Phil Lilley

The generation pattern on Lake Taneycomo has been consistent for several weeks now. Operators at the dam are running between 1,800 to 3,700 cubic feet of water per second 24/7, which is about a half unit to a full. Water temperature is still 58, but the clarity is much better than it has been. Dissolved oxygen content is holding steady at about four parts per million. We've had some incredible November weather with one exception -- a cold rain and high winds over the weekend. But we've back in the 60's and even 70's afternoons this week. Trout fishing below Fall Creek remains very good for most people. Anglers are drifting night crawlers and Power Bait mostly and catching good-sized rainbows. Early mornings, dam operators are not running quite as much water, so you have to use small weights to get down your bait -- a lot of times just a small split shot. The drift rigs we sell only go down to 1/8th ounce bell weights, which is sometimes too heavy to use in slow current. Stay towards the middle of the lake to avoid snags. Trolling big spinners or medium diving crank baits has caught fish, too. I've seen several boats out coming in with limits. This is a good way to catch a big brown trout, too. I've found the best direction to troll is downstream if there is current. Flicker Shad are good to troll as well as big Rooster Tails. Most of our guides are deer hunting right now, so it's hard to get a good report from them. But I would imagine they'd be fishing the Berkley pink worm under a float and drifting down lake from our place (Lilleys' Landing.) Early, set the float at about four feet, dropping it to as much as seven feet as the sun gets up over the water. Dockhand Blake Wilson has been doing One Cast lately and doing pretty well on a couple of things. He's fishing the San Juan Worm under a float in the Trophy Area, as well as a scud, and catching good rainbows -- but the catch has been spotty. Pink on the San Juan and tan and gray on the scud (#12). Guide Bill Babler dragged a jerk bait last week and caught some trophy rainbows. He used a shad color 606 (suspending) from the cable below the dam down past Fall Creek. Blake tried it and did really well drifting them in the Trophy Run stretch while 4.000 cubic feet per second of water was running the other day. We drift these suspending jerk baits using a drift rig and a 1/8th ounce bell weight. The jerk bait should be suspending and a medium diver. We've tried different colors and the shad style seems to work the best right now. We sell cheap jerk baits in our shop -- cheap because we do tend to lose a few. We do take the front hook off the bait and leave the back hook to reduce snagging as much. Warning! We have had to talk to some boaters lately about anchoring in current. Even though only one unit of water has been running, certain areas on the lake can still be swift, especially along the bluff side from Trout Hollow up lake. I warned a gentleman a couple of weeks ago about anchoring off the back of a rental jon boat in fast current. He had to cut the rope to free himself after trying to pull it up -- and in that effort, the boat came dangerously close to being swamped. View full article

Thanks to Aarchdale on his post on the crappie he was catching last week. The pictures really got me in the mood to catch some. Got out for an hour on Thursday and caught some mostly small bass. A couple on a jig but most were on 3.3" Keitechs. Focused on the steeper banks Friday, we got out around 9:00 after watching a bit of the Masters. Still on the steeper banks we started picking up a crappie or 2 on the same 3.3" swimbaits. When we would catch one, we would stop and cover the area and would pick up a couple more. Also isolated pole timber would also hold a few but we couldn't catch more than four on one spot. Lost 4 HUGE slabs at the boat as I forgot to put the net in the boat. We took a break for lunch and returned with the net. Wonderful afternoon for mid November and had a good time with the bass turning on in the afternoon. Same stuff, steeper banks and 3.3" swimbaits. Lots of SM and spots with only 1 or 2 small LM. Found some more crappie off a main lake steep point but only ended up keeping 12 after the early losses at the boat. Best thing is we never caught a short crappie. all were 12 - 14" and most were over 13". Saturday had about 45 min in the morning until the rains came. I was able to catch a bonus 21.5" Walleye for the basket on the same swimbait. Went out again in the afternoon and continued to catch a few more slabs in the same spots we caught them on Friday. Since the first basket was fairly full from the Friday fish and early walleye, I added the 9 more to a 2nd basket to all be cleaned on Sunday. That evening the front came through and thought the house was going to blow away around 3:30 Sunday morning. I went down to start cleaning the fish around 9:00 and... SOB! the basket with 12 slabs and the walleye had the line severed by the wind on the dock iron! I just use trot line cord and I guess it rubbed against the dock all night in the wind and sunk! After a call to my bros to help, we were able to find the basket with a naked jig head and then made a homemade grappling hook with a big treble, padlock for weight and dropped it down to retrieve the basket! Totally made the weekend as I was so bummed to have those fish just sitting on the bottom. All were still good and got several bags of filets for a future fish fry. All and all great weekend and beautiful weather for mid November. I'll be down Thanksgiving weekend and may be able to see if the crappie are still there and maybe catch a few wiggle wart fish. WT was 62-63 all over. View full article

