Phil Lilley

I see the Corps pages and app is not working... sometimes when it rains it goes down for a while. BUT I see the USGS river gages are not working either. Don't tell me they've "closed" to the point of not providing that information to the public! Did they do that during the last "shut down"? I thought USGS did but not the Corps?!

Almost 1.5 inches of rain this morning. Looks like NW Arkansas didn't get as much. North of Table Rock got more. It rained hard here several times. Beaver will have to release everything coming in... I'm not sure at what point/level they'll increase the release at TR... App is down so I can't tell what the lakes are doing but it's early. Wait and see. We may start pulling pontoons out just in case.

I have written fishing reports on the internet for Lake Taneycomo for the past 25 years . . . but this report feels very eerie. Why? Because I'm not really writing for anyone who's coming to fish the lake anytime soon. For that reason, I have to write it coming from a different perspective. May be it will look the same. . . I don't know. The whole White River basin received a big rain on Friday, one that was not forecast. Most of the area received four inches of rain while some netted six inches or more. Beaver Lake jumped up past its flood pool of 1,130 feet so officials have been dumping more than 16,000 cubic feet of water per second since Saturday morning. That lake is now below 1,129 feet, falling fairly rapidly. But this, in turn, is adding to Table Rock Lake. Last time this happened, officials cut back on the release when Beaver hit the 1,128.5 feet mark which will be today. We'll see what they do. Table Rock has come up over six feet since Friday and is still rising about four inches a day. Dam operators are running 20,000 cubic feet of water per second through Table Rock Dam presently and will continue for at least a week. This is while the weathermen are forecasting more rain this week -- up to two inches in some places. Table Rock's level is up over 923 feet. I think our flood gates at Table Rock Dam have been opened more in the past year than any other year in its history. Now I don't have statistics to back that up, but since they were open quite a lot in October through December and then again in February and now March, I'd say I'm safe with that assumption. Besides a good run last March and a few here and there other times, we've haven't seen threadfin shad coming over the top. Not until this week. Starting Tuesday of last week, shad started pouring over the spill gates in Lake Taneycomo, delighting those fishing that day. But the shad continued into Wednesday, and Thursday, and our trout quickly stomached their fill of shad flies and white jigs. Fishing got tough, at times. But then we started to see periods of no shad and the bite started again. This past weekend, the bite was on most of the time, although in the middle of the day it slowed down. It could have been because of the influx of boat traffic up close to the dam. Sometimes that drives the fish down, and they don't bite. But still, most people were catching big, fat rainbows and loving it. When it slowed, the trick was to keep the white 1/8th-ounce jig or the shad fly on the bottom where the fish were holding. During feeding times, it seemed like you didn't have to do anything special except drop the jig or fly into the lake. So just about anything white was hot. We're using white jigs and white shad flies but then we're using combination of colors with white and something else like blue, gray, olive or pink. We're also dragging small stick baits on the bottom, too. They're not hitting scuds or San Juan worms anymore -- not right now and I really not sure why. Usually the San Juan does well in high water after a big rain. There was so many shad that came over the dam that Blake Wilson from our staff saw some all the way down at the lower dam on Taneycomo -- Powersite Dam. They'd drifted all 22 miles of the lake. Since fish throughout the lake were fed some threadfins this week, there's nothing wrong with throwing that white jig throughout the lake, not just in the trophy area. We're pulling the boat up in slack water different places and working the white jig in both the seam, where the fast and slow water meet, and in the slower, eddy water and doing very well. Here's a One Cast video where I did just that. Captain Rick Lisek had his clients drift shad flies from the mouth of Fall Creek down to Trout Hollow on Sunday, catching their limits of nice rainbows. That's not surprising at all knowing our trout have seen these shad throughout the lake now. Nathan Bolerjack of our staff fished with me Monday and, while doing One Cast, took some pictures of rainbows we caught using my Photarium, a plexi-glass tank made for holding and photographing fish in. Although the catching was slow, we managed a few pretty rainbows to photograph. I've sprinkled the report with the pics. And here's a walleye we float alive but floating below the dam. Took a pic and put her back. She swam away - hopefully it survived the 200 foot fall... it was pretty shook up. View full article

