Phil Lilley

I keep hearing of flood rains... but the forecasts don't bear that out.

It's finally happened... there's no current on Taneycomo this morning. Along our bank, there's more silt/sand than I've ever seen. The scuds and sow bugs are there again, moving down with the water level. Rainbows are coming out of the deep and ambushing the bugs. I'm going to boat up lake and take some pictures, then drive to the dam and take some more. With the rains coming in this week, this may be short-lived.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/abrfc/?n=abrfcfop Looks like it's not going to make it's way up into Missouri... can you find and relay a forecast that shows 9 inches in Missouri? I'll keep looking.

All three lakes in the White River chain of four lakes are now at their seasonal power pools: Beaver Lake - 1,120.64 feet (pp 1,120.43). Table Rock Lake - 915.00 feet (pp 915.00). Bull Shoals - 658.88 feet (pp 659.00). But the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers continues to run two units of water, at a lake level of 705.72 feet, day and night. Some have asked when it will stop . . . I'd say very soon, but there is rain in the forecast next week. I think most people love this warm winter weather we're having. The 10-day forecast shows daytime temperatures ranging from 67 to 72 degrees. Trees are budding, flowers are blooming, but what is on the horizon? We still have 4-5 weeks of potential freezing weather -- not good for trees, especially fruit trees and vines (I'm referring to our beloved blueberries south and west of town). But with warm, spring weather comes the good chance of rain, and that would mean more generation. I don't mean to sound like generation is a bad thing. I do, though, realize that there's a big angler population that loves to wade and fly fish the upper lake. And there's those who like to fish the rest of the lake when the water isn't running. I feel your pain. But know this -- running water is very good for our food base in the lake, and that bonus grows bigger trout more quickly than if the water wasn't running. Our water color hasn't change since the big flood water release stopped in mid January. It's still a chalky, green color with about four feet of visibility. We're used to clear water here on Taneycomo, and the tendency is to blame any bad luck on something . . . cloudy water is as good as anything. But for those using lures, they may have a point, especially when throwing something as small as a jig. Fish can't see as far as they can when the water is clear. Scent helps, which is why anglers using bait have an advantage right now. The trophy area, above Fall Creek, is producing well, but those who are using brighter colors are doing better. With jigs, white is still doing fairly well along with pink and even chartreuse. Some guys told me they used a white/chartreuse combo for the first time and caught fish. An orange-headed jig is attracting strikes, too, using the darker, earth colors like sculpin, olive and brown. If you're throwing a jig with no float, use two-pound line for best results, regardless of water color. "But you can't land big fish on two-pound!" I landed not one but two big carp Saturday morning on Bull Shoals Lake using two-pound Trilene XL, estimate weight, 15 pounds. Two-pound line gives you the option to throw small jigs if the conditions are right. If there's no wind, slow current and not deep water, you should throw a 1/16th-ounce jig. If you're using four-pound line, you can't throw a jig that small. Dam operators have been running 100 megawatts of power, which is about two units up until Saturday when it dropped to about 50 mws, or one unit. The lake level is hovering at 705 feet. At this flow, you could throw smaller jigs in the upper lake, 3/32nd-ounce for sure, if not 1/16th-ounce, providing you're using two-pound line. Guide Steve Dickey reported his clients have done well fly fishing, drifting from the cable below the dam to Trophy Run. He's running a two-fly rig with either an egg fly/scud or San Juan worm/scud, 6x tippet, small split shot 24 inches above the first fly and a float 12- to 15-feet above the last fly. He's using a cerise worm, bright orange or pink egg fly and an olive, tan or gray #12 scud. He's also using the same flies on a drift rig, 1/8th-ounce bell weight and four-pound line. This same rig is working from the Narrows to Fall Creek, too. I worked the bluff bank from Lookout down to the Narrows once this week and didn't do that well. I caught only two rainbows on a white 3/32nd-ounce jig under what I consider excellent conditions (cloudy, two units, no wind). That's no indication someone else couldn't do better since there are good trout in that stretch, I'm sure. It's just that fishing in that stretch lately has been slow for me. I also drifted a night crawler from Fall Creek to Short Creek the other day and had lots of takes! That's code for "I fed a bunch of trout worms and didn't catch many." Steve said they've done better using PowerBait Gulp Eggs, as far as hooking more fish, but the night crawlers will catch bigger trout, plus give you a better chance at hooking a brown trout. Drifting from just above our place down to Monkey Island with the combination of a drift rig, four-pound line, and Gulp Eggs is catching rainbows. A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of small rainbows were stocked, I'd say averaging nine inches long. While fun to catch, most people are tossing them back. Handle with care if you want a chance to catch them again! Good Gulp Egg colors have been white and pink. Our fishing outlook can be summed up in one word -- rain. With spring still ahead of us, and delightfully warm temperatures already here, lots of rain will bring our lakes back up, so we may see continuing generation for quite some time. The forecast next week predicts rain for several days. While we do need the rain, we're all still leary of a deluge. Elfrink Summary Last weekend we hosted our second public tournament of the year, the Elfrink Memorial. Forty four teams competed, and most said it was a tough day of fishing. But one thing happened that's never happened in my memory of any day on this lake, tournament or not -- five legal browns were caught and weighed in. While most anglers saw small rainbow after small rainbow, a few good rainbows were caught including a 2.20 pound rainbow caught by Cooper Cox. But the dinky federal rainbows ruled the day, grabbing the lures ahead of the big ones (that's the way I like to look at it.) Conditions were ideal with the exception of a high sun. But surprisingly, the browns were active, especially the big ones! There were many stories of the "big one that got away," and those trout all happened to be brown trout. But five were landed, two hitting or surpassing the 24-inch mark while the others were just over 20-inches. You could have heard a pin drop as I weighed the second large brown. The first weighed, caught by Gerry Dwiggins of St Charles, MO, had already tipped the scales at 5.74 pounds. They were both male trout and very similar in girth. The scale rested at a solid 6-pounds flat. Jim Rayfield of Salem, MO, had taken the first brown trout pot in six years of this contest. It paid $1,200. Jim's brown came on an 1/8th-ounce sculpin jig in the Short Creek area. It was his first fish of the day! He hooked a nice brown on the cast before, but the hook pulled out. On the next cast, he hooked the trophy. Gerry's brown also came on an 1/8th-ounce brown jig. He caught it down below the Branson Landing. It was caught after lunch -- yes, in the middle of a sunny day. View full article

