Phil Lilley

@Devan S. I like your explanation.

You are correct...

That orange blob has been getting closer and closer to us the last 4 days...

http://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/pages/reports/remote/white.htm Look at the Percent Full. BS Dam is moving some water through.... grateful for that. But they will have to cut back because of the rain the lower White and Mississippi is getting.

The post talks as if Beaver has lots of room for storage and lakes below it are high. Just the opposite is true. If you look at patterns, 5 weeks ago they ran flood gates at Beaver and lowered the lake within a foot of seasonal power pool. Then we got a 4-6 inch rain and it shot back up. Table Rock did too and BS rose but not too bad. TR opened gates and got it back down but it rained again and it almost got to 920. Gates helped it to get back down to pool presently and gates are shut. Mind you when I say gates I mean 4 units. They really don't open gates until TR is above 920 feet. So my question is - 5 weeks ago they followed a pattern to get Beaver down quickly. So why didn't they or why don't they get it down now, now that levels on all lakes are the same as they were as early January? Why hold Beaver within 6 inches of flood pool? There's no control there - they'll have to release everything that comes into the lake. That's not control. But I understand control means running the whole system... it does not make sense. And they say they're mandated to run as to a model of some kind. Then there should be some consistency, something recognizable. I'm not seeing it.

Table Rock Lake's level has dropped to 915.5 feet, just six inches from its seasonal power pool. Monday morning, five spill gates were closed, leaving three turbines on line which pushed about 10,000 cubic feet of water per second into Lake Taneycomo. Personally, I am thankful that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ran so much water through the lakes above us, but I wish that would continue. Beaver Lake is still more than nine feet above its normal pool, which means the next rain event the basin gets, Beaver Dam will have to open its spill gates. At this time, Beaver Dam officials have been generating nonstop, allowing about 3,800 c.f.s of water to pass through. They are running one of two turbines. That lake level, though, is not dropping but holding at 1,129.64 feet. It should start dropping soon, albeit, very slowly. So we're almost back to where we were 10 days ago. Table Rock dam operators are running three turbines presently, but there's a good chance we may see only two units running by the weekend as the lakes continue to drop. You could search out the fishing report I posted two weeks ago and go from there. Our trout are hungry for the same thing -- scuds, worms and minnows. There is one difference, though. During this spill gate event, we spotted numerous threadfin shad in the water close to the dam. Just Monday during One Cast, we saw one, still alive, swimming on the surface in the Trophy Run area. The trout up close to the dam are also taking white jigs and shad flies better than they did a couple of weeks ago. I would also suggest dragging a small jerk bait or minnow bait either using a three-way drift rig or a carolina rig. These are some of the baits we carry in our shop and use. They are floating and vary in length from 2.5 to 3 inches. We use either four- or six-pound line and a medium to medium-light action spinning rod, preferably six foot or longer. When drifting this bait, of course, you want it ticking the bottom, but there's something else that draws a bite. Lift the rod, making the lure run a little fast, then let the rod back down. There's no right or wrong way to do this. . . just try it and see if you get bit faster. The strike can be pretty hard, or the line may just get heavy and the ticking stops. It's best to set the hook if there's any question. You can fish this bait anywhere on the lake where there's enough current to drift this bait on the bottom. This past week, my fishing buddy John Johnson fished a couple of days with a friend of his. They did just okay in the trophy area using white jigs and drifting scuds. They wanted to keep some rainbows, so they ended up drifting a pink San Juan worm from Fall Creek down to Lilleys' Landing and caught some nice trout, more than enough to take home. The dock crew at Lilleys' Landing always asks anglers, after a day of fishing, what caught their trout. Most are drifting bait (worms, minnows and Power Bait) on the bottom at various stretches below Fall Creek. One thing to note -- some have reported their trout bellies are bulging with scuds when they clean them. Every time the spill gates are opened and the current increases on the upper lake, it seems our trout eat a lot of freshwater shrimp. The only reason I can think of is that the shrimp are swept up up of out their hiding places in the gravel where they are easy prey. Whatever the reason, drifting a scud on the bottom during and soon after these events is a great way to catch trout, especially the older, more experienced fish that are accustomed to feeding on these bugs. Egg flies are working, too. These are fished just like the Power Eggs Berkleys makes except they're artificial, made of yarn with no scent. Bob Berry caught this big beautiful rainbow Monday while drifting below the dam using a peach egg fly. It measured 25 inches and was released after shooting a quick photo. Note how dark it is. Our rainbows are still in their spawning colors, and this male rainbow is a perfect example. A Y2K will work, too, as well as the Miracle Fly Jeremy Hunt ties. The Y2k is tied with a bead, and the Miracle fly is tied on a jig head. I would suggest using the 1/100th-ounce instead of the 1/80th-ounce unless you're going to use it under a float. Of course, don't forget about drifting other areas of the lake for trout. The Cooper Creek area is holding a lot of rainbows. Monkey Island down through the Branson Landing is too . . . and for sure you need to hit the mouths of Turkey, Coon and Roark Creeks. Word is there's schools of rainbows in those areas. View full article

They sucked about 8 feet of water out of Beaver the first of January, then got a 4-6 inch rain and back up it went. Then they held it, through more rains. They've been trying to keep TR down but not Beaver. Doesn't make sense to me but... it is the gov't. They got 15k of water running by my place. I'm thankful for that! I just hoe they don't slow it down when TR gets close to 915 like they did before. Keep it running!!! Drop Beaver and get this water out of here. Like you said, Spring is coming and the spring rains are already here.

