Phil Lilley

I was impressed with the stretch I fished and the trout were NOT dumb. I threw some small stuff at them using 7x FL and most didn't pay attention to my offering.

I arrived at Montauk State Park on Saturday shortly after noon for a noon meeting with representatives from Trout Unlimited, Mid Mo Chapter, Gateway Chapter and the Missouri Council. John Wenzlick, Garry Teeple, Jeff Witten, Bill Lamberson, Matt Tucker and Spence Turner were there at the lodge cafe. We took care of T.U. business and adjourned about 2:30 p.m.. I headed up the hill to Reed's Cabins and checked in to my cabin, visited with Kelly and Dakota at the fly shop and then drove back down to the park to meet Darrell Bentley who was fishing just above the dam. There was a fair number of people wading in the area but room to step in. Trout were all over the place, cruising the slow moving river and taking small insects under the surface and on top. Darrell handed me an olive Caddis Emerger which worked well. I varied my retrieves from dead drift to stripping fast/pause and they took both. Nothing big but it was fun. The next morning we met at the lodge for breakfast at 8:30 and headed to the upper springs about an hour later. We walked up from the hatchery parking lot to where, Darrell said, the Current River starts. If you haven't been there, Pigeon Creek meets the springs and forms this very nice trout stream, one like you'd see in Colorado. The first fast riffle was full of rainbows. Darrell spotted a couple large bows holding close to a log laying in the fast current. He tried for them, drifting several bugs by the pair to no avail. I drifted a combo of flies- a #18 Primrose and Pearl and a #16 Green Butt soft hackle using 6x fluorocarbon tippet, no float and a small split shot. I caught 7 rainbows before losing the flies on a stick on the bottom. They took both flies equally. Moving down, I switched from nymphs and drifting with and without an indicator to using a #18 brown or olive Elk Hair Caddis, depending on how I saw the trout moving and feeding. If the pools were slow and deep, I'd tie on something I could dead drift. I did well using a #24 red blood midge as well as a #24 black thread midge. I also caught rainbows on a Miracle fly (egg pattern) and a Mega Worm (white yarn worm) under an indicator. I followed Darrell's instructions and let the fly sink to the bottom, then move it slowly and the trout would pick it up. We had hatches all throughout the day including blue wings, brown caddis and midges. This whole stretch is fairly east to wade and there were trout throughout. Darrell said it was awesome to fish during the catch and release months. Might have to go try it!

Thanks Al. You nailed it.

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/11/4547503/boaters-can-float-on-ozark-national.html Darrell is out of pocket this morning but he sent me this link. Still looking for something online about the guys ticketed for accessing the river.

Not true... I fished with Darrell Bentley today at Montauk and he told me they are arresting anyone who tries to float or wade any part of the river from the park to Van Buren. Federal agents told him this. 2 guys were arrested yesterday Friday trying to put a canoe in at TanVat.

I believe the forum software reduces the upload. Facebook does the same thing. It's to save hard drive space I guess. There's nothing I can do in settings. If you really want to post the best pic, email it to me and I'll upload it and post it. lilleyslandingresort @gmail.com

