Phil Lilley

Keep or release I guess. You worried about them coming out of warmer water? Their meat might be a little mushy.

Sounds like a nice getaway...

Lodging here would be tough but we can use the pavilion for gathering and the firepits at night.

Didn't amount to much. Not worth discussing really.

The days of no generation may be over for now. We've seen the dam operators moving some water the last few days from lake to lake, even though the White River at Augusta, Arkansas is still at flood stage. With no rain in the foreseeable future, we may see more and more water running through Lake Taneycomo. We've been seeing about 6,000 cubic feet per second of flow for most of the day lately with a bump up to 12,000 late in the afternoon. That's 2 units to 4 units worth of water. There's really no way to know if this pattern will continue but for now it seems reasonable to think it will. Trout fishing has been just ok. There are days though it has been real stinky! Early and late, of course, is the best times to fish. Most of our guides are on the water by 5:30 am and the bite is good for a couple of hours. Then they have to work for fish. Most of the guides are either drifting a Berkley pink powerworm just on a hook on the bottom or on a small jig head under a float. The pink worm is actually catching some big trout. This little gal caught a trophy brown trout using her kid pink fishing rod. Anglers are catching mainly rainbows drifting night crawlers and power eggs. And we've heard all colors are good except red or pink, which makes no sense because the pink worm is working better than power eggs. It must not be the color. Best area to drift is Lilleys' Landing down through the bridges. Stay in the middle when drifting because there's a lot of old, sunken dead trees on the edges of the lake. Right now there's a ton of stocker rainbows in the Branson Landing area. They're being caught on the Berkley pink worm on a small jig head under a float 5-7 feet deep. I personally haven't tried drifting minnows lately and we haven't sold many but I would think drifting them on the bottom should catch trout, especially brown trout, seeing all the browns being caught right now. Trophy brown trout are still being caught at various areas of the lake on bait and lures. I've been asked why does it seem all of a sudden we're seeing so many big browns being caught. The short answer is I don't know. But it does coincide with an increase of trophy rainbows which I believe is a result of constant flow of water from Table Rock over the past 2+ years. The food base in Taneycomo (plankton, scuds, midges, sculpins, small forage fish) stays much healthier when the water is running verses when there's long periods of no generation. We've had reports of browns being caught on the pink worm, night crawlers, marabou jigs (white, sculpin/ginger and sculpin/peach), Doty's custom painted jerk baits, MegaBass 110+ jerk baits and other jerk baits, and smaller jerk baits drifted on the bottom, mainly in the trophy area. Trophy rainbows are also being caught, mainly in the trophy area though. They being caught on scuds drifted on the bottom, jerk baits and marabou jigs (same colors). Last count, we were up to 55 - 20-inch trout or bigger registered as catch and release trophies for the month of June but I know Blake caught a 24-inch brown last night close to Lookout Island. https://lilleyslanding.com/trophy-catch-release/ Drifting scuds on the bottom is just ok... there's a lot of algae on the bottom and cakes up the fly. You need to reel in and check it pretty often. View full article

No gen on Taney this am... and no wind. Bite was tough. Be glad you weren't on the lower pond.

Pete- wasn't on the forum much last week and missed you were here. Next time you'll have to come by. I want you to meet Blake.

Wow....

Did that work?

The email on your account is judith_.... @yahoo

This is weird!

I sent an email to the one on your account.

Short Version

Yeah I don't why this is so, although I know Brian Shaffer is one person who force feeds our trout beetles and ants and is fairly successful at it. I don't have that kind of patience.

You can NEVER have too many scuds...