I'm sure glad I didn't write an extensive fishing report on Monday for Lake Taneycomo because everything changes today. After more rain fell in the White River Basin above Lake Taneycomo in the past 24 hours, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have decided to open 5 spill gates at Table Rock Dam one foot each this morning, on top of the 3 turbines running at the facility. That equals 15,000 cubic feet of water per second pouring through Taneycomo presently. This equals 4 full turbines. Beaver Lake is inching up and is at 1128.66 feet, less than 18 inches below its flood pool level. The Corps really haven't made any attempts to drop this level since they had it down to 1121 feet about 3 weeks ago. Table Rock Lake has been holding steady at about 916.5 feet but is now rising slowly because of the rains. Its seasonal power pool is 915 feet but with Beaver so high and Table Rock rising, they really need to move some water!! I'm not sure why they aren't dumping Beaver Lake plus they have been only running 2 units at Table Rock the last 5 days. They need to keep moving this water through... please!! Fishing continues to be very good, even with heavy generation. With the spill gates coming back on, there's always the chance of threadfin shad coming over, plus a few bass and walleye. We will be testing the waters!! We have 3 trout tournaments under our belt so far this winter and in the last 2 contests we saw very good quality rainbows come in which is a great sign. Our first tournament was plagued with off colored water after a big rain so fishing wasn't very good. This last Saturday, out of 76 teams, 50 weighed in 7 pounds or more, an 8 trout bag. That's very good. There are a lot of rainbow trout to be caught in the Branson Landing area right now. We've been fishing down there and catching big freshly stocked rainbows that are over a pound each. We were catching them on various colored jigs while fishing for crappie -- yes crappie! Some of the tournament contestants were fishing an 1/8th ounce jig on the bottom down close to the Kanakuk Camp and catching rainbows too. I'd imagine you could catch them on PowerBait as well. With more water running from Table Rock, we'll go back to heavier weights to get to the bottom when drifting baits, lures and flies. There is a pattern we've seen when they first kick more water on and that is scud flies get real hot. It might be because the heavier flows dislodge scuds from the bottom and up into trout's mouths. It's plausible! So we'll be drifting big #12 gray scuds from the dam down to Short Creek this week along with an egg fly and/or a San Juan Worm. If you don't book a trip with Duane Doty and don't have his custom painted jerk baits, the MegaBass 110+ is a good match to throw for big browns and rainbows. Good colors would be French Pearl, Ozark Shad, Perch and Elgy Bone. One of our Outdoor Writers who attended our conference this week brought in a big brown just as I was writing this report this morning. John Neporadny, nationally recognized fishing writer recently inducted into the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, caught and released this 13 pound brown on one of Duane's jerk baits. He caught it below Fall Creek about a half mile around the docks. He was fishing with Scott Pauley, outdoor marketing representative for Missouri Tourism. So we're back to dragging hard minnow baits on the bottom using the carolina rig, 1/4rd-ounce bell weights and 4 to 6-pound line. We carry several lengths and styles in our shop, knock-offs from China because we do lose quite a few baits to the bottom monsters. These baits are like the F-5 and F-7 Rapala, from 2.75 to 3.25 inches long, floating and shallow divers in perch, shad and sculpin colors. Bill Babler, fishing guide, showed us this week that when he drifts these baits, he takes the front set of treble hooks off the bait, only leaving the back set. He says he doesn't lose as many baits and believes he doesn't miss any fish because of it. We will be throwing 1/8th ounce white jigs up below the dam this week along with other colors like sculpin, brown and black. But white has been a pretty good color lately... white with gray and white with black also. REPORT: They are liking white jigs below the dam! Here's evidence: Snagged in the butt... but still a beautiful rainbow!! View full article

50 teams weighed in more than 7 pounds - 8 trout. Very impressive. Nobody fished the trophy area. All below Fall Creek. A lot of the biggest trout came below Monkey Island. Some great pics taken by Nathan, one of our staff.

I see - it's his Vlog StreamerFest

I just looked at his channel... didn't see anything. https://www.youtube.com/user/flyfishingtheozarks/videos

I can move it if @Walcrabass wants to.

You should come to JigFest next December... it's a blast. You can look it up on the White River forum. There's a few people who post here a lot that fish down there. It's an awesome fishery... when the water is right.

