Phil Lilley

I'm giving oa a new look. Not the forum- it won't change.

Looking for images, good images of stripers taken on the lake. Need them for the new site- thumbnail. Thanks Phil

There's been several reports talking about using cicada patterns- tying them and fishing them. They're pretty much done here but our trout are still looking up.

Corrected. Thanks for pointing it out.

<p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/striper-state-record-2011-500.jpg" width="500" height="442"></p> <p>An OzarkAnglers Exclusive</p> <p>A Fordland man may have landed a new Missouri record striper, he reported on the Ozarkanglers.com forum this weekend.</p> <p> James Cunningham and his brothers knew there were big stripers below Powersite Dam on upper Bull Shoals Lake, he said. They had caught them before, traveling to the fishing spot several times this summer. Some had weighed up to 40 pounds, and even on Friday night that he hooked the lunker, they had two fish weighing more than 40 pounds already in the boat.</p> <p>They were casting and retreiving big swim baits, knowing that the stripers eat mainly trout this time of year. The trout school up near Powersite Dam because the water flowing from Lake Taneycomo is colder than the rest of the lake.</p> <p>It was about 1 a.m. early Saturday morning when the huge striper took the bait. Cunningham said it took him about 20 minutes to land her. After it tipped the scale in their boat at more than 60 pounds, the brothers scrambled to find a way to keep it fresh, knowing it couldn't be officially weighed until regular hours at the Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery in Branson. Since they didn't have a live well large enough for the whopper (not many fishermen do), they wetted and wrapped the big striper in rags and clothes to keep it from losing water weight.</p> <p>The official weight at thte hatchery was 60.55 pounds. It was 47 inches long and it's girth was 37 inches. James is now awaiting the official announcement from the Missouri Department of Conservation that it is a new state record.</p> <p>The old state record weighed 58 pounds, 10 ounces, and was caught by John West on July 8, 2010, on Bull Shoals.</p>

A Fordland man may have landed a new Missouri record stripper, he reported on the Ozarkanglers.com forum this weekend. James Cunningham and his brothers knew there were big stripers below Powersite Dam on upper Bull Shoals Lake, he said. They had caught them before, traveling to the fishing spot several times this summer. Some had weighed up to 40 pounds, and even on Friday night that he hooked the lunker, they had two fish weighing more than 40 pounds already in the boat. They were casting and retreiving big swim baits, knowing that the stripers eat mainly trout this time of year. The trout school up near Powersite Dam because the water flowing from Lake Taneycomo is colder than the rest of the lake. It was about 1 a.m. early Saturday morning when the huge striper took the bait. Cunningham said it took him about 20 minutes to land her. After it tipped the scale in their boat at more than 60 pounds, the brothers scrambled to find a way to keep it fresh, knowing it couldn't be officially weighed until regular hours at the Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery in Branson. Since they didn't have a live well large enough for the whopper (not many fishermen do), they wetted and wrapped the big striper in rags and clothes to keep it from losing water weight. The official weight at thte hatchery was 60.55 pounds. It was 47 inches long and it's girth was 37 inches. James is now awaiting the official announcement from the Missouri Department of Conservation that it is a new state record. The old state record weighed 58 pounds, 10 ounces, and was caught by John West on July 8, 2010, on Bull Shoals. View full article

