Phil Lilley

57 is awesome! Table Rock will turn when the surface temp drops below the temp towards the bottom. Cold water is heavier than warm water. But it takes allot of colder water to do it.

Our water coming in from TR is 57-58. Surface at the dam has to get at and below that for the lake to turn. This is a good start. It usually doesn't turn till mid December. Hoping for an early turn.

What's the water temperature on the lake... anyone?

Can you guys post water temperatures and locations? I’m curious how much it’s dropped in the last few days. Thanks

Comments say it hasn’t been officially weighed yet but over 45 pounds. One comment - The angler wanted anonymity. I spoke with him again tonight when he came in for a meal & he asked to give his name as Shamus. He caught it on the ohau canal But what he caught it on - I'm sorry, I didn't ask him.

I see it now. This could be the fish. The dorsal looks right. But it's the wrong side to compare markings. Caught 9/19 on a black leech wading below the dam looks like.

The only one that's big enough on our trophy release board is 27 inches and it is not the same fish. I'm going back to the last of September. There's a good chance it is one that was caught and released... it's super hard not to kill big trout this time of year.

Headed down to Grenada, Mississippi last week for some crappie fishing. Duane made the trip last fall and said it was a blast. He and Brother Dave, Dillion Harris and Mike Riffel met us down there. I was with long time friend and Frank the Tank catcher, Paul Crews of Neosho, MO. Paul and I fished with Jacob, a long time guide for https://www.grenadalakecharters.com/ out of Grenada. We started early Friday morning, not traveling far to the boat ramp. Jacob had everything ready including 18 and 20 foot rods and a tank full of gizzard shad minnows. The lake looked very low. Jacob explained that was normal. They draw the lake down in the winter making room for spring rains. We were surprised at the depth of almost all the water we boated to. We fished in 11 to 15 feet of water -- I'd say on a flat but the whole lake was a flat. We didn't fish structure at all although there was some stick ups in one area we fished. The water was turbid but not super muddy. Water temp was 71 degrees and the weather was partly cloudy and 88-90 degrees. Slight breeze out of the south. Jacob set out 4 spider rig poles on each side of the bow, one set for me and one for Paul. The 20's went on the outside edges and the 18's lined the middle. He tied a 2-ounce ball weight on the bottom, using 10-pound line. He added 2 hooks up from the weight about 24-30 inches apart with hooks for the minnows. He hooked them in the lower lip and dropped the lines down anywhere from5 to 9 feet deep, depending on the depth of water and where the fish were holding. We sat in double Millennium Fishing Chairs with a Garmin dual screens in front of us. Yep- he had a Garmin Pantoptic Livescope. I didn't watch the screen Friday -- I watched the rod tips. Paul watched both and so did Jacob. The action was pretty steady all day, catching I'd say about an average of 7 fish per hour. We caught a lot of short crappie and ended the day with 18 keeper crappie ranging from 12 to 16 inches. The length limit on Grenada is 12 inches. Fishing had been slow up to Friday so we were grateful for the luck. The other 2 boats in our party both limited with 30 each. But they didn't catch many short fish. Saturday was the exact opposite of Friday. The temp had dropped into the lower 50's and the wind blew out of the north. We drove around the lake to another ramp to fish a sheltered area, out of the north wind and white caps on the main lake. They said every boat on the lake were in this sheltered area and I believe it. Although the water temp plummeted to 67 degrees over night, we still managed to catch 15 keepers and not many short fish. As the day wore on, the bite got better. We should have started later in the morning and fished the afternoon/evening. I think our party broke the 16.75-inch but didn't make the 17-inch mark. I don't know how much these big slabs weighed but they say this is the home of the 3-pound crappie and I believe it. The lake is absolutely full of minnows -- food base. It has to be to sustain a crappie population like they have. We'd love to go back and cast for them... the guides said these crappie won't hit anything with a minnow on it. I'd love to test that theory with my jigs. May be some day we will.

Did you happen to measure the brown?

Just got back from Genada. Lake is full of fish... lots of gizzard shad and big crappie. I'd like to go back and try some things other than spider rigging. It is an interesting lake though.

Not sure.... I have not talked to Linell. But I know they have a problem keeping boats away from their dock... and they can't seem to keep buoys anchored there in front of the resort.

Anyone else have any ideas. Your operating system or browser doesn't like the forum's something... I don't know enough about this to give any thoughts.

That's most of the reason I haven't been up there fishing in a couple of years. I remember may be night fishing 2018... All week last week, there was ONE guy in a v-bottom boat boating from below the Narrows, to the Narrows and I think up to Lookout -- getting out and wading. He was the ONLY one doing it. He had a mile of awesome wading water all to himself. I have mixed feelings about even writing about it... because I don't want the word to get out. But there again I have been talking about it for years and still... no one wades this area. I personally don't really care about real big trout. I'll take those 15 to 22 inchers all day long and lots and lots of solitude.

