Phil Lilley

I waited until April 7th to write this report because of the big rain event we had over the weekend. I wanted to address how six inches of rain water would affect our fishery. Now I know. Beaver and Table Rock lakes rose several feet and both have crested. Now we know about how much water will run and for how long. Beaver rose from 1,121 to 1,127 feet, and its top of flood pool is 1,130 feet. Operators are not releasing water from Beaver yet. They usually hold Beaver until Table Rock can handle the extra water, or if the level reaches 1,130 feet. Table Rock rose from 914 to 919.9 feet. The power pool (normal) level is 915 feet right now. Operators are running 16,000 cubic feet per second (cfs.) Of that amount, 6,350 cfs is going through two turbines and the rest is coming over the top flood gates. There are two units down for maintenance. My guess is that 16,000 cfs will run until Table Rock is back down to 917 feet, when the flow will slow to 12,000 cfs. I don't know how long the turbines will be off-line. When we have these kind of flows, we want emphasize pointers for fishing on Lake Taneycomo. First, be extra careful when boating. Wear a life jacket. Watch your wake. Watch where you're drifting. Second, in fishing -- if you're drift fishing -- your bait has to be on the bottom. Fish are going to either be on the bottom, or along the banks or up in the creeks. All three places have one thing in common -- the water is slower in all three places. I visited with Guides Rick Lisek and Blake Wilson after their trips Monday. They both drifted scuds on the bottom and caught good numbers of rainbows. I watched Rick clean his clients' fish, and they were were packed full of scuds (freshwater shrimp.) You see, with this heavy flow, gravel starts rolling, dislodging the scuds and moving them downstream. Our trout always take advantage of this and pack their bellies with these high-protein bugs. That's why we're drifting scuds on the bottom. It's good fishing these from the dam clear down to our resort (Lilley's Landing.) We're using a 1/4-ounce bell weight to get the fly down; four-pound line is fine. Use either one or two flies about 24 inches apart. Number 10 or 12 scuds are the best, gray in color. Egg flies and San Juan Worms are also catching fish but not as good as scuds. If you're drifting down past our resort, I'd switch to Power Eggs or night crawlers and fish them on the bottom. Down at the Landing, you can fish with a jig-and-float using a 1/32nd-ounce pink or brown jig or a Berkley's Pink Power Worm on a jig hook. Before the rain, we were catching fish in the mouths of the creeks downtown, Turkey and Roark. While I haven't talked to anyone yet, typically trout will go up in the creeks when there's this much water running. They'll chase spoons and spinners, jigs and eat power bait on the bottom or on a jig hook under a float. We're still hoping for a school of threadfin shad to find their way over the dam and get pulled into our lake, but we have not heard of any yet. I've heard a few fish caught on white jigs but not many. They will hit a white jig, but until we see anything different, I'd throw a sculpin or black 1/8th-ounce jig and get it close to the bottom.