<table width="881" height="91"> <tr> <td width="368"><p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/6-26a-350.jpg" width="350" height="246"></p> <p><a href="http://www.riverbum.com/Sofa-Pillow-Salmon-Fly-Stonefly-Adult/" target="_blank"><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/sofa-pillow-350.jpg" width="350" height="263"></a></p> <p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/6-26b-350.jpg" width="350" height="209"></p></td> <td width="501"><p>Got out on the lake this morning at 5:45 am. Fog wasn't too bad so I could scoot uplake fairly quickly. I guess the horns blew as I was boating up because the water started moving as soon as I got up there.</p> <p>Wanted to try a jig and float. Tied on an olive 1/125th oz marabou jig under a float 6 feet and started in the big hole below Lookout Island. Lots of rainbows midging all over the place but I didn't want to mess with them. They'd be simple to catch with a fly rod and a zebra midge under an indicator. I was after jig-fish.</p> <p>I caught a few smaller rainbows before the water started to really pick up. So I went to my trusty 3/32nd oz sculpin and caught a couple more. Started drifting down and picked up a few more- nothing big though. I hadn't caught many rainbows under 12 inches until this morning- glad they're up there.</p> <p>Heading up, the water was up enough to get over the shoal at Lookout so I boated up the Rebar and started there. I wasn't setting anything on fire--they were sucking on it, not taking it very aggressively, so I was missing fish. Tried a couple more colors- white, olive, brown- nothing really made it any better. Just a slow morning. I quit at 8:15, headed in for church.</p> <p>This afternoon, after working the office for a while, I headed up to throw some dries. Caught 2 nice rainbows first drift down from Lookout on the bluff bank. Lost the fly on the second trout and didn't have another one with me. The smaller stimulators didn't work. The hot fly has been a orange sofa pillow. #4</p> <p>Tried throwing a jig and did catch a few up close to the dam.</p> <p>Checking the generation schedule for tomorrow, it appears SPA is gearing up for some power generation. 3 units during the night bumping it up to 4 units in the heat of the day. We might see this for most of the week, seeing it's going to stay hot during that time. That knocks night fishing out for some... early morning fishing a jig for others.</p></td> </tr> </table>

Gezzz... what a fat striper!! Full of rainbows I bet!! I was thinking today about the record striper- there's been no news of it in the press that I've seen. Was there? Details, Crown? I'd love to post the story on the front page of OA. Do you have any other pictures? Thanks for posting!!

ok

You should write the tournament officials.

http://fishpaa.com/2011/06/king-of-table-rock-is-crowned/ King of Table Rock is Crowned [ 0 ] June 25, 2011 | admin By Pete Robbins BRANSON, Mo. – Heading into the second event of this year’s PAA Bass Pro Shops Tournament Series Presented by Carrot Stix, smart money said that Stacey King would challenge for the title. Conventional wisdom was not overturned this week as King led the tournament from wire to wire with three limits of bass that totaled 58.52 pounds. His pound and a half Day One lead dwindled to just over a pound yesterday, but on the strength of a massive 22.99 limit today he claimed the title by over 6 pounds. For his efforts he won $5,000 in cash and a new Nitro Z-8 with a Mercury 225 Optimax outboard and TH-Marine Atlas jackplate. King also had the biggest single bass of the tournament today, a 6.22 pound largemouth that earned him a Humminbird 898c Si combo. The remainder of the top five, in order, included Hefty pro Mike McClelland, Frog Tape pro Brian Travis, Booyah pro Terry Butcher and reigning PAA Angler of the Year Tommy Biffle. While King cemented his status as Table Rock royalty with the victory, behind every good man there’s a good woman. In this case the queen, also named King, is his wife Peggy. “I really didn’t have a lot of confidence going into today,” the Nitro pro said. “I told Peggy that this morning. You think I didn’t get a butt chewing?” Apparently the butt chewing she dished out sunk into his brain in a hurry. He caught the tournament’s big fish on his second cast of the day. King used a variety of lures, including jigs and swimbaits, but related that every fish he brought to the scales this week came on one of two oversized plastic worms – a Bass Pro Shops 12-inch Squirmin’ Worm and a 13-inch straight-tailed hand pour. King credited some of this morning’s success to second place finisher Mike McClelland. “Normally, I like to fish that big worm fast,” King said. “But yesterday on stage Mike said something about having to slow down to get better bites. This morning early I fished it real slow.” That made a huge difference. He had enough weight to win within the first few hours. “Big fish like big baits, especially in the summertime,” he said, then confirmed that he’d have thrown even larger worms if he could find some. He did his damage on tapering points that abutted the river channel. McClelland’s weights improved each day, and but for King’s massive limit his 22.00 pound bag would have been the biggest of the tournament. Like King, he fished large profile baits all week. They included a Jewel football head jig with a Zoom Brush Hog as a trailer, a big Zoom worm and an unnamed swimbait. “In a tournament like this, you have to make up your mind to fish for fewer bites with big baits,” he said. After an uncharacteristically difficult Elite Series season, McClelland said he hoped that this event would be his “slumpbuster.” He said that he cost himself the chance to win by starting in the wrong place on Day One. He didn’t land his first keeper that day until nearly 1 o’clock and managed to salvage the day with over 12 pounds in the last few hours. While a runner-up finish can be disappointing, McClelland had a positive outlook about the angler who beat him. “This is where I learned to bass fish,” he said. “If I’m going to get beat here, I want to get beat by Stacey King. When I was 16 years old he took me under his wing and took me out on the Bassmaster tour with him. He’s one of the most incredible anglers I’ve ever been around.” Biffle and Travis spent most of their day flipping and each had his lightest limit of the tournament. Biffle burned a lot of gas and a lot of baits to amass his 45.26 pound total catch. “I’d go up and fish one tree, then run two to three miles or up to ten miles to the next one,” Biffle said. “You’ve got to be fortunate to get the big bites and then when you get them you have to be lucky to get them out of the bushes. I probably went through 200 to 300 Biffle Bugs in the past three days.” The next tournament in the PAA Bass Pro Shops Tournament Series Presented by Carrot Stix will take place August 18-20 on Alabama’s Neely Henry Lake near Gadsden, Alabama.

