also caught rainbows on a #14 root beer Zebra Midge under an indicator fished any where from 3 to 5 feet deep, 6x tippet. But I had fun stripping a yellow #14 soft hackle on Monday. it was pretty windy and the chop on the water was perfect for stripping anything. I bet a wooly would have worked too. The slow water has put the kabosh on the big brown trout party. Blake has been going out and throwing a jerk bait but it isn't as hot as it has been. Duane's client have been throwing it early with a little success but most of the brown they're seeing are chasing and not hitting and the ones that are hitting and hooked are lost. The best bite is the first and last 60 minutes of daylight. The brown jig with an orange head is reportedly one of the best colors this week, along with the black jig. The trophy area is doing pretty good and so is the Short Creek area. If the water is off, throw a 1/16th-ounce using either 2- or 4-pound or throw a 1/32nd-ounce jig with 2-pound line. Night crawlers has been good for some and poo for others. I personally have a love-hate relationship with them. They bite them but I can't get a good hook set of them. But there's been nice trout caught this week so far on them. Tubby Johnson from Oklahoma caught this nice 22-inch brown on a worm one evening this week fishing with his grandson, Hunter. Power Eggs are working when the water is running. An orange/white combination did well for those drifting from Cooper Creek down to Monkey Island. The Berkley Pink PowerWorm on a small jig head fished under a float 5 to 6 feet deep down around the bridges and the Branson Landing has been "gold" for most of the fishing guides. Duane's clients the other day landed 22 "doubles". That's when both clients have fish on at the same time. Use 2-pound line for best results but 4-pound is probably ok. View full article

I see they added it to the app - that's awesome.

Problem is they don't keep that updated very well, esp on Beaver. They've been running 11,000 cfs over the top but the app shows 0 release. You can't tell unless you know how to read the tailwater level. I got this email yesterday- As you are aware, the lakes are high. The four-lake system is above 80% full and rising, with less than four feet of flood storage remaining for Beaver, Bull Shoals and Norfork. Downstream regulating stages are 10 feet above normal and rising as well. We currently have no plans to increase releases from the lakes. Doing so would require a deviation from the WCP and would be detrimental to our Flood Risk Management mission. This is the reason we have a surcharge pool. When rainfall occurs in the basin the runoff is estimated by the forecaster. When enough runoff is forecasted to fill the flood pool, the surcharge may begin. To get to a surcharge situation we would need around 1.5" above Beaver, 2" above Table Rock, 3" above Bull Shoals and 1" above Norfork. The current QPF estimate for Thursday - Tuesday is around 1.5" widespread. This would be enough to require Beaver and Norfork to spill somewhere around 10,000 cfs each depending on the timing and rate. This amount could also drive Table Rock within 0.5 foot of surcharge and Bull Shoals within 2 feet.I will send out another update after my call with NWS on Thursday. By then we should have a better idea of total precip and timing of the storms. Feel free to call if you have any questions.

Cool

And with those positive comments, and the fact that this topic has run its course (and then some), I think I'll end it here. There's a bunch of great fishing going on!!! We want to hear about it. Thanks, guys!!!!

Filmed at the Narrows about 1 p.m. 5/19/20. The first try, I set the GoPro on the bottom. A trout knocked it over. So the second try, I set it in my bell anchor so it was just off the bottom. Much better. I couldn't believe how awesome this turned out. Just watched it on my big screen TV... make sure it's set to 1080p HD. When I set the camera the second time, the water had just started running. You can see the current pick up. I fished a scud in front of the camera and you can see 2 fish hooked but I was surprised to see my bug wasn't getting close to the bottom. Next time, I'll use a bigger scud and more weight!

Well things have changed... at least for now.