Phil Lilley

Wanted to get a quick report in before the weekend. Trout fishing has been very good the last few days. It seems like MDC has stocked a ton of rainbows- and I mean a ton this week. But I'm not real sure that's the case. Yes, I do think they stocked but generation has slowed a lot and has made it easier to get to the fish and I think that plays a big part in "catchability". Let me explain my reasoning. When their running 4 units full, the volume and flow of water through our lake makes it harder for most anglers to present a lure, a fly or bait to fish "where they live". Even for us season anglers, catching slows to a snail pace it seems. But as soon as the flow relents, the "catching" picks up because... there's more fish? Or is it because lake conditions are more favorable to "catching". I think the latter. Flows are less, water isn't as deep, trout seem to be feeding on midges where we can see them now and target them. As for catching, it's been good this week. There are a lot of rainbows from Monkey Island down through the Branson Landing, especially in the Landing area. Bill Babler reported catching them on a dry fly while actively feeding on the surface the other day. He said it didn't matter what the fly was as long as it was about a size #14 with a Zebra Midge dropped below it about a foot. Tony Weldele said his clients caught rainbows on a sculpin jig around the Fish House up to Scotty's. So if these fish are actively feeding as reported on the surface, a rooster tail or a spoon should work just as well as jigs and flies. We're still seeing fish caught on white jigs from Lilleys' Landing up to the dam. White is the color... just like sculpin was the color for most of the winter up to now. With the lower flow, I doubt if we'll see many shad come through the turbines but they are still keying in on anything white. Looks like this weekend is going to be pretty crazy as far as boat traffic... I've heard of 2 big groups of anglers staying down lake from us having tournaments this Saturday, as well as our tournament which should have up to 50 boats. One nice thing is almost all of our teams will be fishing below Fall Creek so the trophy area should be fairly sane. Be careful out there!

Sorry I didn't see this. It is a real time level, or as close as you can get.

There you go... It got real skinny this afternoon... I'd pay attention to the flow real close. I didn't think they'd drop it like this. You really can't second guess these guys!! It was 705.21 ft when we went up. Pretty dicy at Rebar.

Yes. Trilene or I use Vanish sometimes

Well, right at this moment, they've dropped generation to less than 1 unit - which I didn't think they would do for a while. So... I should say now that it all depends on how much water they're running! Here's an article that gives you an idea what to look for as to generation.

Nope. Head up the middle with this generation

Need to update my last report for the KC Star fishing report so I though I'd just post it here. We've seen evidence of threadfin shad coming through the dam at Table Rock this week, although we haven't seen any shad in the water ourselves. Trout have been spitting them up when caught and they're pretty bulked up. And they're hitting almost anything white - plus other lures and flies. I would not call it a full blown shad run, not just yet. I've had a lot of questions about the shad - how long will it last? How far down are the trout seeing shad? The answers are I don't know. These runs are totally unpredictable in volume and length. Of course we're hoping for more shad for the next few weeks. Most anglers are heading down lake though to catch their trout. From Monkey Island down past the Landing to Bee Creek has been very good on mainly bait and some lures. Spoon have been good as well as some flies. Guide Bill Babler caught some nice rainbows on a while wooly bugger below the Fish House yesterday. Others this weekend caught fish on midges while trout were rising across from the Landing over the weekend. Area lakes are anywhere from 18 to 30 inches above power pool so we're going to see generation to continue through the near future.

We had a little contest. Dam to the Narrows. He won 16-14.