His license is for 6 people (non guide) in the boat. He can actually have a mate.

Hope they find them. If they were warned by authorities, throw the book at them. One thing to say I want a fire but to leave and not put it out!!!??? Wow.

A guide can take only 6 people in a boat. That's the limit on his USCG license. We offer pontoon guide trips. There are a couple of guides here that will take up to 6 in our pontoon.

CAMFishingTournamentFlyer.pdf

Looks like it needs some serious work... lots of wash from the first flow back in Dec/Jan. Would have like to have seen the flow right after they went to 73k at Table Rock - running through this area.

Forty four teams competed in yesterday's contest and most said it was a tough day of fishing. It matched Friday's fishing day. But one thing happened that's never happened in my memory of any day on this lake, tournament or not -- we had 5 legal browns weighed in. While most anglers saw small rainbows after small rainbow, a few good rainbows were caught including a 2.20 pound rainbow caught by Cooper Cox. But the dink federal rainbows ruled the day, grabbing the lure before the big one got to it (that's the way I like to look at it). Conditions were ideal with the exception of a high sun. But surprisingly, the browns were active, especially the big ones! There were many stories of the "big one that got away", and those trout were all brown trout. But 5 were landed, 2 hitting or surpassing the 24-inch mark while the others were just over 20-inches. You could have heard a pin drop as I weighed the second large brown in. The first, caught by Gerry Dwiggins of St Charles, Mo., had already tipped the scales at 5.74-pounds. They were both male trout and both very similar in girth. The scale rested at a solid 6-pounds flat. Jim Rayfield had taken the first brown trout pot in 6 years of this contest. It paid $1,200. Jim's brown came on an 1/8th-ounce sculpin jig in the Short Creek area--plus it was his first fish of the day! He had a nice brown on the cast before and the hook pulled out on it. Next cast was the trophy. Gerry's brown also came on a marabou jig but his was brown, 1/8th-ounce and he caught it down below the Branson Landing. It was caught after lunch, yes in the middle of a sunny day. Many anglers think the lack of trout caught on lures is caused by the off color water Lake Taneycomo has had since the flood back in January. It won't be clearing any time soon seeing Table Rock's water is in the same shape. But it could also be explained by an old saying... "It's fishing, not catching." Those bigger trout don't eat every day. Leaderboard Cooper and Chris Cox, 4th place and biggest rainbow Merrick Meyers and Brad Beach, 3rd place Paul Crews and Jim Rayfield, 2nd place and biggest brown Jim Rayfield with his 6 pound brown Bruce Wucher and Gerry Dwiggins, 1st place.

Looks like a great group!

Nice weather... I would think so

http://www.ozarkanglers.com/james-river/maps/ Maps of the James River.

