Andrew Schaefer

I'm looking at getting a new pair of breathable waders for fishing during the summer because I cook inside my neoprenes in anything more than 60 degrees. Ideally, I would like to have a pair that I can use on the spring creeks here in Iowa as well as on Taney when the water is down. So here is my question for all of you taney guys, do you think that waist high waders would be okay of fishing taney when the water is off? I know there are a few spots where I would definately spill over, but by and large I'm thinking they would be workable but I haven't been down there recently and can't quite remember just how deep it gets.

I saw one on tnaeycomom down by rockaway beach like 5 years ago, they are awesome birds.

with spinning reels, I usually have the spool on the ground with the label facing up, it seems to work with trilene, which is what I use. If I notice the line getting twisted I'll flip it over, but that usually makes it much worse. I usually over-fill my spools to as close to the lip as I am comfortable with(casts further), and then cut the line and tie it off for a while if I'm not going to fish right away. Monofilament's habit of jumping off the spool right after spooling, I think, is caused by its memory. By tying it off for a while, I think it gives the line a while to get used to the new spool. This is all just my experiences. When it comes to putting a new fly line on, I usually spend the better part of an hour trying to untangle the mess before spooling up luckily fly line unties itself easily lol

looks like a female full of eggs. Too bad for the guy that she was foul hooked, oh well. These guys in California are pretty bent on getting a new world record. I've done a little fishing for big browns on Taneycomo with bass stuff. I saw a lot of big fish follow my lures but rarely get a hook in them. I used mainly bass assasins and the like, the problem I would run into is that trout don't hit a lure like a bass does. They would bite the lure about halfway up the body and run away with it, whereas bass tend to engulf their food. It was frustrating because you would go to set the hook and the lure would just come out of the fish's mouth. Next time I'm down there I'm goin to try some new approaches like swim baits and rigging soft plastics differently than I would for bass.

Packman, I beleive you are thinking of sea lampreys, which have infested the great lakes and are partially responsible for a decline in the lake trout fishery there. If you do a little research you can find out a ton of info about that situation. However there are several species of lamprey that are native to the inland lakes and streams of north america, I know of three species where I live in Iowa. The only one I've ever found was dead in a trout stream, but I've never caught a fish with a lamprey attached. Also, not all species of lamprey are parasitic, some of them are scavengers. They may or may not kill the fish as far as i know, but the ones that do survive will have a scar in their flesh. Over all they probably don't hurt fishing at all. BTW lapreys are primitive fish, not leeches. They have no jaw bone but they use their mouth as a suction cup to attach themselves and then they use their toothy tongue to rip bits of food off their hosts. Kinda gross i know but hey, who said mother nature was clean? people have this image of nature as this clean, well oiled machine, but nature is actually more like a bloody chaos. PS cool picture

Not to hijack the thread or anything but thats a huge difference between northern fishermen and southern fishermen that I've noticed. Southerners tend to use little if any live bait, and it can be hard to come by, whereas if you go into a baitshop in Minnesota they'll have 20 or more varieties of minnows, plus wax worms, meal worms, red worms, night crawlers, spikes, leeches, and moussies. Phil, what temp do you keep waxies at? the key to keeping them alive for a long time is keeping them around 50 degrees. If you put them in a regular fridge they'll die in a couple weeks because its too cold. I use them a lot for Ice fishing and found that they'll stay alive for months if I keep them in the floor drain in my basement.

Yeah, the great thing about the snow you guys get down there is that it melts away after a few days. Up here if it snows in December there's a good chance you will have to look at it untill march. I love fishing and hunting in the falling snow. PS it was -15 degrees here without wind last night.

One of the ways I learned to catch trout on spinning gear up in the trophy area is by using small floating rapalas. Just cast it out and let it float in the current and swing it like you would a soft hackle. Keep the lure within a few inches of the surface. When you get a strike, reel the slack out of the line untill you feel the weight of the fish and then set the hook. Youll be surprized at how savagely those rainbows will attack a floating plug, even when it is just floating in the film. Sometimes it works great to make it wiggle on the surface by retrieving it slowly so that the plug wiggles through the water but stays on the surface. Sometimes they want you to twich it, sometimes they want it to have no action, you just have to feel them out. Your hookup percentages will be relatively low because of the bow in your line, but the number of strikes you get will amaze you. Its unconventional, but its something they haven't seen before, and thats good. Let me know how it works for you.

Browns in Taneycomo are managed as a trophy fish. Because none of them are supposed to be harvested untill they are >20 inches you don't need to stock as many of them plus you can only have one per day. I think 95% rainbows and 5% browns is the stocking numbers I remember reading somewhere. In reality, the regs for brown trout on taneycomo haven't changed at all with the new regs and the stocking numbers probably wont(or shouldn't) as a result.

I usually use pheasant tail as the antenae and the shell back, but thats probably just becuase I have a lifetime supply of pheasant tail feathers. I also flatten the lead with pliers before I dress the fly and I pick out legs on the sides.

I like a lead wrapped hook and dubbed body in grey, tan, and olive shades. Im not a huge fan of bead heads when the water is low because I think the beads spook fish that have time to inspect the fly. When the water is on and I'm in a boat, I'll sometimes use a beadhead to help sink the fly and get the fish's attention in fast water. I have expirimented with plastic shellbacks and wire and thread ribs. I don't think they make much of a difference but they do dress up the fly some. One of my favorite ribbing materials is clear green nylon monofilament, it gives the sudgestion of segmentation but it isn't overpowering or flashy like wire.

Dang, I didn't know that you guys down south even knew that Lund existed. Up in Minnesota everyone runs Lund, Crestliner, and Alumnacraft. For years The only Lund I had ever seen on Taney was our Tyee II 1650 (no longer in production I believe). In recent years I've seen a few more. I wouldn't say that they're Ideal for fishing upper Taney because they don't have a shallow draft, but I can get up to the dam anytime I would be daring enough to go up there with any other boat, keep in mind that the lower unit would be the first to go if you run aground up there anyways. Lunds are the John Deere of fishing boats, they aren't all that much better than other brands, but they are the most respected, and they keep there resale value better because of it; I don't know if that would apply in the south though because they aren't as popular.

Nothing too out of the ordinary, black bass and panfish(bream) on lower taneycomo for me, a couple white bass just up from Branson. One day I caught a small largemouth in the side channel across from fall creek, no Idea what he was doing up there, thought maybe he got sucked through tablerock dam. Another time I saw, but failed to catch, a large gar up by the cable while wading, he probably would've run 3 feet or so. he would've been fun on 7x tippet.

I caught a 27.5 inch Brown across from cooper creek a couple augusts ago. I've had chases and strikes from fish that big since but have never conected. I have no idea what it weighed but it wasn't skinny. A tip for using soft plastics for big trout: the ones I've seen don't inhale it like a bass, so it helps to use a stinger rig like walleye fishermen use. For rainbows probably 18-19 inches, still waiting to connect with a larger one.