Dave Cook

Great post Al. Another highlight from the game was Matt beating everyone down court on the break for a layup. I can't remember who tossed the pass to him but I'm seem to remember it was a bench player who will be a starter next year.

I tested John's advice last week in the evenings during the SowBug at the White River at Wildcat Shoals. I'm glad I did. Green Butt rules. I'm tying more green butts and looking forward to getting back to the White this spring.

I was fishing the White this weekend. The water had been off for 3 or 4 days, so I guess it was as low as it could go. As a wade fisherman I thought the fishing was fantastic. I don't see how minimum flow helps anyone except boaters. The amount of extra water proposed for minimum flow takes away most of the wadable water from the Norfork and White that you find now when the power is off. The people (I assume mostly boaters) in Arkansas have lobbied and gotten what they wanted. I have never heard what I consider to be common sense about the river flow in all the minimum flow discussion. In cold weather months, the trout have seemed to do just fine with no minimum flow being dictated. They don't have any thermal stress to deal with. During the hot months, it makes perfect sense to increase the minimum cfs release to help extend healthy water temperatures farther downstream. Also, minimum flow does nothing about the low oxygen problem experienced every fall. All I have ever heard is let's increase the minimum cfs all the time. And most the money appropriated for minimum flow goes to the power company to compensate them for lost revenue for the water from the power pool that they no longer control. Remember, the Corp decides water release when the lakes are above power pool and the power company decides water releases when the lakes are at or below power pool. The part about raising the level of Bull Shoals is to raise the level of the power pool, which only decreases the amount of flood pool that the Corp can manage. No one is going to raise the top of the flood pool. Not without rebuilding the dam and getting additional easements along the lake shore. So I am glad Missouri and Taneycomo are not part of this plan. Taneycomo has very little wadable water and boaters can already boat just about anywhere they want to. Below Table Rock you have a lake. Below Bull Shoals, you have a river. You don't need the same plan for both situations.

Good to meet you Doug. For all of you that missed it; well, you missed it. Leonard was there for over 4 hours. Besides his presentation, he demo'ed tying flies, and answered questions from everyone who walked in the door that afternoon. Great job. Thanks for making the trip to KC. Dave

Sillicone or rubber legs don't make it an illegal fly in Missouri. Those materials are not the same as "soft plastic" and they meet the "tied" part of the definition. But with the two hook points joined, it would be a "lure". If you cut off the leading hook point, then it meets the single point definition of a fly.

Missouri Trout Fishermen's Association (MTFA) in Kansas City and Rainbow Fly Shop have invited Leonard Keeney to give a seminar on night fishing at Lake Taneycomo. Lucky for us he has agreed and will be at Rainbow Fly Shop, Saturday, March 7th between 1 and 4 pm. The fly shop is located at 4621 S. Shrank Dr, Independence, Mo, which is just off of Highway 40, between Lee's Summit Rd and I-470. It is also just a stone's throw from the new Bass Pro Shop in Independence. I've read many accounts on this forum where night-time fishermen have met Leonard on the parking lot or stream and he has shared his knowledge, flies and even his coffee. I've been the beneficiary of a few of those encounters. So if you are in the KC area Mar 7th, I think this is a great opportunity to learn more about fishing Lake Taneycomo and especially the rewards of night fishing. If you want to learn how to tie some of the flies he fishes, he will have a fly tying demonstration about an hour before his seminar begins at 2 pm. For those who don't know him, you can get better acquainted from his website, Taneycomonights.com. "Leonard has the only full time-night time guide service on Lake Taneycomo. He does not guide during the day".

You need some knowledge of where to fish from daylight experiences. Fishing at night from outlet 1 to outlet 2 can be very good. I recommend an LED head lamp and another LED flashlight. Find a fishing buddy. For flies, olive or black # 8 - 10 wooly buggers work about as good as anything (when they are bitting). There are nights when you have to change flies until you find the right one, just the same process as daylight.

Nothing like being the only one down by the Big Hole. That stomping around in the brush is a step up from battling the herons and racoons.

If you plan to fish Roaring River SP, you better make it sooner. Winter catch & release ends Feb 9th.