How old do you think those 15-19 inch brown are? Because if they are all or most of them in the same year class, its be interesting to go back and see what water conditions were that year. It sounds like you have a tremendous spawn and good survival rate that year- or may be two years. You do catch rainbows too, don't you? I mean when you're using crank and stick baits.

What'd you fool them with?

Mitch- you might want to restart this topic. I deleted some posts that weren't appropriate (videos) and some of the last part won't make sense. I would have loved to go on this float but just can't swing it this time. May be this fall.

Nice stringer of bass. Making unreplaceable memories with your boy!

They blew the horns just as I stepped out of the door at 5:50 am this morning... man!! I was counting on at least a couple of hours of still water-- and I thought there were a bunch of guys wading up at the dam who were ticked too. But had a "date" with Steve Dickey at 6 am so I headed out anyways. We boated to Lookout and started throwing 3/32nd oz sculpin or olive jigs and catch trout on our first casts. And it didn't stop. Made one drift, then two and then headed to the dam. Made two drifts up there. We threw mostly sculpin and something- combo colors, sculpin and orange or olive or ginger and they all caught fish. We had several pushing 18 inches and one over 20 (pic). I had another that felt much bigger and Steve had a hog on but broke off. We did switch to 1/8th oz one the water started moving pretty good. I wouldn't call this morning incredible- good may be- but the size we were catching made the trip worth it. Same fish in both pics.