Talking to a guy on the lake this morning, fishing up from Short Creek -- he said he's catching fish on a white 1/32nd ounce jig. The lake is super low this morning. Powersite must have generated all night after TR shut down. I've never seen the gravel bar out of the water this much at the Narrows other than when they pull the lake down for maintenance.

Good to see that many medium sized browns.

Time is flying . . . it's fall and fall weather is here! Rain and barely 50 degrees Monday with 6,200 cubic feet per second of water, which is different. They ran one unit all day, again a break from the pattern. Today (10/20), they are running some water later in the day. This was the pattern a couple of weeks ago. We'll see what they do the rest of the week. It's hard to say at this point in time. Trout fishing this past week has been fairly slow for most anglers. Not sure why since the dissolved oxygen content in the lake has been normal for this time of year. Weather has been seasonal with some wind and mild temperatures. But we see this all the time here on this tail water fishery. Our trout seem like they "get smart" every once in a while and decline what we have to offer. The best thing that's been working this past week has been night crawlers, fished on the bottom with a little air injected in them to float off the bottom. The fish will see them easier, quicker and then bite. Four-pound line is still fine. Our water clarity is still a little turbid so they don't see the line. Normally this time of year we're going to two-pound line because the water is much clearer, but not this year. The best areas to fish have been from Fall Creek to Trout Hollow, but there are a lot of rainbows holding in the stretch above our dock here at Lilleys' Landing. Trout have been midging quite a bit, but it's been hard to catch them with the usual flies. I've done fairly well using a black Zebra Midge or a Rusty Zebra, sizes 16 and 18. I'm using 6x tippet and fishing the midges under a small indicator 12 to 36 inches deep. Sunday I added a trailer midge with the first about two feet deep and the second about five feet deep. I caught a couple on the deeper and one rainbow on the shallow fly. I've been fishing the Mega Worm with some success. I'm using the white mainly but also fishing the chartreuse and peach under a float three- to five-feet deep depending on the depth of water. Using 6x tippet, I'm fishing in the trophy area as well as just below Fall Creek. I'm getting a lot of short strikes and missing fish lately. As I instruct those who watch One Cast, keep an eye on the yarn -- make sure it hangs straight off the hook and does not ball up. The Mega Worm comes in two sizes -- 1/80th- and 1/100th-ounce. And it's tied in several colors -- white, peach, pink, yellow and brown. If the water is off, we use the smaller jig head, and if the water is running, the 1/80th-ounce. If the Mega doesn't seem to be staying down in current, add a split shot. You may have to go to a bigger float, too. Use this rig on a fly rod or a spin rod. But the most important thing with using either is keeping up with the slack between the rod tip and float. If the trout bites, you have to be quick on the hook set. And if you have a lot of line out off your rod tip, all you'll be doing is pulling line and not setting the hook. We're throwing marabou jigs with good success, using white, sculpin, sculpin/peach and black. Now that the water is running, we switch to heavier jigs depending on how much water is running. On Monday (10/19), Duane and I boated to the dam to do One Cast. They were running the 6,200 c.f.s. of water I mentioned before. We threw white jigs and did pretty well. Later in the day, I went up and fished a white 1/16th-ounce jig, four-pound line, and caught more nice rainbows. Fishing was actually much better, almost like it was in the spring and summer. At one point I had four casts and four rainbows to the boat. I did catch a couple of warm water species, too -- a nice smallmouth and a really fat spotted bass. Blake was up fishing with Levi late in the day. They were throwing jerk baits and having little success. They also tried a white jig under a float, as did I, again with little luck. These fish were wanting to chase -- we had several follows to the boat. But why white jigs this time of year? It's almost like they're seeing shad or some other small forage fish. If there's a population of warm water fish taking up year-round residence below the dam (bass, walleye) then it's plausible to think there's shad or another small minnow species up there, too, besides sculpin which have always lived lake wide. So if the water is running -- enough to get a boat up to the cable -- you really ought to run up and throw white jigs.

Read through the topic. Bo has had trouble since I updated the forum. He can't see pics or "like" topics/posts. I changed his membership and it didn't help. Thoughts?

I don't know anything about stocking ponds and warm water fish... I wish I did... and would love to have a couple of ponds.

If it's a newer model Yamaha, I bet I know what happened. The tilt lever on these motors is horrible to flip when the motor is in full tilt. All my newer 25's have them and I hate them. I've written Yamaha and told them so. It caused a mom and 2 boys to drift into the island below our dam this spring. They couldn't get the motor down to move. You have to stand on your head and have a rubber wrist to reach the lever and then it's actually hard to flip. My motors are 3 years old I think and they haven't changed the lever... yet.