I can believe the 5,000 stocked browns number, which is way higher than any number I've seen before. Browns are all they stocked in the KC winter fishing lakes this year. 2,000 in just Coot lake back in November. I think they have to "dump" those 9" -12" fish because browns any bigger than that just don't do well going from the hatchery to the river, so there is no point in keeping them in the hatchery any longer. I also can believe the reports of some folks catching 100's. I have found large schools of small browns in the Barclay area before, so I am assuming they don't scatter that fast after they are stocked. I would like to know the real story for that year class of fish they hatched. Why they apparently have a surplus of hatchery browns. Did they hatch more than normal with the new facility, or maybe more survived than they expected? All the browns in Missouri start at Shepard of the Hills Hatchery and this year was a tough year for hatchery conditions due to the warm water coming out of Table Rock. If someone has already given a SOH report can you direct me to the thread?

Put me on the list for one.

Way to go, I'm glad to see there are a few left.

Missouri Trout Fishermens Association (MTFA) in Kansas City is a trout/fly fishing club that meets in Fleming Park which is between Blue Springs and Lees Summit. It's across the road from Lake Jacomo. We do have a website for more information http://www.geocities.com/kcmtfa/ Our next meeting is scheduled for Dec 2 intead of our normal meeting night because of the holidays. As far as casting instruction, we don't have any classes scheduled at this time but you can get one on one instruction from other members. If that doesn't suit you you can try Matt at Rainbow Fly shop in Independence. We also have a member who works part time in the fly shop at Bass Pro in Olathe, KS and I know they have a small pond outside to try out casting fly rods.

US Army 1968 - 1970 Dave

It's just you.

I'm curious about the water temps on TR. It would give us some idea when to expect turnover. If you get a chance, please add some temp info in the next report.

I fished the Lookout area last week. There are plenty of fish. One thing I've noticed the last few weeks is that fishing woolies and streamers usually gets the "healthy" fish to strike. Good fighters. In the main channel at the top of Lookout island, the current was very strong and the water was knee deep on Friday when they turned the water off. On Saturday, when the water was off, it was about a foot higher and very little current. So does that mean they have raised the lake down at Powersite?

Those heron feathers look pretty on the birds but they make lousy flies.

Jeremy, you are more positive then the report I gave to my brother back east. I said it's the worst it's ever been. However, I have caught good numbers of fish at night and found healthy ones. Most the fish I see during the day fit the discription of the sickly ones you describe. I think things will pick up when Table Rock cools down enough that we get turnover and oxygen coming thru the dam. It looks like the surface water on TR is around 68 -69 and the water coming thru the dam is 61 - 62. So we may get an early turnover but still relatively warm water. I'm also curious how much the surface temperature of Taneycomo cools on a cool night. I see the possibility that the lower lake will cool down before the upper end. I fished most of last Friday night and after midnight the water was warm to the touch and so were fish. My theory on the big browns is they came up earlier in the year on a feeding binge. The low DO drove them back down the lake and there is no reason for them to come back until the water temperatures drop to a level that would trigger a spawning migration.

The water was off for a long time Friday night. There were a lot of people out. Swinging woolies below outlet 2 was working good. I didn't catch anything over 16" but the action was good. I still haven't seen the lake in the daytime with the water down but when the water was off, the current below #2 seemed like just the right speed for a wooly.

Rolan knows jigs. I'm with you, I've been searching for a small hook that isn't too soft.

Soft Hackles are a good fly for big browns. From first light until a couple of hours after sun-up, I've had good luck on them.

You can read from the Corp site that the low O2 levels limits the max amount to run thru the generators. The lake is depleted of oxygen at all the levels they take in water for the penstock but the surface water (down to about 20 feet) contains about 6.7 ppm DO. http://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/WCDS/Repo...rofiles/do2.txt That water has more oxygen in it than the turbine water that has liquid oxygen (LOX) injected. It looks like they balanced the sources to Taneycomo to keep oxygen up and temperatures down.

We are seeing the effects of the hard freeze of April last year. Red oaks (pin oaks) this year are bare this year because of it. I've heard that the white oaks should have nuts this year but I haven't been to the woods to verify.

I think the Barr's Bouface will be a great use for those short strips of pine squirrel I have left over from making PMS's. I had been looking for ways to put the pine squirrel to use and I had invented my own version of that fly but I like Barr's better.