Fun...

Good thread. More people should join in. It’sa good subject to talk about amongst friends. I’m 62, no history of heart issues in family for which I’m thankful. Very active in younger years and ate what I wanted including a lot of soda. Have always disliked water. 2007, I found myself at about 230 and very out of shape. I got my feet wet going to Alaska helping a friend with a fishing camp and wanted to really get involved but saw that I needed to really change my lifestyle. Lost 45 pounds and worked out, got in shape and stayed there for about 9 years. Slowly slipped back but not all the way. Never gave up basketball but stopped watching what I ate. Started Cross Fit a month ago. And Marsha and I started the Keto diet. Went through sugar and flour withdrawals but now feel really good although I’m still struggling with drinking enough water. Would like to lose about 30 pounds. I’m at 205 down from 210. Will keep you updated on this diet. Not convinced it’s the healthiest but it may be good for us individually. Need to watch the blood pressure. Also need to go in and have a full blood work panel done. It’s been way too long.

Our water cleared up a lot today. Back to normal I'd say.

Our trout fishing here on Lake Taneycomo has been pretty hot.... and cold. One day it's really good, and the next it stinks. I don't think you can blame anything but the fish themselves since some days they eat and some days they don't. Generation has been consistent for the past week. Dam operators have ben running from 1,800 to 3,700 cubic feet of water per second, which is about a half unit to a full unit during the day and night. Water temperature is holding at 58 degrees, and I'd say visibility is about two feet. The lakes are dropping about .1 feet per day, so there's no reason to think this pattern will change anytime soon. We do have a weather change happening today. A little rain and then cooler temperatures and probably wind into the weekend. This should cool Table Rock back down but not enough to cause it to turn over. We need some pretty serious, cold temps and lots of wind to do that. When the trout are feeding, they're taking all things drifting, mostly on the bottom using a float, or with no indicator at all. In the Trophy Area, they're eating scuds, eggs and worms. Our brown trout are actively spawning close to the dam, so both species, browns and rainbows, are eating egg flies and beads. The San Juan worm is working in several colors -- tan, cerise, brown and pink. The fish are taking either the thick or medium sizes, non-weighted. I mentioned beads, and we are starting to carry the Trout Bead, a brand that's been around for many years. The company offers plastic beads from 6 mm to 14 mm in size and in a ton of colors and shades. We suggest the 6 mm or the 8 mm bead, although even the 6 mm is bigger than an actual trout egg. We peg the bead no more than two inches above either a bare hook or a fly. You can use a drift rig and an 1/8th-ounce bell weight or just add a split shot above the bead about 24 inches. Scuds are still about the best thing you can drift and catch trout -- even big trout. They're taking tan, gray, brown and olive flies from a big #12 size down to a small #18. Because of the dingy water, I'd suggest using the bigger sizes. Our anglers are still catching some really nice rainbows below Fall Creek on night crawlers, drifting them on the bottom. These rainbows are swimming down from the trophy area where they've grown big, protected by the slot limit there. I have a few good days working a marabou jig, mainly 1/16th-ounce, both in the Trophy Area and down below it. White is still working, especially after the flood gates were open for 24 hours last week, but it's cooling off, at least for me. Black appears to be coming on strong, may be because of the dingy water.