It's been quite a week, here on Lake Taneycomo.... and in the rest of the world. We thought we might be flooded by the tropical storm Cristabol but the rain didn't fall as hard or and much as thought. Now it appears we are in a prolonged dry spell which hopefully will last a few weeks or more. Not hoping for a drought... just hoping for no deluges. Our lakes are still full, above us and below us. And it looks like they are releasing some water from the lower lake, Bull Shoals. If the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers goes by their plan, they will drop all the lakes equally, keeping them at about the same percentage full as they do. This will mean some generation here on Taneycomo, but regulated. We might see some periods of no flow, as well as slow flows. We may see them settle in to a pattern later this week. Trout fishing continues to be very good for most anglers, although today the wind is making everything tough. I guess this is still spring and this weather definitely feels like it -- windy and cool. But summer days are coming. Seth and Becky spent a full week here catching fish... and I have to say "fish" because they caught a lot more than trout. I'll dot this report with their fish pics. They spent a lot of time throwing a jerk bait from Short Creek down to Monkey Island. I think becky got the best of Seth in the trophy numbers game but Seth beat her in the biggest brown and the most warm water fish species. Bottom line -- they fished hard and were rewarded with some nice catches. With one unit running this morning, we witnessed a string of guide boats drifting out in front of the resort's dock, catching rainbow after rainbow on the pink PowerWorm under a float. They were really hammering it. With the water clarity not as clear as normal, 4-pound line is fine when using just about anything right now. And with the cloud cover today, the fish aren't quite as deep as they are when the sun is out bright so they're fishing the pink worms about 4- to 5-feet deep. The pink worm under a float will worm most areas from Fall Creek down to the Branson Landing. If you find a spot where you're catching quite a few, they're probably freshly stocked rainbows schooling together. Stay with the school as long as you can keep catching. A fair number of people are drifting and casting spoons and catching fish. Use 1/8th- to 3/16th-ounce spoons with either 4- or 6-pound line. When it sunny and bright out, let the spoon sink and work it deeper then when it darker outside. You can also troll using a spoon. If the water is running, troll moving down lake. Drifting a scud (freshwater shrimp) is still working exceptionally well. But the key will be using the correct size weight when drifting. Of course this will depend on how fast the water is running. Start with an 1/8-ounce bell weight (or split shot) and add weight if needed. Use a #12 scud in grad shads, olive, tan and brown. As summer moves along, it seems like our trout grow wise to this fly so we usually have to drop in size which works most of the time. Other flies that are working are the medium San Juan in cerise and pink, the egg fly in peach and the shad fly, although we're not doing quite as well as we were last week. I talked to a couple of guys on the water this morning. They said drifting a small jerk bait on the bottom was working for them. This should pick up bigger trout on average although they said they had not caught anything big this morning. Rob Dickerson is back this week throwing a KVD jerk bait. he and his buddy aren't doing as well as Rob did back in May when he caught and released 14 brown trout over 20-inches in 10 days of fishing but they are landing some big browns up to 23-inches. They're finding out that most of their bites are coming in the middle of the lake instead of working the banks. They're fishing from Fall Creek clear down to Monkey Island. Surprisingly, they're not doing as well throwing it up in the trophy area. With the water off and/or up to 2 units, you can fish flies and jigs under a float. One fly that's overlooked is the mega worm on a jig head. I'd try white, peach or cream around docks where fish are cleaned because trout do eat trout guts. But remember it is not legal to use any part of a game fish to catch another game fish. I've have seen a fair number of trout taking dry flies off the surface lately. Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to test the waters and see if they would take a fly on the surface. I have been doing very well catching rainbows stripping woolies, cracklebacks and soft hackles in choppy conditions early and late in the day when the trout are feeding on midges hatching. Our trout rarely "look up" and take things off the surface like hoppers, ants, beetles and other insects. But this year we have a good number of very mature rainbows who have grown up in the lake.. I'm hoping that they are educated in the ways of eating dries so that we can start throwing and catching trout on dry flies. That would be a blast! Night crawlers are still catching fish, but we've heard worms might be in short supply in the near future. No it's not China this time... it's Covid. Seems as if there's issues with the northern border and/or packaging them in Canada. We'll see if they run short. We do still have minnows though! View full article

I'd like to hear more from Steve. I respect his insight, esp being on that side of the WR region. As for me, I think they need to revisit the Power Pool levels. The Corps is playing russian roulette with business, lives and property below these dams, seeing the "trend" is now more and more wet seasons. If it is a true trend that is predictable - and they have predicted this wet year way back last year - then why not adjust those levels? And so what if they're off... low lake levels? What does that hurt? I understand pre releasing water before the storm hits. That's not my beef. It's where the lakes are way before this starts... on that January date.

I was asking for info and you call us ignorant?

I have not paid attention to much of the news lately. Honestly, don't know where to go for factual, unbiased information. This thing - defund police - on the face of it it sounds like people want to do away with police. I see some just want to take away some of their money and spend it in different ways. But how does fewer or no police work? Is there any logic to it? Has to be, right?

They've stopped releases at TR and Beaver. I don't think BS is going to come up much.

BS level is rising pretty quick. It's doing that .7 to .9 rise per hour.

There's not many rain gauges down in those parts so it was hard to tell exactly but the trend looked like less in the basins, much less than they forecasted. I don't think we're even going to see any spill gates.