Phil Lilley

Finally... A good friend of mine fishes there year round and usually has a handle on where the whites are. I called in and got the skinny from a trip he made on Friday and put JR on the fish. The Spring was real dirty a week ago but is clearing up. It should be in great shape for the next week. Paul talks about, and I've seen them, old bridge piers and a set of high lines. Those who know the area know these landmarks. That's where the whites are- between the bridge piers and high lines. But they should be moving up above the riffles if it stays warms.

As I fish for crappie on Taney, I can't help but think these guys should be doing the same thing I find them doing here on Table Rock... it's just a matter of locating them. The crappie I'm catching here at out from the bank 30 or more feet suspended about 10-14 feet deep. They're off banks that are spawning banks to close to spawning areas with brush or timber. The fish I'm cleaning are full of shad and minnows so they're beefing up for the spawn. They're slow and soft on the take because of the cold water they're in. I've done real well using a lite jig and letting it drift down slowly, watching the line for a bump. Once I locate them, I switch to a jig and float. The bite on this rig is even more unnoticeable... you REALLY have to watch the float for the slightest movement. Wish I had time to go and try out my theory... they'll just have to wait on me for a week or so.

bojack- send me a pm or email and tell me when you ordered it and other details and I'll check on it. It should only take a couple of days.

We did get the navy hats in and a new shipment of the other colors too.

Edgewater I think is in Rockaway. Not as knowledgeable of that part of the lake. You're 4 miles below Branson and Branson is 8 miles below the dam. There's been great fishing from Branson to the first major bend in the lake. Use 4 lb if still fishing with bait or throwing jigs. 6 lb is ok for drifting and throwing larger lures. Take time and read some of the articles on the site. I think you'll find most of you general questions answered there.

What's the water clarity like? Alot of the creeks here are cleared up.

My neighbors other dock... duh! I'll look closer next time.

The Branson chamber and other lodging groups are sending out warnings to their members about the same scam... FRAUD ALERT - PLEASE READ - HOTEL SCAM-WIRING OF TRAVEL EXPENSES Avoid being a victim to this latest scam by taking a few minutes to read how the scam is executed: 1. A cardholder contacts a Hotel and wants to book several rooms for multiple guests for several weeks. 2. A price is given to the cardholder who then asks the Hotel to charge the credit card for the rooms. 3. The cardholder then will request the Hotel to charge the card for travel fees (airfare, ground etc.) and WIRE these fees to a 3rd party acting as their agent and use an excuse that the agent can't accept credit cards.

It's good to have so many people from all parts of the country here. It is amazing the difference in climate between the north and south... I have a good friend in Michigan that keeps up to date on his weather. They get lake affect snow- has had 24 inches in a week and more coming this week. Crazy. But he said the steelhead are starting to spawn in his river (Pere Marquette). Can't imagine fishing in that kind of conditions... oh yea I didn't once. IT IS CRAZY! Welcome Jeff.

Thanks for the report... where are you on the lake... I'm trying to place the houses in the background. Don't recognize it.

Have to wait and fry them tomorrow... I can't eat late anymore. Will pay for it all night.

This is one of reports you'll never see anywhere else. It's even alittle hard to type out cause of the possible results. But here goes. Mr. Babler and I caught, conservatively, 45 crappie in a short period this evening on Taneycomo. There- that wasn't all that bad. I cleaned 20 between 9 and 14 inches. For those who don't know, Taney is one of those Missouri lakes that has no length limit and isn't restricted to a special daily limit- the state limit is 30 and that's what the limit is on our lake here. I'll pulling a Leonard... he likes to leave lots of spaces on his page. Oh! Did I mention where we caught our crappie!? I'm sorry. In the roof of the mouth. More info?!? You're asking alot. OK. We fished along the boardwalk wall at Branson Landing. The crappie were staging out from the wall about 30 feet off the bank and suspended about 8-10 feet deep. I used a sculpin 1/16th oz jig with an orange head, casting it up towards the bank- 15-25 feet from the bank- and let the jig fall. At one point I had 9 crappie on 9 casts, missed one and had a string of 8 or 9 more in a row. Lots of fun. Threw back alot of small crappie which is a good thing. Some trout, some blue gill and a few bass. I may not have to go to another lake for my spring crappie fix this year. I heard last April that crappie fishing on Taney was excellent- of course I heard this after the season. I was told almost every small cut in the lake from Branson down to Powersite held crappie. I think it's worth checking out.