Generation patterns the last week or so can only be described as follows: Unpredictable. Unexplainable and erratic would be other adjectives. One day 25 megawatts will be running, or about a half unit all day, 24 hours, and then the next day they'll leave it off all day except a few hours in the evening. The last couple of days it's been coming on about 11 a.m. and running into the evening, 25 megawatts, about 1/2 unit. It's hard for people to plan a trip if you want to wade fish below the dam when you really don't know what the generation will be. But that's the nature of tailwaters. Trout fishing generally has been good for most people. Some days are better than others, and it doesn't seem that generation has anything to do with the ups and downs. Wind, I think, plays a role in whether fish are biting. The chop of the water's surface triggers a fish's belly cramps more than anything. It also triggers insect hatches and, of course, that rings the dinner bell for our trout. I'll start with fishing below Fall Creek using live bait. Gulp Powerbait has been the best bait, either fishing it on the bottom tight line or under a float placed on a small jig head. White and pink are the best colors. You can get away with using four-pound line, but a two-pound short tippet will catch more fish. Air-injected night crawlers seem to be catching more larger rainbows but not as many. The best spots have been just down from Cooper Creek on the west side of the lake, just up from Monkey Island down through the island and below Scotty's Dock to the landing. The lower area mentioned is the best place to use the PowerBait Gulp Eggs on a jig head under a floatfive- to six-feet deep. If you see trout midging or eating insects off the surface on the lake, try throwing a Little Jake's spoon and keep it close to the surface. This is what some of our guides are doing early in the mornings. I would think a Rooster Tail would be just as good. Above Fall Creek by boats, our guides are using an olive or black micro jig under a float four- to five-feet deep with a #16 or #18 zebra midge tied on as a dropper under the jig 12 inches. This has been a go-to rig for them for the past couple of months. They're using a rusty midge, P&P or a black midge. Also white thread jigs are working in place of the micro jig. Most people have been using 6x tippet unless they're going to really small midges or scuds, and in that case they're dropping to 7x. Steve Dickey, one of our guides, said they've had luck bouncing to dragging a 1/16th-ounce sculpin or brown marabou jig on the bottom, as long as the bottom is gravel. The fish have been aggressively picking it up and eating the jig. The best time has been early in the mornings. Rolan Duffield and his brothers, Ed and Gary, have been making a fall trip to Taneycomo for the past 28 years in a row. They're here this week and mainly fly fishing above Fall Creek out of Roland's boat. They've done well using an egg fly tied on a small 1/100th-ounce jig head fished under a float five- to six-feet deep. We sell these flies in the shop -- we call them Miracle flies. The Duffield boys are using 6x tippet. Ed told me yesterday he caught several "20-inch" rainbows on the egg fly. In verifying the report with Roland and Gary, the rainbows shrunk to 14 inches rather quickly. Fly fishing below the dam is, of course, very popular this time of year. It can get pretty crowded on weekends in October and November mainly because of the brown trout run. We are seeing a good number of browns in the upper lake. They make themselves evident by jumping in the air for no apparent reason. Tim Homesley owns a fly shop close to Roaring River and has family in the Branson area. He fishes quite a bit below the dam and shows why he is known for his trout fishing skill and knowledge. He caught several nice browns one morning earlier this week using a tan leech. Brett Rader, a long-time resident guide specializing in wade fly fishing, has been scoring both nice browns and rainbows using very small scuds that he ties and sells in his shop. He is using scuds as small as #24 but catching rather large trout. I think most people would be surprised what some of the big trout will take as far as flies down by the dam. These fish get pounded pretty hard by anglers wading around and offering all kinds of flies to them. They get weary after a while and shun almost anything that drifts in front of their face. A good presentation and tiny flies are the key to catch the big ones in the fall. There are a good number of browns caught on surface or film flies such as cracklebacks, woolies and soft hackles. They also will take a dry fly. On the other hand. . . big stick baits are a good way to hook a big brown as long as the Corp is running at least one unit. I reported a few weeks ago Steve Dickey caught a few nice browns throwing a Mega Bass stick bait one evening. If the water is running fairly hard, cast and work a suspending or floating stick bait along the banks and in the middle of the lake from the dam down, really, to the Landing. But especially the upper mile of the lake because of the higher concentration of browns right now. Night fishing below the dam is a completely different experience than fishing during the day. I've been doing it since the mid 1980s, but it doesn't ever get old. Usually there not a whole lot of other anglers out, and it's quiet except for the small animals on the bank making eerie sounds. Some people use glow-in-the-dark strike indicators and drift scuds and leeches in the outlets and faster water, but I like to just throw a streamer of some kind, swing it through the slow current areas of the tailwater and wait for that tug on the line. I've found these trout can go long periods of time without biting. I have learn, somewhat, to change flies often and keep moving around to get more bites. I do try varied retrieves to find out what they're liking at the time. I think the more creative you get with retrieves the better. Sometimes just letting the fly drift slowly, even bumping on the bottom, gets more strikes than stripping it. Streamer size and color does make a difference when you find the right combination. Usually they either like something in a light color or a dark and they stick with that shade most of the night unless there's a change in ambient light. If the moon sets or it gets clouded over, colors sometimes change. This week on OzarkAnglers Forum, there is some good information on the brown trout run in regards to the hatchery outlets and in about triploid browns stocked in our lake.