Got out on the upper lake at 0900 yesterday morning and boated to the dam. Air temps at 26 water was 44.9 I boated up from Branson and did not see a single boat all the way to the cable. Wanted to just use a fly rod and drifted from the cable to clay banks 2 times. Started using a white/grey jig under a float about 12' and nothing the first 2 drifts. Switched to a size 8 weighted shad fly and stripped and drifted it on a straight line again 2 times from the cable to clay banks and had zero. Gave up the long stick for a drift and jerked a 110 plus one in french pearl thru the same water. Again nothing to report. That was 5 drifts on White and not even a bite. I was not fishing a jig like the boys in the video. I saw no shad and the fish I caught were spitting either grey or copper scuds. Seems to be a right place right time deal. Had noticed quite a bit of midging below the Brown Trout raceway so I tied a big dry on with a size 18 black midge about 2 ft. under it. Made 2 passes over that flat and caught one 12" brown on the dry. I had just about had a dose at this point, so I dragged out the spinning rod and bottom bounded a egg and scud from the cable to the conservation ramp.twice. Caught 4 really nice bow's on the size 14 copper/orange scud and lost one that was big, wide and silver. Fish jumped right at the boat and put a nice show on. Moved out of the restricted zone and caught about 1/2 dozen on a pink power worm from Fall Creek thru Trout Hollow on the flat side. Lots and lots of midging going on between the docks on the slacker water. Visited with Phil a bit and did whine some as I really expected the upper end to be a bit better. Moved down town and the fish really bit on just about anything you wanted to throw, from the power worm to a midge to a spoon to a small crank bait. Caught about 30 in a couple of hours. Funnest deal was stripping a size 10 wooley below the walk out just above the fish house. You would get a bite on just about every throw. Best bite was at the end of the drift after the swing, just holding it in the current. They would just thump it. I missed more than I caught. On a side note, folks fishing the docks below Scotty's were catching really nice fish on Power Bait. Looked to me to be very nice fresh Big stockers. Here is a bit of a pictorial of the copper/orange scud that I have had really good success with the past week. Good Luck out there. View full article

My wife uses that to take stains out of my shirts...

I'm 60... I might look into that.

Both browns - one lost and one landed - came from slack water. Interesting... But the ones we've been seeing porpoise down here are out in the middle.

Expound...

Last cast!!

It's a GoPro 4 and Sennheiser ew100 mic system. I have the GoPro 5 but hooking a mic to it is tough. I do need to look and see if they've come up with something better and change over to using the 5's. My 4 is getting pretty beat up.

Notice Duane is hardly reeling... keeping it on the bottom. He lost more jigs than I did, but he caught more fish.

This isn't a false alarm. There are shad coming through the turbines at Table Rock Dam. Reported to me via FB Messenger, Tyler Paulsell told me he caught a bunch of trout last evening on white and they were spitting up shad. He also saw shad in the water. Duane and I boated to the dam a little before noon today. Had to see for ourselves. No boats! Only one gull and he was diving. We made 3 passes. Used 1/8th oz white jigs, 4-pound line. Duane caught 6 rainbows on the first drift - I caught 3 I think. Did catch a nice rainbow. The other drifts were not as productive. The wind is out of the east and with 4 units cranking, it's tough to get and keep a jig on the bottom. In this video, notice Duane isn't cranking much at all. No way to tell how long this will last. May not a day, may be a week. But they should be taking white jigs and other shad-like lures for a while.