I reported yesterday that in our tournament they caught some nice rainbows... I wanted to make sure everyone understands what this means. I love fishing the restricted area. I don't like to keep fish, I like to catch. And I like to catch nice sized fish- not huge but not 'dinks'. And that's why I prefer the trophy area because that's where the nicer trout are. But MDC has done something that I haven't seen before. These rainbows they've put in are really quality trout. 14-15 inch, thick bodied rainbows weighing a good 1.25 pound average. And there's alot of them, not just a token number. Plus they're not in the usual area. They not around Cooper Creek or Short Creek or even Fall Creek. They are down around the bridge in Branson- down around Monkey Island. Babler had a trip this morning and they found them below the island. John and Frank found them below the 65 bridge. Both were throwing spoons and jigs and did well. So now you have a dilemma... go above Fall Creek and catch 15 inch rainbows or go downlake and catch 15 inch rainbows. Take your pick. Bottom line- I've never seen MDC stock this many quality trout at one time before. Not sure how long they'll stay in the lake though

Fishing will be good as or better than August. Might see more water running than in August.

First the bass tournament held yesterday- had 7 contestants and only had one come back and weighed in- Tony Weldele weighed 6 bass at 8.28 lbs, big bass of 2.76. 31 boats started this morning at 8 am. Snow flurries most of the morning provide great fishing conditions (I've always caught fish in the snow!). No one knew what fishing was really going to be like. It was good... shall I say THE best weights I've seen in ALOT of years. MDC has stocked some very nice rainbows- 14-15 inches and fat. Most were caught from Cooper Creek down to the bridges on jigs, spinners and spoons. This was an artificial only tournament. 9 teams fished up. None weighed in any keepers over 20 inches. Had 2 keeper browns, one caught with a brown jig around Short Creek by Tom Burckhardt at 21.5 inches, 4.80 pounds and the other caught down by Monkey Island on a rapala caught by William Slagle, 22 inches- 5.20 pounds. Both were released. Most of the trout caught today were released. 1st Place William and Zachery Slagle 2nd Place Biermann, Burckhardt 3rd Place Cross, Burkin 4th Place Dielt, Hittler Big Rainbow, GT Bracy Big Brown, William Slagle Tom Burckhardt

Nice to have you, sir. Welcome.

Walleye Tournament sponsor- Mid-South Walleyes http://ozarkanglers.com/events/walleye_norfork_april07.pdf http://ozarkanglers.com/events/walleye_norfork_app.pdf

Walleye Tournament sponsor- Mid-South Walleyes http://ozarkanglers.com/events/walleye_norfork_april07.pdf http://ozarkanglers.com/events/walleye_norfork_app.pdf

If trout are midging, they are within 20 inches of the surface most of the time. If you suspend something in their face, they'll take it. If midge larva are swimming to the surface and hatching, you can imitate both the larva (zebra) and the emerger (soft hackle, emerger, crackleback and others).

You may have noticed the gob of colorful swimming minnow ad at the top of the forum. Well, my shopping cart has been a real pain to get up- not sure when it will be ready to go live. Was afraid I'd miss the crappie/white bass season altogether without offering swimming minnows, thus the banner ad. I only have a few colors in stock right now but will have more in Tuesday- about 20 more. These baits have been hard to find for a lot of people- that's the reason I'm posting them here.

KM- check out the Little Sac forum. There's a recent report there.

Oh I thought about it... wish I could. But my weekend is stacked. Monday is a possibility. Wednesday is the start of the NAIA-2- national basketball tournament here in Branson and I'm working a couple of mornings and watching alot of games. Fishing will have to take a back seat for a few days.

Bill- you're just going to have get out there and warm things up... and the "Bull" was already pretty chilly according to most. We may have to have a fish-off... I'll hold the coats.