I don't think Duane filled my spot... so if anyone wants to go. April 1-3. Granada Lake

My phone is down... got wet doing One Cast last evening. It's my life blood to seeing what's going on but with a little work I've found Beaver has topped their flood pool level at 1130.1 feet and it's releasing 11,000 cfs of water. Table Rock is at 921.1 feet and is releasing 20,000 cfs. It is rising .1 feet per hour - I think they may increase our flow and that will put my dock off limits.

No it will not go down, less release. There's actually a good chance they will release more. The area received 4-6 inches of rain. That's a lot for one basin to handle. Tons of shad still coming over the dam but the trout are stuffed and not biting as well. We caught 6 nice rainbows this evening on white jigs. Need more time to figure it out.

At 5 p.m. today the Corps will go from 5 to 10 gates open 1 foot each. The release rate will change from 15,000 to 20,000 c.f.s.. With the rains ending about 5 p.m., this increase will add to the already high levels at the Branson Landing and Rockaway Beach. It will eventually drop out during the night tonight. I expect more increases tomorrow as both Beaver Lake and Table Rock Lake rise. The Corps already said flows could go as high as 30,000 c.f.s. before this event is over.

We’re on round three today. Already 2.25 inches here with up to 4 inches in NW Arkansas. Beaver Lake is jumping and will be at 1130 feet tonight. Table Rock has room but they’ll have to open the gates up past 20,000 I bet. No rain after this for a while... That’s a blessing. Poor Bull Shoals.

Scuds are gray, tan, olive and cream. When they die they turn orange. I'd keep them all.

Creeks will be cleared out by tomorrow I think. Temp drop won't do anything to the fishing. Shad coming over the dam now for 24 hours. Tons of them. The Corps will increase the flow today after this rain. Probably from 15 to 20,000 cfs. Again, won't affect the bite. Dock fishing will be very tough. Some won't like the extra current in boats. We got an inch this morning.

Great attitude! Thanks for posting.

Just wanted to put it out there. We're cancelling the CAM tournament for the 28th. We will try to reschedule for later in the year.

Posted this on Facebook yesterday. Thankfully it is something we can still do.