Got up to play basketball this morning early only to find out they weren't playing... so I went fishing. I play basketball with a bunch of guys at the college a few times a week. Boated up- made my way past Fall Creek and the Narrows almost to Lookout. The water was as shallow as 2.4 feet getting past the bar at Fall Creek and 1.8 feet at the Narrows. There's also a couple of big rocks in the channel just past the over hanging tree there at the Narrows so you have to go slow unless you have a jet. It had rained during the night- I checked the radar before I left and it looked clear to the west so I didn't take a rain jacket. Yes I got wet! I wanted to throw some jigs while the water was down. Even though the boards are still off at Powersite and the lake is abnormally low, there was plenty of water to work in the stretch between the Narrows and Lookout- up to 12 feet deep in places. I started with a 3/32nd oz scuplin jig, 4 lb line, 6 ft spinning rod. At first they didn't want it but as soon as it started raining, game on. It showered for about 10 minutes and I caught rainbows on every cast. When it stopped raining, the fish kept biting. Not sure how many I caught. Took pics of some of them. These were beautiful rainbows- pics don't do them justice. I hooked one rainbow while I was praying for my fishing buddy, Vince. He has brain cancer and not doing well. I've been confused how exactly to pray for him lately. Ask for healing, ask for grace, ask for direction... as I was talking about grace and peace and His presence to envelop their house, I set the hook on a large trout that immediately jumped out of the water. I thought, "that must have been the right thing to ask!" Now I don't take things happening as the "gospel" or confirmation of direction and I'm not big on signs. This was a neat thing that happened while I was having a special conversation with my God. Thought I'd share it. BTW- the rainbow was a very heavy 24 inch trout. He had a huge girth, not out of proportion but just big. But he had no snout. His upper face to the eyes was flat, I'm sure by birth. His eyes were actually looking forward, not to the side. His mouth was very small because of the defect. I didn't have a net and as I lifted him by the jig out of the water, the jig came lose and he fell back in the water. No pic. But man did he fight! Here are some pics of the morning - Looking downstream at the Narrows showing the gravel bar. House that had the wall that fell - lots of rock!!

I've have yet to figure that out- with the new site coming online in a couple of months, I'll have a better idea.

You're in Oregon County, Missouri... just wanted to clarify that. Might think you're in the state of Oregon from the title. Can't help you on carp fishing but I bet someone here can.

Are other guys targeting walleye, you think? I wonder how many total have been taken. I've caught 3, released 2.

Went back this evening with Marsha and her parents. Saw two schools on top in the middle of the lake heading over. Got there at 7:30 and only had 2 groups come up for less than 30 seconds. Very quite. Nice evening to be on the lake though.

