Phil Lilley

Yesterday, I was picked as part of a 12-man jury here in Taney County. Two day trial I was told. Never been called to served and was actually looking forward to the experience. But it only took 4 minutes for the judge to dismiss us this morning, leaving 2 days with nothing to do (yeah right!). I wanted to go somewhere and catch crappie or white bass or both. I left the resort not knowing where I'd go. A series of turns led me to Shadow Rock Park at the mouth of Swan Creek on Bull Shoals. I'd been there on Saturday and didn't do that good but I had 3 rookies with me. I wanted to give it another chance. Spent some time below Powersite - around the rock pile where I was seeing a bunch of fish on the Livescope but no takers. Water temp 48. Worked the east bank down quite a ways - nothing. Caught a brown trout there on Saturday. Headed to Swan. Pulled in about 5:30 pm. Water temp 58. Looked around the mouth and didn't see much. Went to the bend across from the park and got a bite over close to the edge of the field. Short story - I fished the field, 3 feet of water and caught a bunch of big blue gill. Then I found the crappie, one white and a walleye (short). Quite a bit of action - all on the field and most in 3-4 feet of water. All on a white/blue 3/32nd oz jig. Video to follow.

We're getting more and more wake and bigger boats on Taney. On Taney, we can't get away from any boat that uses our part of the lake... they all come by here and offer their big wakes. Even when they're outside my buoys, the wake comes just as big. But this is my take on all wakes - they're going to happen whether I yell and scream and rant or not. If I don't want to be waked, I don't go on the lake. If I don't want my dock to be waked, I should sell and get rid of it. It's going to happen... like it or not. It's a battle I'm not going to fight because I will not win. We buoy and tie our boats up the best way we can to keep them from too much damage and we caution our guests to be careful of wakes - both throwing them and taking them. When someone throws a wake at me when I'm doing One Cast, sometimes I'll mention it as point of education and sometimes I do get a little irritated by the really nasty ones. But I won't rant because it's not worth my time. And I sure won't on here because Wrench will tell me to grow up... or get out of the lake business. But he'll do in an affectionate way

We've had an interesting time of it here on Lake Taneycomo the last few days. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released water from all 10 flood gates several times since Sunday while leaving the water completely off for must of the remainder of the time. Strange? Yes but there were reasons for both. For the past year, one of four turbines at Table Rock Dam has been out of service. To button up the repair, evidently a dive team was needed on the Taneycomo side; thus, a fairly large and heavy dive pontoon was used on Sunday and Monday. To get such a boat all the way to the face of the dam, water has to be running. While the work was being done, the water had to be off. So, and I am surmising what happened at this point, the water was left off all day Sunday during the work time, then all 10 spill gates were used to "float" the pontoon out of the upper lake. They couldn't run the turbines for some reason. Then Monday morning, flood gates were again opened so the pontoon could make its way to the dam again, and again the water was left off all day Monday until the work was done. Monday evening they tested all four units at full tilt -- and they worked fine. Here's One Cast from last night. I had to deal with a lot of debris floating down on the lake from the big flow push. I could report about fishing when the water was off, but that would be irrelevant now since it looks like generation is back to two units running 24 hours a day. Let's just say fishing was awfully good for almost everyone, fly fishers as well as spin and bait anglers. Beaver Lake is still two feet over its power pool and operators there are running water about 10 hours a day. It's not dropping very fast, but with the rain and this added water, Table Rock Lake bumped back over its power pool to 915.3 feet. I assume the Corps wants to run water until both lakes are at or below power pool levels. Bull Shoals, on the other hand, is running some serious water, and that lake is dropping at a rate of .57 feet per day. Its power pool is 660 feet, so in a few days it will reach its pool mark. With very little rain in the 10-day forecast so all three tailwaters should see very slow generation within the next week. The heavy flow Monday should have cleaned out a bunch of moss and junk accumulated over weeks of slow generation. But we are still dealing with -- and will for a couple of months -- moss and algae from Table Rock. Our trout actually eat a fair amount of this moss, probably when they chase scuds living in the gravel, which is covered with the green algae. Scuds are still the number one food for our trout, so it makes sense that a scud fly should be our number one bait of choice. We use the scud in one of two ways when fishing for trout -- dragging it on the bottom with a little weight or using a float to fish deep enough to rake the bottom with a small split shot to keep it down there. The float method does seems to be the best at keeping the fly clean of algae, but depending on where you're fishing, you need to fish it 8- to 12-feet deep, under the float. We generally use a an eight- to nine-foot spin rod or a fly rod to handle this kind of rig. If you're dragging the scuds without a float, I'd use two-pound line and just a tiny BB split shot. It will take a few more seconds to get to the bottom, but it seems to keep the scud out of the algae better than using the regular drift rig and bell weight. Best areas to fish the scud is from the dam down to Trout Hollow. The best was to just flat catch trout is to drift a night crawler on the bottom from Fall Creek to Cooper Creek. Just use a half worm and hook it once in the middle of the half on a #8 hook. I'd use an 1/8th-ounce bell weight rig, and four-pound line is fine. A lot of rainbows that grew up in the trophy area have moved below Fall Creek, and they will take a night crawler much faster than a PowerBait egg or paste. Minnows will work, too, especially to catch a big rainbow or brown. It's been more than two weeks since we had a big push of shad from Table Rock, but those fish still remember, so they'll take a minnow or white jig. View full article