Guessing what the US Army Corps of Engineers is going to do with lake levels has been tough the last couple of weeks. I actually emailed and asked someone at the Corps a couple of weeks ago and didn't get an answer. I asked about Beaver Lake's level and if they were going to start dropping it, seeing it was so high. I got my answer a week ago - they started running water at Beaver Dam and now Beaver's level has dropped considerably. At the same time, they bumped up the flow from Table Rock so we're seeing 100 megawatts of water running this week, not the 40 mw of water we've been seeing. Beaver is now just under 1124 feet so it has a few feet to go before they're down to winter power pool. We should see generation for another couple of weeks, then we may see more periods of no generation here on Taneycomo. Depending on the flows, we're still throwing jigs at the trout and doing pretty well. Most of the time they're 1/8th ounce jigs, especially with this heavier flow, but we're also throwing the 3/32nd ounce jig seeing we're using 2-pound line most of the time. Lighter line allows the jig to drop quicker in the water than using 4-pound line thus we can use the small jigs even with 100 mw of water running. Of course, as you get further from the dam, the water is much slower and you can get away with smaller jigs. Colors, well, white is still a color you should throw but the trout have already forgotten about the shad and are on darker colors like sculpin, black, olive and brown. Of course the combo colors like sculpin/ginger and brown/orange are working too. I was doing extremely well using a 3/32nd ounce mottled brown jig with an orange head last week. Wore the orange paint off one jig. The trophy area has been fishing very well but some areas are better than others. Big Hole down to the MDC boat ramp has been hot as well as the stretch from the Narrows to Fall Creek. We've had several reports of anglers using spoons and doing well. The other day last week when they were running 30 mw of water, I boated to Lookout about 1:30 pm and got out with only my Muck boots on -- no waders. Fished the back side using a #14 hot pink Copper John under a float and caught a half dozen rainbows. Tied on a #14 ice gray scud and it was on. Brought 14 more rainbows to hand. Walked up to the top of the island where the water splits and started throwing the scud there. Fishing in less than 12 inches of water, caught a dozen small "silver bullets". Got bored and really wanted to throw a black woolly bugger so I switched. Still working the fast, shallow water at the top, those trout were slamming at the fly, mostly out of the water. I had to hold it still just so they could try for it 2 or 3 times before getting a hold of it. It was a bite every cast and 20+ more rainbows to hand. I could have stayed there the rest of the day and caught them. Crazy. The deeper I'd throw out and worked down, the bigger the rainbows. Back to the boat, I motored to the top of the backside of the island and threw a small anchor out. Stayed close to the mud bank and worked the pockets as I drifted down slowly. This is where I caught the good rainbows- several in the 17 inch range. I threw a 3/32nd oz mottled brown jig, orange head, 2-pound line. Wanted to get out and fish a couple more banks but only got to one. At the Narrows, there's about 130 feet of gravel bank on the channel side. I got out and fished the gray scud under a float with quite a bit of weight. Caught another 10 rainbows there, mostly 14+ inchers. There are a ton of small rainbows in the lake right now--we call them "silver bullets" and they're probably stock from the federal hatchery at Neosho, Missouri. We get a load of them in the winter months and they are generally smaller than state rainbows, averaging 10 inches long. These trout will grow up to be pretty rainbows if given the chance. Most anglers will release these small fish to go for bigger fryers but in doing so, if not handled and released properly, they will only sink to the bottom of the lake to become food for big browns. Here's the best way to handle and release a trout: If you have to touch the fish, handle with a wet hand or cloth. If the hook is down in the mouth or throat, cut the line close to the fish's mouth and release. The hook will either work out or dissolve, providing it bronze and not gold. Below Fall Creek, drifting night crawlers is catching bigger trout, bigger fish than using Powerbait. They're eating minnows pretty good too, especially brown trout. We're still seeing small browns that look a lot like rainbows but be very observant of the spots of the tail. Spots -- it's a rainbow. No spots -- it's probably a brown. Picture courtesy of guide Rick Lisek. When drifting, stay in the middle of the lake. If you see a big disturbance in the water while drifting and you're going to drift directly over it, pull in your line and wait till you're by it until throwing back out. This will save you some drift rigs! Trolling with Shad Raps from the first bridge down way past the Branson Landing is producing good trout, especially browns. But be careful of all those sharp treble hooks!!! We've had several anglers making trips to Urgent Care the last couple of weeks!! View full article

Depends on who leases it. if I did, I'd tied up some cedar trees off the dock for sure!

Here's a thread dedicated just to bank fishing on Table Rock Lake.

Of course!!

Yeah- it covered up our crappie spot!!!