I was hoping someone googled it 😁

Levi 720 High Rise Jeans

It's that time of year when I check several indicators on my phone -- the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Little Rock App and the NOAA Weather Prediction site because both will tell me the future and how to plan my trout fishing strategy for the days to come. They also gives me what I need to tell others what to expect as far as flows here on Lake Taneycomo and what fishing report to give. The indicators, right now, tell me we're going to see heavy generation for at least a week. But with very little rain predicted, we should see lake levels dropping very soon and less generation in the near future. We were starting to see lower flows until the area received 1 to 1.5 inches over the Beaver and Table Rock basin. Actually, Bull Shoals got more rain, and we'll see it jumping up more than the upper lakes. One inch of rain doesn't sound like a lot of rain -- plus it was a slow, steady rain over two days -- but Beaver has come up 18 inches and still is rising. Table Rock has risen 12 inches and crested. Beaver is running its turbines a full 12 hours a day (so far) and Table Rock is now running 199 megawatts or 13,000 cubic feet per second round the clock. Now to translate all that information into a fishing plan. The common and most used fishing pattern is drifting with the current and using live bait, Power Bait or a fly or lure. And for the most part, that technique is the most effective. The keys are -- the right amount of weight and position of the boat. That's right, it's not really what you're putting on the hook but how you're drifting that hook. If you're not putting your offering in front of or in sight of the fish, you're not going to get bites. Getting the weight right is key. You want just the right amount of weight to get your weight to the bottom and keep it there. Yes, position of the boat is important, too -- the speed of the drift -- keeping the boat moving at the speed of the current. You should feel the weight consistently ticking the bottom. If it's not, add more weight. If it's grabbing a lot, reduce the weight. Trick: To add weight you can add a removable split shot to the line and slide it down onto the bell weight. This allows you to change weights quickly. Where you drift in relation to the bend of the lake is vital. I tend to drift on the inside quarter of the lake. In another words, if you draw a line down the center of the lake, the bluff of the channel side is on one side and the lower bank/shallow side is on the other. I will stay on the inside half of the lake, toward the shallow side. Nothing wrong with staying dead center in the middle, but I would not go past the line towards the channel. To do that, assuming I have a trolling motor (and I strongly recommend having one in these conditions), I would point the trolling motor towards the inside bend so I can pull the boat to that side. The current will want to pull you to the outside, but keeping the method of propulsion pointed in the direction you want to go will make the operator's job much easier. Regardless of where you drift, keep clear of the banks. Trees fall into the lake off the banks and trees eat drift rigs. Enough said. What to use? Power Bait Gulp eggs are good for fishing when the water is not running or when it's running pretty slowly. They smell good! But they're softer than Power Eggs and fall off the hook faster. Power Eggs smell, too, but not as much (just my observation), but when the egg is drifting at 5 mph, smell plays less of a part in luring the fish to bite. So I'd go with Power Eggs instead of paste or Gulp Eggs. Color? That's where you need to have all the colors and try them all. Even during the day, if they stop hitting one color, change. You'll find a favorite, probably. But even that preference will change as the sun changes the light at the bottom of the lake. Night crawlers and minnows are other great baits. I believe you will have a better chance of catching a bigger trout using natural baits similar to what they see every day, especially minnows. But depending on their mood, being aggressive or not, you might go through a lot of minnows. My experience is that they tend to suck the minnow off the hook, assuming you're hooking the minnow in the lips. If this is the case, find the smallest minnow in the bucket and see if that helps. If they're aggressively feeding, it won't matter. Most anglers will fish down past Cooper Creek, down past the Branson Landing, when four units are running. The water is much more manageable, slower, and there's plenty of trout in these areas to catch. If you find a "hot spot" where you consistently catch a trout or double up in one particular area, keep motoring back up to drift through that area until the well runs dry. Now for other methods of fishing. Duane has been throwing stick baits and drifting crank baits on his guide trips this week and faring well. He's using the Bomber Fat Free Shad and ticking it on the bottom, catching a lot of browns up to 22-inches. He's also using the MegaBass 110+ shad and doing fair. These methods aren't for the faint at heart. They're a lot of work with less results compared to drifting bait or even throwing jigs. But you have a better chance of catching a trophy fish. Seriously, if you don't have the equipment or time to spend learning this bite, hire a guide who does have the equipment (hundreds and hundreds of dollars in equipment) and the know-how to put you on fish throwing big lures. You'll be much happier. Plus, it'll be his lures you'd lose, not your own! We're back to using our 1/8th-ounce jigs in this fast water. And we're seeking out slower water, eddies where fish will be holding. We're fishing the inside banks, or, if we're fishing the channel, bluff banks, we're working the eddies, places out of the current and getting bit. And . . . we're losing a lot of jigs in the process. We're also using four-pound line, too, either Vanish or Trilene XL (green or clear). If you're not losing a few jigs, you're probably not catching very many trout. You need to be down where they are and that's usually down where there's some snags. The darker colors are working better that white or white/gray BUT we're always trying white just in case they switch, or are starting to see shad or bait fish. If they get on white, they will be much more aggressive on the bite, in my experience. Always have white jigs in your box. Drift a fly on the bottom in the trophy area... actually I'd drift one all the way down to Trout Hollow. A bigger scud (#12) in gray or olive, an egg fly or big San Juan Worm. Even a Mega worm. The bottom is fairly clear of moss so you'll get a clean drift this time of year. And make sure it's on the bottom. Media Note! Between my fishing reports, if you're wanting to know what's going on here on Lake Taneycomo, tune in to our DAILY BROADCAST called One Cast. We talk about lake levels as well as who's catching fish on what. And we might catch a fish ourselves. One Cast... going for almost 1500 days in a row. Subscribe and click the BELL for instant notification. Or see us on Facebook. View full article

Great day to be on the water... and fishing was decent for most. No big stringers, no real big trout. Close place finishers made it a competitive contest for all.