I haven't heard of any huge brown sightings, even through the fall season so may be not. Hard to say for sure.

White Bite is still on. But I've found it to be better below Fall Creek rather than above it. We saw shad coming through thick at our place a week ago Sunday so all these fish, probably clear down past the Landing, saw these and fed on them. I'm using a 1/16th oz jig because I want the jig not to sink very fast. I'm not jerking the jig but shaking it to give it a wiggle - like the shad that were going down last week.... stunned, or lifeless and letting it just sink real slow. I worked the bluff starting well down from FC to Short Creek, then starting where Sun Valley used to be down to our place. I caught 23 rainbows, mostly small stockers. But I caught these 2 rainbows and a few others in the 13-14 inch range. The wind was tough until later in the evening when it died. But so did the bite.

I have a terrova tm I want to give my son in law but he doesn't have room for the third battery. So the question is - can he run it on 24v and if he does, what can he expect? Thanks

This jig bite isn't the easiest. The reason for the light jig is to try to "float" it across the bottom. Too deep and it grabs moss. They are chasing, like Bill said. My son Caleb had some luck working it alittle faster.

See.... my editor will take care of these little typos. I spelled it the way it sounded I was in a hurry!!

This is no April Fool's Lake Taneycomo fishing report! The trout are biting! But it is still fishing and not catching. It did finally happen! All day Sunday, threadfin shad poured into Lake Taneycomo from Table Rock Lake. It was amazing. How and why they did, just all of a sudden, is a mystery. They came in alive and they came in stunned. Hundreds and thousands floated down past even our resort all day Sunday. And, yes, the trout would hardly bite on anything we threw at them. Our jigs and shad flies weren't any match to the real thing. And the shad outnumbered us a thousand to one. But it all ended Sunday evening when operators shut the spill gates at Table Rock Dam. I had reported that I thought there were shad coming through the three turbines running at the dam. Shad were thick on the turbine side and the spill side of Taneycomo below the dam. It makes more sense that they came over the top, but they do come through the turbines at times. I'll leave it a mystery because I'm just not sure. Monday, fishing remained tough. It seemed like our trout were full and didn't want to eat. But there were good trout caught. Captain Dave Welch's client caught these beautiful browns on a white jig. And Captain Darren Sadler's client caught this nice rainbow, again on a white jig. Starting Tuesday, operators dropped generation from three full units to two units. That dropped the lake level more than four feet from its high mark, when they were running 15,000 cubic feet of water per second and reduced the flow by quite a bit. It made fishing much easier. And Tuesday the fish started feeding again. And, of course, they were interested in about anything white. I took out writer/ TV fishing personality Ron Schara from Minneapolis Tuesday morning. Our first drift from Lookout Island down wasn't the best. We started with 1/8th-ounce white jigs, and the fish weren't having it. I was a little confused because some of the guides who floated by said fishing was awesome! So we did it again, but this time I dropped to 1/16th-ounce white jigs. The bite was on! The smaller jigs weren't dropping right to the bottom. We could let them drift without having to work them very much. I think a 1/32nd-ounce jig would have done even better, but the wind picked up a little bit so the 1/16's worked perfectly. We stayed in the middle of the lake, too -- that drift was good to us! And