Spring isn't here yet, but the rain has arrived in the Lake Taneycomo area. Moderate showers continue to move through our area the past four days, bringing our lake up after a week of dropping levels. We're not in trouble -- not even close. But that does mean heavy generation for the next week or more. At Table Rock Dam, one unit is still not able to be operated so the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers is spilling water over five gates at 1,000 cubic feet per second each presently. With three full units running that's 15,000 c.f.s. total, equal to four full units. Table Rock's lake level is at 916.7 feet and rising. On Sunday, Duane Doty and I boated to the dam to see whether our trout would bite a white jig. With the increase of flow over the gates, we were hoping threadfin shad were being washed from Table Rock into Lake Taneycomo. We didn't do that well. Monday morning, though, Duane said he saw several shad in the water below the dam while on a guide trip. So I ran up there to give it a try. While doing One Cast, my first drift down only yielded one rainbow, but it was very fat. On my second drift, I saw several shad in the water, plus I figured out what I think I doing wrong. Using an 1/8th-ounce white jig, I threw out to the side while drifting and let the jig just drift, not working it at all. If I felt it hit the bottom, I'd jerk like setting the hook. Sometimes it was the bottom ,but six times it was a rainbow. And these rainbows were all great trout, measuring between 16 and 19 inches. I needed to get and keep the jig on the bottom since that's where they are. On a really good shad bite, those trout will come all the way to the surface for a threadfin. It's crazy good. But I guess they haven't seen enough shad to make the switch. But we're grateful they're seeing any at all right now. We've been having a terrible time with moss on the bottom of the lake, especially in the Trophy Area. About anything you drift with, if it's on the bottom, gets covered up and the fish won't bite. But with this bigger flow, you can hear the gravel on the bottom of the lake turning and churning in the current, so I guess the moss is all broken free, which is much better for fishing. Captain Tony Weldele, reported that drifting a scud and egg fly from Andy's house down to Fall Creek was excellent Monday afternoon with no problem with moss on the flies. That's huge for drift fishing! We should start seeing less moss below Fall Creek very soon because the gravel will shift with this much flow. The creeks have been on fire lately, with the exception of the periods after these rains. Monday morning and into the afternoon, the creeks flowing into upper Lake Taneycomo were all blown out, but should all be fine and excellent for fishing today. Captain Duane said his clients caught more than a hundred rainbows the other day in Roark Creek, mostly on the Berkley Pink Worm under a float. Captain Steve Dickey said the same thing. You can also catch them on a Berkley's Gulp egg on a small jig head under a float, too. Drifting Berkley's Power Bait eggs or Gulp eggs on the bottom from our place down is producing good catches. We saw several boats drift by Monday with fish on the line. Drifting from Scotty's Trout Dock to Kanakuk Camp has been good, too. Night crawlers are always good after a rain ,so don't forget about them. There are some good places to anchor out of the current and fish with either minnows or worms. The inside bend above our place is a good place as well as well below Cooper Creek by the water fall coming off the bluff and even further down on that east side. Just be very careful to anchor off the very front of the boat in slow current. Be mindful that the anchor could catch and get caught on a tree on the bottom -- you might have to cut the rope and lose the anchor. You'll fish with a tight line behind the boat in the slower current using minnows or night crawlers. All images credited to Captain Duane Doty, Ozark Trout Runners. View full article

You guys know this but I used the Mo Fishing App to find the brush piles.

Sorry late report. Put in about 2 pm. WT 52.6 degrees and pretty calm. Hit some MDC brush piles south of the ramp and caught crappie on all of them. Had 12 keeps and as many shorts. They came on a variety of soft plastic baits - none better than others really. Just had to get the fish activated and then we'd catch 6 in a row. Tried beating the surface with a paddle which did nothing. Snagging the brush and pulling on it did something... and some times it helped the bite. Did see the whole lot of fish slowly leave the pile one time... that was cool. We just moved to the next pile.

They've said the same thing about a lot of things... we aren't prepared for a host of things that could happen. Powergrid Internet collapse Bio warfare No one wants to spend the money and get yelled at for wasting money.

Mike Rowe just shared the Rogan video... Osterholm seems like a guy you should pay attention to. Listen to the full version. Talks about Lymes too. Interesting. City of Branson is having a meeting tomorrow. We'll see what they have to say about shows/attractions.

I'll be posting a report tomorrow... but it will basically say look for heavy generation for the foreseeable future. The lakes are just above "normal" but with rain in the forecast every 3-4 days, we'll see this flow for a while. They are letting water over the gates, yes, but only to the tune of 4 units. We still have one unit not working so that's why the gates are open. This is a blessing... we should see some shad. There doesn't have to be a kill to have them come over. When we have a shad kill (because of cold water on TR), they usually come through the turbines- and over the gates. So I'd rather see some gates open and 3 units than 4 units and no gates. We're seeing some moss from TR but most of it's coming from the bottom of our lake. But with the deeper water and heavier flow, this should start to move it out. We see some of the best spring fishing when the water is running like this... just have to make those adjustments and find where they're holding.

Full version...

I'm sure they will... same thing isn't it? NBA games? Why are they allowing fans to watch? I'm supposed to speak in Dallas at a Fly Fisher's meeting... I bet that gets canceled too. Churches will start canceling services too, especially big congregations.

NCAA tournament games.... no fans. That's got to hurt the cities they're in... hotels, restaurants... that's a big hit. TV ratings will be up... charge more for commercials.