Well, if you like crappie you should put them in your pond, no matter what anyone says. As a kid, I caught huge crappie in a pond in south OK with my uncle. I caught them as a kid in ponds in Kansas. If I had a pond, I think I'd stock it with crappie and no bass. And minnows... lots and lots of minnows.

We've been enjoying a lot of down water (no generation) here on Lake Taneycomo. Nights and mornings there has been no generation with a little flow added late in the afternoon/evenings for about three hours most days -- just enough to clean out some of the leaves falling from the trees, at least on the upper lake. Dissolved oxygen content on the lake has been fair to good. Most days the level has read at about six parts per million, but I did take a reading the other day that was pretty low -- 3.6 p.p.m.. The fish were pretty sluggish that day. I can't make any sense as to why it's low some days. . . . it just is. Lots of leaves fell today with the wind blowing hard out of the north. Leaves and boat motors don't get along. Leaves will cause a motor to cavitate, which sounds like the motor is slipping out of gear. We tell anglers renting our boats to try not to run through a pile of leaves, explaining that if they do, and the leaves get stuck behind the shaft of the water, it will force air down to the prop and make it spin without power. They are instructed to stop, put the motor in reverse and blow the leaves out. Bugs are on the leaves when they fall in the lake. Fish like bugs. We like to tie flies that looks like bugs. And we like to fish around floating leaves where trout are feeding. I use a small jig-and-float rig when using a spin cast, and if fly fishing, I use a small Zebra Midge under a float. I target trout midging around patches of leaves on the lake, especially in the evening. It's loads of fun. If fly fishing, I'd use either a four- or five-weight rod, nine foot with a light to medium light tip action, weight forward line, 12 foot, 5x tapered leader and 6x tippet. Spin fishing, it's best to use a longer, medium action rod like 6'6" or 7'0." The length of the rod provides more power when you set the hook on a fish. I like the Turner Micro Jig in the half micro or a small marabou jig, as small as 1/125th ounce. We also carry PJ's Finesse Jig, and they do come in two small sizes, perfect for this application -- 1/125th- and 1/50th-ounce. Good colors are black, olive, sculpin, ginger and brown. Good flies would be the Zebra Midge, Prince Nymph, Soft Hackle, or even a small beaded scud if you're fishing close to a bed of pond weeds. I'd use nothing bigger than a size 14. Our water clarity has been dirty lately, so using 6x or 4 pound line is okay, but especially when the sun is out bright and the surface is still, you might need to go to 7x tippet or two-pound line. If there's no chop on the water, you'll need to give the jig a little action by nudging or popping the float every five seconds or so. Look for very subtle movements of the float for the bite and set the hook fast. Fish around the leaves and especially look for rising fish feeding on midges and other bugs on the surface. Target them. You'll find these feeding on the surface trout throughout the lake, not just in the upper lake. You may specifically find them in the Branson Landing area when rainbows are freshly stocked at least once each week of the year. Using the same application as small jigs and Zebra Midges, fish a marabou jig or micro jig under a float but deeper. Also try the Berkley Pink PowerWorm under a float four- to seven-feet deep. Brown caught on a MegaWorm. Guide: Lisa Bellue. We've been doing very well using a Mega Worm under a float, both below and above Fall Creek lately. Same application as the jig and float, fish it either with a fly rod or spin rod and get it close to the bottom. We carry two weights of Mega Worms -- 1/100th- and 1/80th-ounce. The larger of the two is mainly for when the water is running and the smaller is for when there's no generation. Our shop carries several colors -- white, peach, yellow, pink, brown and chartreuse. I've been using the peach and white and catching nice rainbows (no browns yet) on them. I've used them when doing One Cast a couple of times, showing how they work. This is an example of some of the beautiful rainbows we're catching. White jigs have made a comeback. We're throwing 1/32nd- and 1/16th-ounce white marabou jigs using either two- or four-pound line (I use Trilene XL clear or green) and work the jig mid depth or close to the bottom. I've been fishing them in the Fall Creek area, both in and below the Trophy Area. Fishing off our dock has been very good for the past couple of weeks, as well as fishing above and below the dock. Night crawlers are still catching the best rainbows, injected with air so they'll float off the bottom and using four-pound line, #8 bronze hooks and a small split shot.

Thanks for posting, Bob. How's the fishing?

No bats. Three different times, ppl set their car alarms off before going to work... very early. Bet the neighbors loved it.

Boated to the Narrows this morning. Was fishing by 4:30 am. Tried skating a mouse. No takes. Went to my go-to night fly, the blood leech. Caught 19 rainbows before 7 am between 11 and 17 inches. Lots of misses. Moon was bright but not bad. They all fought hard and we’re in great condition. Fat