We've set the CAM Christian Action Ministries benefit tournament for March 28th this spring. It will be an artificial only contest, measuring each trout for total inches to win. We've done several of these tournaments and they're catching on (pun intended). Take Off will be at 8 am and end at 2 pm (note I did not say "weigh in"). Food will be served afterwards. See Flyer for Details: CAM Tourney Flyer 2020.pdf

Despite the constant flow of water -- 15,000 cubic feet per second through three turbines and over six spill gates into Lake Taneycomo -- trout fishing continues to be very good for most anglers. That success still hinges on keeping your bait, fly or lure on the bottom while drifting. First, I wanted to clear up something I said on Monday, January 27, when recording One Cast. The dam operators shut down one turbine about the time we filmed One Cast that day and it appeared we were headed for a change in the generation patterns. Table Rock Lake was approaching 916.5 feet, just 18 inches from its power pool level, so it made sense that the flow would be reduced. I was wrong. The turbine was only off line for a couple of hours and the flow at this moment is at 15,000 c.f.s. but at some point in the near future that may change, it's just hard to say when. NEWS FLASH: The spill gates at Table Rock Dam were shut off at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning. Three turbines continue to run at about 10,000 c.f.s. presently. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has not started drawing Beaver Lake down. It sits at 1,127.37, more than seven feet above its seasonal power pool. Back in December the Corps opened spill gates at Beaver Dam and dropped the lake about six inches a day until the lake's level almost reached 1,120 feet but the big four- to six-inch rain on January 10th brought the levels back up to where they are now. We are still catching a few trout below the dam on either white jigs or shad flies, just not the big numbers we'd like to see when the spill gates are open. Speaking of fishing below Table Rock Dam, Blake and I encountered a boat with four anglers fishing within casting distance of the dam face Monday evening, hundreds of feet above the boundary cable marking the 760 feet line from the dam. Here's a screenshot of the code explaining the rule about boating and fishing within the 760 feet line at Taneycomo. Note it says "fishing," not just boating. In other words, you shouldn't even cast above this cable. The boaters, when confronted, said they didn't know about the rule. That's no excuse. If you're going to fish public waters, it's your responsibility to know the rules of fishing and boating on those waters. Ignorance won't work as a defense. And there are safety reasons for prohibiting boating too close to the dam, especially when there are tons of water falling 200 feet off a dam. Back to fishing -- we're catching rainbows and browns on white jigs away from the dam more than below it. White jigs and spoons have been working well along the banks and on the bottom from Fall Creek down past the Branson Landing. I've been working the eddies and slack water on the bluff side of the lake from our place, Lilleys' Landing Resort, down to Monkey Island and doing pretty well. This brown was caught on Saturday by Kelly Stammer, who comes to stay with us from my old stomping grounds of Parsons, Kansas. Bryan Stammer, Kelly's son from the Stammer group, caught another brown on a white jig but it came up a little short of 20 inches. But these browns are fat! Fishermen were dragging minnow baits on the bottom over the weekend and hooking some big fish, it was reported. We have been talking about dragging these baits, using a Carolina rig, for the past month of so. I asked Duane Doty how to describe these baits -- are they jerk or crank baits? He said really neither. They're a hard plastic bait that resembles a minnow. Some of the anglers fishing this past weekend were using other hard plastic baits like Flat Fish. These floating baits do not have diving bills, so they're less apt to dive down and get caught up on the bottom. We hosted our annual Masters Trout Tournament Saturday. And as always, there was lots of conversations afterwards about "the big one that got away." But this year those stories were repeated by many anglers. One contestant said he lost five big trout. Another fought a fish for more than 30 minutes just to lose it in a tree. Interesting . . . We weighed in two legal browns Saturday, one caught on a minnow bait and one on a white jig. We're selling a lot of minnows right now. A couple of weeks ago, we were told they were catching "nothing but brown trout," but we had no legal browns before the tournament either reported caught or brought in to the dock. Minnows will catch rainbows as well. I have done pretty well anchoring along the bank in slow current and fishing them tight-line behind the boat in current. But you have to be careful not to anchor in fast current, and always tie to the very font of your boat, not to the side or to the back. This can be dangerous, so please use wisdom. Drifting with night crawlers on the bottom is also catching mainly rainbows and a few brown trout. Best area is down at Monkey Island, drifting down through the Branson Landing. Also drifting with PowerEggs is catching all rainbows. Drifting with scuds and San Juan worms is still a hot technique to reel in trout both in and down from the Trophy Area. In my experience lately, the scuds are catching bigger, older rainbows on average. I think those trout actually target scuds since that's what they know in the wild. In the scuds, we're using #12 mainly in various shads of gray as well as tan and the best colors in the San Juans are cerise and pink. View full article

Wow... that's the FIRST chapter??? Thank you for being so willing to share what you've learned over the years.

I think I'm setting the CAM tournament for March 28th. It's the one where all trout are counted - measured. I've sent the date to everyone in the office to see if there's any conflicts. I believe with the constant generation over the past year-plus, there are dozens of "monsters" out there, hiding and growing in places virtually impossible to get at. Then there's the ones that have been hooked and lost... so many stories over the last 4-5 days. When they slow down the water and what I would call GOOD trout anglers get here, we'll see some big fish come in.