<p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/6-21-brown-500.jpg" width="400" height="218"></p> <p>Trout fishing on Lake Taneycomo continues to be pretty good.&nbsp; It was tough getting out on the lake and fishing when the heat index was pushing 100 degrees but now that it’s cooler and looks to be nice and cool for the next week, people are getting out and enjoying the lake even during the day.</p> <p>Generation patterns have changed starting this week.&nbsp; Water is starting to run at 8 a.m. and building to 4 units, 200 megawatts, by noon and running pretty much all day.&nbsp; I think we’re going to see this pattern for weeks to come, at least till Table Rock Lake is down past 920 feet.&nbsp; It’s now at 924.8 and is dropping 3 inches per day.&nbsp; You do the math.</p> <p>I am still amazed at the size, quality and fight our rainbows have after the flood.&nbsp; We are catching thick, fat rainbows, mainly in the trophy area above Fall Creek everyday, all on flies and jigs.&nbsp; I’ve thrown a Rapala a couple of times but to be honest, I’ve thrown the wrong kind and haven’t done any good.&nbsp; I’ve been throwing a floating stick bait, shallow running and I think you need to throw a deep diver or sinking stick bait, like a CD-7 or 9 Rapala.</p> <p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/6-14a-250.jpg" width="250" height="167" hspace="5" vspace="5" align="right">From the cable down, white jigs are still doing very well when the water is running.&nbsp; Also dark jigs are doing good like sculpin, brown or olive plus combination colors like sculpin/orange and sculpin/ginger.&nbsp; Size of jig depends on how much water they’re running.&nbsp; If they’re just starting to generate and it’s not moving very fast, try a 1/16th or a 3/32nd-ounce but when they’re cranking the water, tie on a 1/8th-ounce.</p> <p>The guides were drifting small, floating Rebel crank baits using drift rigs a few weeks ago when the gates were opened but not so much any more but I would try that.&nbsp; Some big browns are starting to be caught and I would think they’d go for something a little more meaty.</p> <p>Steve Dickey, one of our guides, reports a change in the fly color he’s been using this week.&nbsp; He’s been doing better on brown scuds and lighter colored cream egg flies rather then the gray or olive scuds and dark roe colored eggs he’d been using last week.&nbsp; He’s drifting them under an Orvis thing-a-ma-bobber and fishing them about 9-feet deep in most places when the water is running.&nbsp; Best area to drift these flies is from the cable down to Lookout Island.&nbsp; He also said a hot pink San Juan worm is working good.&nbsp; Before the water starts, he’s fishing a #16 Zebra midge under an indicator 2-3 feet deep.&nbsp; He’s using a copper or gold head and either black thread or a P &amp; P (pearl &amp; primrose) style.</p> <p>Yesterday, Steve struggled during the middle of the day, as well as everyone else that was fishing.&nbsp; The wind has been tough and the trout seem to take a nap or something when the sun is up high in the sky.&nbsp; So middle of the day might be slow for you.</p> <p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/6-21c-250.jpg" width="250" height="188" hspace="5" vspace="5" align="left">Now we’ve been going out and fishing dry flies from Lookout down to the overhanging tree (a new landmark in the trophy area).&nbsp; The overhanging tree is just above the Narrows—it can’t be missed.&nbsp; It overhangs off the bluff side of the lake and when the water isn’t running, your path of travel takes you directly underneath the tree, through the channel.</p> <p>Our trout, and I’m sure other species of fish all over, have taken special note of the big cicada hatch this year.&nbsp; This stretch of lake has been particularly good for fishing a cicada patterns because this bank is fairly shallow for a bluff bank and the current doesn’t eddie and swirl on other bluff banks down lake.&nbsp; My best success is where the current is moving steadily right against the bank and if there’s a overhanging tree there, it’s even better.</p> <p>The cicadas are pretty much gone now but our trout are still looking up and to the surface for movement.&nbsp; We’ve changed from our cicada patterns to stimulators and other larger dry flies.&nbsp; Color and style don’t seem to make as much difference as size to these rainbows and browns.&nbsp; I’m using nothing less than a #4 or #2 fly with lots of body.&nbsp; The higher on the water it sits the better.</p> <p>We’ve fished at all times of the day and the best seems to be the last 2 hours of the day.&nbsp; Morning is good till about noon but the afternoon hasn’t been very good.&nbsp; Now if it gets cloudy, I’d go anytime and try it.</p> <p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/6-21d-250.jpg" width="250" height="192" hspace="5" vspace="5" align="right">Bill Babler says trout fishing is awesome!&nbsp; Bait fishing from Trout Hollow down to Lilleys’ using chartreuse Gulp eggs and night crawlers is producing better-than-average rainbows while from Monkey Island to Branson, the rainbows are quite a bit smaller.&nbsp; He thinks MDC stocked smaller rainbows last week.</p> <p>With 2-4 generators running, drifting a white woolly or white jig the entire trophy area is very good, “better than it gets”.&nbsp; Also drifting a #12 or #10 gray scud and an egg fly combo.&nbsp; Bill has been fishing mainly from 6 to 10 a.m. on Taneycomo.</p> <p>Down below Fall Creek, before they start running water, night crawlers has been the best live bait, injecting them with air and floating them off the bottom about 18 inches.&nbsp; When the water starts running, drift a Gulp combo using white and green or white and orange egg.&nbsp; The Berkley scented plastic worms in red or brown are doing good too.</p> <p>Water temperature when the water is running is 51 and water is cloudy.</p>

Back to feathers... was talking to Lisa yesterday and told her we should learn how to install these feathers onto heads and cut the middle man out! Dallas - you could be our first customer! Ness?

Found some whites surfacing last evening in the mouth of a cove on the east side of Indian Point last evening thanks to Jim, a member on the forum. They were feeding on shad that were small- 1-1.5 inches long. They came up about 7:30 for about an hour. Can't miss them- it's a big school. Jim says they're all over the place in that area now. Millions of whites. We threw 1/32nd oz white jigs at them with fly rods and did very well. We cleaned a limit.