Fruit Cocktail Bass Popper Recipe: Hook: Standard bass popper style hook (size 2-60 Shag guard: Hard Mason monofilament (size 0.25 pound test) Thread: Danville Fly master plus (white or color to match body) Tail: Select marabou, Krystal flash (white or color to match body), sili legs med. ( fl.green,fl. orange, fl. yellow Skirt: Saltwater / Rooster grizzly neck ( yellow or color to match body) Legs: Sili legs med. (fl.yellow, fl. Orange) Body: Deer hair / belly only ( yellow, fl. green, black, red, fl. orange Eyes: 7.5 mm solid plastic eyes (fl. green) Tying Instructions Step 1. First thing to do is get your thread started on the middle of the hook shank. Step 2. Ok, I know you can’t really see how this weed guard is tied in, but you can see where I started the mono. The purpose for this is to have a wider base for you to tie on and I think it builds a better fly. Although you can spin the hair on a single wire hook, you can also do this way as well. It is a little tougher to get the hair to go around, but still can be done. We will talk about that as we build this fly. Now back to the weed guard, you can see that when I tied in the mono it is facing towards the eye of the hook. When you secure the mono as you wind up with your thread making sure your tying the mono on one side of the hook shank. You will fold it to the other side tying the mono down all the way to the middle of the bend in the hook. (Make sure you don’t fold it right in front of the eye or you won’t have any room to tie the thread off) We call this crowding the eye and it’s no fun to build a completed fly and no room for a thread head. If you don’t tie down far enough you will notice when fishing this the weed guard will slip over to one side not really staying center with the hook point which isn’t serving it’s purpose. Just remember that when measuring the weed guard to right length when tying it down at the eye that you judge it right. Note: Look at the finish fly and you can see where I have sized mine accordingly to the hook size. Also when you are tying this down make sure your thread wraps are side by side when tying down the mono. Step 3. Now grab around 15 to 20 strands of krystal flash and tie them in. When doing this I like to separate them evenly and tie them on each side of the hook shank. Not right on top of the hook shank. I don’t cut them yet until I tie in the sili legs so I can cut all of together. Step 4. Now tie in you sili legs the same way you did the krystal flash. Step 5. When selecting marabou, the select marabou is some of the longest out of all the marabou you can use as far as tying in marabou tails. I like this because it’s longer and there is no stem in the middle like other marabou that could make the tail ride funny in the water because you tried to substitute with regular marabou. If you look at select marabou you will notice it to be longer on the sides of the stem. I peel down on one side of the stem getting what I think is the right amount for my tail. This part is up to you as far as what you want your tail to look like. Also, you’re ready to cut your flash and rubber legs to your desired length. I like to cut it right past the marabou. Step 6. Now select two feathers from each side of the neck and tie two together on each side of the hook shank. You should have a foundation to tie on from tying in all the stuff off the (tail) back. I try to make the legs about an inch past the marabou tail. Step 7. Now we want this color to be different from the legs so I’m using a yellow grizzly for my collar. I always like the softer feather for my collar so I select my feather from the top of the neck looking for the longer and softer stuff. You want it to have a palmered look. When tying this in, make sure your tying it where the hackle goes from big to small. (Not from the tips) Also tie the feather on the shiny side. I wrap the whole feather until I can’t grab it anymore with my hands and the tie it off and cut the excess. Step 8. As you can see I skipped a few steps. This part you will have the most trouble learning and there’s no easy way to tell you how to do this except practice. Although this is the easiest way to learn how to make deer hair bodies first you will still find it hard at the beginning. When tying your first step of deer hair you will want to make the tips even to make a nice collar. Also make sure you comb the hair before putting it in your hair stacker. When tying this in you want to make sure you tie in the middle of the hair when spinning it around the hook shank. There is a rule when spinning hair. Your first wrap will be loose then the next wrap is tighter and the last wrap should be tightest. Just make sure the hair spins all the way around the hook shank and it’s even. You will repeat this step with yellow and green. Note: You can advance your thread up a little when tying in your next color. Also make sure you don’t grab any of the hair from the previous hair you tied in. The reason why is if it grabs that hair it will be hard to get the new hair to make a full turn around the hook shank. Step 9. Now this is where you want to tie in your sili legs. All you do is tie an over hand knot and slide it on the shank. Slide it back to the hair and tighten the knot. Before tying in your next bunch of hair you can make a few thread wraps over the knot. Advance the thread up a little and tie in your next clump of deer hair. Step 10. Repeat the same steps spinning black, red and orange. Just remember if you want the hair to be wider or smaller it’s determined by the amount of hair you cut off the hide and tie in. The less you use the smaller the line is you see on the body etc. Step 11 Before tying off the weed guard you will want to make one solid cut with a razor blade on the under side of the hook. Now slide your weed guard through the eye, bend it over, and tie your mono down. Trim the excess mono off and cut your fly to shape. Step 12 Cut your fly to shape and glue your eyes on. Note: One thing I like to do to keep this fly really popping through the water is add some flex seal at the front of the hair (just a layer). It will make more noise going through the water. Step 13 Here is the finish product. I guarantee you will find this to be one of your favorite patterns for fishing top water for bass. Something about the colors keep them coming back for more. I have found most of the bass I catch on top is at dusk. I love to throw these on top of boats sitting in the stall and let them fall off. I can’t tell you how many bass I’ve caught doing this. Have fun with it and good luck!!