The majority of the people who fish this lake use bait, fish below Fall Creek and really don't care to change their methods of fishing to help grow bigger fish. Yes they'd love to catch the big one... but overall they just want to fish with bait and catch their limit. Bait is the key... you can't do much in the way of slot restriction or length limit restriction without making some kind of bait restriction and bait restriction (the way tourist fish) I don't think can be messed with. Of course, from a resort owner's position that sounds self serving and it may be but trout stamp revenues pay for most of the trout put in this lake and tourist buy most of those trout stamps. If I had MY way, I'd restrict the whole lake if I thought it would grow bigger trout (and it would) but I understand the marketing and politics of the area and I know that will never happen.

I loved watching Jim Edmonds hit homers... Adams reminds me of Edmonds - put a lot of top spin on the ball - but with more power.

Not sure how you'd extend 30 days into 90 without more restrictions on limit, lures and size- like the trophy area. 30 days is a number MDC came up with through their creel surveys back in the 80's and 90's. That's when there was a 5-fish limit. They also found that people wanted bigger fish rather than more fish. So they increased the average size of rainbows from less than 10 inches to 11.5 inches and reduced the limit to 4. I don't know what the growth rates is on rainbows and I'm not sure you can say the food supply is great. I know the scud population isn't what it used to be. I wouldn't call is "bad" but I don't think it's good enough to grow these fish any faster than the hatchery. Shane and Clint have agreed to speak to a TU/Ozarkanglers meeting this winter to talk about Taneycomo's trout fishery. I have not scheduled it yet but I want to hold it at the Springfield Nature Center probably in January.

In my experience, I catch very little on the big stuff. Others have had more luck. Big streamers work better when the water is running than not. But even then, I've never did well using big streamers.

You can go with either extreme... and that's your options. Extreme #1 - Big Stuff, but mostly at night. But Tim Homesley has proven you can catch them during the day on leaches. Extreme #2 - Small Stuff. Brett Rader and Chuck Gries have been doing well wading below the dam and catching nice browns. Brett's using #20 and #22 scuds mainly, 6x tippet. Where you fish is important though and I can't give you those spots because I haven't been up there to find them. Of course the outlets will be full of fish and anglers too. I'd seek out slow moving water and out of the way places where fish haven't been bothered too much. Go slow and watch for them. Honestly- I think more big trout are caught on the small stuff than the big stuff on Taney.

I am confident there are. But trout move around, I believe. That's why we see a bunch of good fish in the trophy area certain times a year, then we don't. I'm sure they're where the food is and there's a lot of forage fish all down through the lake.

Shane Bush: The questions asked seem to be whether or not the triploids will come up higher the lake. SOH staff have already had quite a few triploids come up the fish ladder, so the answer is yes. However, in our electrofishing samples, most of the triploids we collected were around Fall Creek or below. Of course, that was in August so there may be more of those upstream now. The attachment is an excel file of a study Shane sent to me on triploids. TriploidTroutLiterature.xlsx