big rainbows! Hardly nothing small was caught. Several trout measuring 20 inches came in and were released. And fat , , , yes, their stomachs were bulging but their whole physiques were impressive. And, of course, their colors were amazing. As I said, we saw tons of shad go by our resort, so we know fish saw and ate shad probably all the way to Rockaway Beach. That means white should be a popular color up and down the lake. The report on creeks -- before the shad came over, the trout in our creeks had been hammered to the point of extinction. The ones that were left had become "educated" and couldn't be caught. But reports came in on Tuesday that giant schools of threadfin shad were moving in and out of the creeks and trout, as well as other species of fish, were chasing them. This could become very interesting in the days to come! View full article

He and his wife... they’re doing the whole Branson thing.

He said it is the first time back since the early 80’s. His timing here was perfect. Will try to get him out again this week.

It is

Well after a day and a half, they started biting. Crazy bite this morning. The rainbow with my grandson Jerry is well over 23 inches.

not a good one... I tried one on our bank last evening

Fished late afternoon with Blake and Darin. We just got to the cable, videoing a "boat ride", the horn blew and they started shutting the spill gates. Talk about perfect timing although I didn't think they'd shut them till tomorrow. Lots of shad in the water. We drifted using shad flies, white jigs, sculpin jigs, egg flies, scuds - nothing. We tried everything. Drifted to Short Creek. Nothing. Those fish are keyed in on shad and they've had their fill today I guess. They're running 3 units at 10,000 cfs. They may slow it down tomorrow - we'll see. Table Rock is just below 916 feet and I'm sure it will continue to drop. No real rain forcasted for the next 10 days.

It started sometime this morning, early. Shad started POURING - not over the top - but through the turbines. It's 2:30 and they're still floating past our dock. The bite early was good but mid morning not so much. We did better below Fall Creek and on scuds, not shad flies. They are supposed to reduce flows either later today but probably in the morning (Monday). More info to come... and some awesome white bite fishing in the near future.

We bought this from our neighbor who is in poor health. They had it under a tarp for most of it's life. We gave the motor a tune up - runs good. Will make someone a nice fishing boat.

The Corps will reduce flow tomorrow afternoon or Monday morning.

Kayaks on Taney, esp right now, is a death wish waiting to happen. I had a guy waving his arms at me the other day as I approached. Was slowing down to idle speed to pass him and a few other kayaks and boats anyhow so I asked him if he was in trouble. He pointed behind me and said he didn't wanted to get swamped by my wake. I told him nicely that he was on the wrong lake if he was concerned about that. I think he was terrified the whole float cause it was a Saturday and the lake was full of boats.

Reports are the creeks have been pounded and few fish are left. If MDC stocked down in the Landing area, they might get replenished. There are some big blue gill being caught above the bridge and around the docks though. And reports of crappie are coming in, being caught around the docks at Rockaway Beach, upper end of the town.

There's really no good way to "handle" bigger trout in a boat. Touch them and you'll wipe off their slim. A boga has the risk of ripping out their lower jaw. Handing them even with 2 hands and they're dropped in the boat. There's no winners. Best is to flip them off the hook over the water with no pic... but that's not going to happen on a guide trip.

@Bill Babler