Pretty cool. Livescope... sure is fun.

Anyone regardless of age needs a trout stamp if they are fishing on Lake Taneycomo above the 65 highway bridge. You can fish below the 65 bridge without a trout stamp but you cannot possess or keep trout. Catch and release only.

Gates are closed

Report came in - big rainbows puking up shad being caught below the dam this morning.

Me for sure. I'll talk to Duane.

They did this last year. When table rock was close to turning over, they opened floodgates and ran more turbines so they didn’t have to inject liquid oxygen. I guess they want to drop the lakes back down to power pool quickly, or a lot quicker than they could just by running one unit. I suspect they’ll run this until table rock is down to 915 feet. Blake is out fishing tonight, in search of walleye. And I’m hoping of course to see some shad come over the top. But last year we didn’t see that many as I recall. We will see. It might get really really really good. I had started a fishing report for this week… Now I will have to start over.

We have a new generation patterns here on Lake Taneycomo, after almost 7 inches of rain over 6 days last week. The good news is that it was a cold rain, cooling Table Rock's water by 20 degrees. Every year, as many of you know, our water here on Taneycomo is low of oxygen because the water we get from Table Rock (at 130 feet deep at the dam) is almost void of O2. Liquid oxygen is injected into the turbines when they run water to keep levels up to standard (4 parts per million). Table Rock's surface temperature must drop below 57 degrees (the temperature of our water coming through the turbines) for Table Rock to "turn over" When Table Rock's water mixes, we get good oxygenated water again until Table Rock will again stratify. Stratification occurs as a result of a density differential between two water layers and can arise as a result of the differences in salinity, temperature, or a combination of both. Table Rock historically doesn't turn over until early to mid December but we may see it turn early, depending on our weather in November. Beaver, Table Rock and Bull Shoals all 3 rose about 3-4 feet last week. Generation at Bull Shoals and Beaver Dam all but stopped but at Table Rock Dam, generation began and has been running constantly through this past weekend. The flow has varied between 2,600 and 4,100 cubic feet per second, which is between a half unit and a full unit. Well.... gezzz! They just opened 8 flood gates Monday afternoon, plus turbines equaling almost 15,000 c.f.s.! That came out of left field! They did do this last November, opening gates when they needed to drop the lakes. But understand... they can only do this because Table Rock's temperature is at a level (about 60 degrees) that's ok for our trout in Taneycomo. The only thing is the water flowing through the turbines (about 6,000 c.f.s.) is very low in oxygen (2 parts per million). That means the water flowing down the north side of the lake has low O2 and the south side (flood gate side) is high in O2. The waters mix somewhere downstream but till then, I hope the fish find the oxygen. But note -- the hatchery outlets do add good water on that north side so I believe all will be well with the fish. Now for the hard part. Fishing? I know what we will do this week. Boat to the cable and throw white jigs, drift shad flies and scuds. I'm sure we have gotten a new crop of warmwater fish - bass, white bass, crappie and walleye. And of course gar, spoonbill and lots of gizzard shad. But hopefully we'll see lots of threadfin shad get washed over presenting our trout with an early Christmas present! New news. Guess one guide, Capt B, came in today and said they caught big rainbows on white jigs at the dam. Fish were puking up shad. They didn't see any in the water though. Table Rock has dropped almost 6 inches since they opened the gates at 3 p.m. yesterday so I'd say these gates will stay open for a couple of days. I don't think they'll be open much past Friday. After that, we should be back to the schedule in which we should see some down water (no generation) for part of most of the day. But we will see.

Sorry - didn't look at this till now. I saw the video on the Political forum... pretty funny. I'll check on the deleted post.

I’m planning on going. Duane? Might have a couple more from here. Blake? I’d stay at Riley’s if there’s a place there.