This is an email I got from Shane Bush today: · We conducted a creel survey of the entire lake from 2008-2010. Only 4 brown trout were harvested during the entire two year creel and all four of those were harvested in 2008. That’s a 99.7 percent release rate of brown trout lakewide. Therefore, an increased length limit would not likely do much for the brown trout fishery in Lake Taneycomo. · The high water in 2008 and 2009 created very poor water quality conditions in Table Rock Lake and subsequently, Lake Taneycomo and Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery. The brown trout population in Lake Taneycomo during that time did not do well and survival of brown trout in the hatchery and stocked out into Taneycomo was not good during those years. Therefore, the brown trout population experienced a decline. We have been fortunate to have some better water quality from 2010 to the present and Shepherd of the Hills hatchery staff have done a fantastic job raising brown trout so that we could increase the stocking rate from 10,000 per year to 15,000 per year. · In an attempt to get the population to rebound from the floods, we’ve stocked 15,000 brown trout per year in Lake Taneycomo each year since 2011. Those fish are doing very well and contributing to angler catch rates this year. The 2011 fish are around 15-18 inches right now and based on fishing reports, anglers seem happy with the fish they are catching. These fish should reach 20 inches next year and provide the opportunity for anglers to harvest a true trophy. With harvest rates so low, I have no concerns that anglers will overharvest these fish and they will continue to grow larger. · Of the 15,000 brown trout stocked in 2013, 5,000 were triploid brown trout. MDC Resource Science Division staff have been working with management and hatchery staff on this project and another 5,000 triploid brown trout are scheduled to be stocked in 2014, along with the annual 10,000 diploid brown trout. · We continue to stock 700,000 rainbow trout annually. They studied the effects of suckers competing with rainbow trout for food for several years and did not notice any direct impacts that caused a decline in the quality or numbers of either species. I have attached some documents for your reference. The first is the Lake Taneycomo creel survey summary and the second is the 2012 Lake Taneycomo annual report. http://www.ozarkanglers.com/lake-taneycomo/2012-m-d-c-lake-taneycomo-annual-report/ http://www.ozarkanglers.com/lake-taneycomo/2008-09-lake-taneycomo-creel-survey/ Thanks, Shane Bush Fisheries Management Biologist Missouri Department of Conservation

Sold both

You nailed it. What material did you use?

Model # 9BT42GAAF 42 inch shaft

Yep- ran it across the surface. Micheal Kyle can speak to fishing mice better than I. The only place I've used them is in Alaska for rainbows, not here. And up there my experience in limited.

$150 each 4 years old. Good working order. Used on a rental boat.

Got to outlet #2 parking lot after midnight last night. Waded in below outlet #2. Water was dropped all the way out. Started with sinking line and a black pine squirrel, switched to a white pine squirrel - nothing. There were a few browns jumping down from #2 so I knew there were fish there. Switched to floating line. Using a black pine squirrel, I hooked something with shoulders. Brown! Close to 20 inches. Fished till 2:45 am. There was a short period of time when I'd get a strike on every cast, caught 6 rainbows (no size), then it stopped as quickly as it started. Short strikes after that. Tried white, olive, purple and black. They liked olive best. Tried a mouse and got one good blow up on it but it wasn't a big fish. Tried a sculpin and got a couple of short hits.

Deleted one post - this has headed way off course although I've learned some things about healthcare as well as some interesting personal stories. I think we can have a civil conversation about this - I really do. Who knows- we might even solve the problem with good constructive conversations. Just stay off the personal issues- take them to personal messages if you have to get personal. This topic is close.

Very interesting. And great pictures!! I tried a John Berry green butt soft hackle the other day with no results but they really weren't on the surface feeding that afternoon. I think we'll get to tying and stocking shortly!

I knew he should have walked Alverez... give him nothing to hit! He's a Cardinal Killer!! They pulled it out... Should do good in St Louie Wednesday. But if the Pirates beat us, I wish them well. They're a good group of guys who I think should go far in the playoffs. "No series win since 1979?!" Wow!!

I'll do it for you, Brian. Got it from your facebook post.