57 is awesome! Table Rock will turn when the surface temp drops below the temp towards the bottom. Cold water is heavier than warm water. But it takes allot of colder water to do it.

Our water coming in from TR is 57-58. Surface at the dam has to get at and below that for the lake to turn. This is a good start. It usually doesn't turn till mid December. Hoping for an early turn.

What's the water temperature on the lake... anyone?

Can you guys post water temperatures and locations? I’m curious how much it’s dropped in the last few days. Thanks

Comments say it hasn’t been officially weighed yet but over 45 pounds. One comment - The angler wanted anonymity. I spoke with him again tonight when he came in for a meal & he asked to give his name as Shamus. He caught it on the ohau canal But what he caught it on - I'm sorry, I didn't ask him.

I see it now. This could be the fish. The dorsal looks right. But it's the wrong side to compare markings. Caught 9/19 on a black leech wading below the dam looks like.

The only one that's big enough on our trophy release board is 27 inches and it is not the same fish. I'm going back to the last of September. There's a good chance it is one that was caught and released... it's super hard not to kill big trout this time of year.

Headed down to Grenada, Mississippi last week for some crappie fishing. Duane made the trip last fall and said it was a blast. He and Brother Dave, Dillion Harris and Mike Riffel met us down there. I was with long time friend and Frank the Tank catcher, Paul Crews of Neosho, MO. Paul and I fished with Jacob, a long time guide for https://www.grenadalakecharters.com/ out of Grenada. We started early Friday morning, not traveling far to the boat ramp. Jacob had everything ready including 18 and 20 foot rods and a tank full of gizzard shad minnows. The lake looked very low. Jacob explained that was normal. They draw the lake down in the winter making room for spring rains. We were surprised at the depth of almost all the water we boated to. We fished in 11 to 15 feet of water -- I'd say on a flat but the whole lake was a flat. We didn't fish structure at all although there was some stick ups in one area we fished. The water was turbid but not super muddy. Water temp was 71 degrees and the weather was partly cloudy and 88-90 degrees. Slight breeze out of the south. Jacob set out 4 spider rig poles on each side of the bow, one set for me and one for Paul. The 20's went on the outside edges and the 18's lined the middle. He tied a 2-ounce ball weight on the bottom, using 10-pound line. He added 2 hooks up from the weight about 24-30 inches apart with hooks for the minnows. He hooked them in the lower lip and dropped the lines down anywhere from5 to 9 feet deep, depending on the depth of water and where the fish were holding. We sat in double Millennium Fishing Chairs with a Garmin dual screens in front of us. Yep- he had a Garmin Pantoptic Livescope. I didn't watch the screen Friday -- I watched the rod tips. Paul watched both and so did Jacob. The action was pretty steady all day, catching I'd say about an average of 7 fish per hour. We caught a lot of short crappie and ended the day with 18 keeper crappie ranging from 12 to 16 inches. The length limit on Grenada is 12 inches. Fishing had been slow up to Friday so we were grateful for the luck. The other 2 boats in our party both limited with 30 each. But they didn't catch many short fish. Saturday was the exact opposite of Friday. The temp had dropped into the lower 50's and the wind blew out of the north. We drove around the lake to another ramp to fish a sheltered area, out of the north wind and white caps on the main lake. They said every boat on the lake were in this sheltered area and I believe it. Although the water temp plummeted to 67 degrees over night, we still managed to catch 15 keepers and not many short fish. As the day wore on, the bite got better. We should have started later in the morning and fished the afternoon/evening. I think our party broke the 16.75-inch but didn't make the 17-inch mark. I don't know how much these big slabs weighed but they say this is the home of the 3-pound crappie and I believe it. The lake is absolutely full of minnows -- food base. It has to be to sustain a crappie population like they have. We'd love to go back and cast for them... the guides said these crappie won't hit anything with a minnow on it. I'd love to test that theory with my jigs. May be some day we will.

Did you happen to measure the brown?