Trav

Below Roark creek for bigger trout all ya need to know is depth+structure+current+upsized baits. If you dont have a graph, dont bother. You will have a frustrating day on the Lower Taney. Always stay in the channel and use your graph to find structure or pockets sitting below 20 feet. Vertical jig above the area(dont touch the bottom) with baits over 3 inches. Move fast. If you dont get a bite in 20 minutes or so then move to some new structure. I dont stay in one spot very long, I like to keep moving to look for active fish. Lately I have been having luck with sworming hornets tipped with a 5 inch sluggo. Dont laugh, haha, you really have to think outside of the box on the Lower Taney. The heavy Lil georges and spoons like the Johnson Sprite work well too. Fish for em like you would for deep suspending Bass. Keep in mind, on most days I can jig over structure for a few hours before I get a hit. But what does bite is usually over 3 pounds. The night fishing is a bit different but mostly the same. Just darken your color spectrum and fish a bit down current from the structure instead of on top of it. I dont do much night fishing. Maybe 10 days a year. Only in the summer. Usually when I do, I stay on my dock and fish with extra large chubs and/or trebles full of night crawler. At night I dont catch and release. Thats when I fill my freezer full of bows. The Browns only cruise in early winter so if I catch one off my dock it is the only one I will catch. To be honost, when I fish off my dock in the summer it really isnt for the fishing. Mostly to enjoy a pretty night. You will find crappie from bull creek to powersite. I dont fish for them but catch a few while I bass fish. They usually are found way back into creeks and coves. They rarely ever get into the main lake. Or at least I havent seen any even close to the channel.

Went down to powersite this afternoon and fished the area for some Bass and did moderate. 8 sportys in about 2 hours. Fished the sunny banks with a lil jenny the whole time. Pretty uneventful day for the most part.

I feel your pain LA...Haha

Let me know how you do. Before and after the beer and pizza. Haha

Haha I like the idea of a Frankenstien Fish. Combined parts collected from the dead fish of C&R tourneys to make one giant zombie fish that feeds on the flesh of tourists that kill them.

Haha No offense my friend but it is still January.

Also, Its a bit of a drive but if you wanted to get a look at some of Lower Taney, Rockaway Beach has a nice fishing pier. Best if you bait fish off it though but your favorite rooster tails do well there too. Its on the non-channel side of the lake so dont expect alot of current. Rockaway also has a couple good places to have beer and pizza if you get hungry.

Dont look like any of those fish were alive. Must have been the camera angle.

Haha Some? ahhhhh, you know me better than that. I wouldnt be able to tell the differance between the two.

Here Mr. Snakey, boy do I have the "Hoe" for you. Wink I actually like snakes, In a cage! Had a friend who had lots of pet venimous snakes. Including a momba. I just have enough respect for them to put them out of thier misery sooner than later. I have been bit 4 times. One cottonmouth, one rattlesnake and two copperheads. 2 out of the four on the torso. Not fun. Another thing I cant stand is flying stingers, of any species. I was attacked by african bees trying to get a lure out of a tree back in 92 while I was in Panama. Got stung 28 times before I could get the boat started. Haha DC, (INSERT JOKE HERE) I know you got one coming. Was pretty funny the way I was swatting bees and jerking the pull string of the cheap rental motor I was using. I thought for sure I was a dead man. Haha and yes I was crying. Those little shits like to sting in the same spot. Something about pheromones.

Gotcha

Welcome

Welcome

Well, here is the best way to catch alot of nice big brownies without going below Branson. First you get a minnow bucket, then, in the middle of the night, sneak into the hatchery at the dam and scoop up a few dozen 3 to 5 inch rainbow fingerlings. If the cops show up just tell them they are for me. Wink. Once you have the best bait in the lake, just hook them up on 4/0 hooks with a 1/2oz bullet sinker. Tie a little ballon about 4 feet above your bait and drift. I guarantee you will catch some big fish. Or you can stay out of jail by sticking to what you have been doing. Just stay away from using the bait(corn, powerbait,eggs,ect) for that usually only attracts little fish. Not that nice ones cant be caught but your ratio of small vs big is limited. All I can really suggest is to upsize your lures and fish as deep as you can. Above roark creek most the bigger ones are caught between october and march so you have that going for you. I find the water up there to be conjested with anglers and without structural diversity. So I dont fish it. Only time I ever get up there is if I get talked into it by some friend or relative that hasnt seen it before. Now, below roark creek, there are probably just a handful of guys that know it as well as I do. And I have to be honost, I would be sending you on a fools errand to come down here without a graph. If you cant find structure in deep water or at least know where the contours of the channel is, Lower Taney can give you a frustrating day. Heck, even if you had a "good" topo map of the lake I might tell ya to give it a try, but there is no such thing. Although I did try to get some sonar guys to come down and make a good map but I thought 60 grand was pretty steep to get a map of what I pretty much have an idea of anyway. Haha. Even if I had it copywritten and sold copys for 10 bucks a pop, it would take decades to get back my investment. Anyway, my advice on that upper area is generic. Pretty much the same as any other non-flyfishing guy will tell you. I can share the knowledge I learned while fishing it alot with my late Gramps. Simple is better. His favorite method was drowning red wigglers or minnows on a little jig head, roadrunner or marabou. Just like you would jig for crappie. He used to catch 20 to 50 a day. But even he admitted that catching one over 3 pounds was very rare. Wasnt until I got back from overseas in the mid 90s that I started to fish for trophy browns and discovered thier holding patterns and ambush sectors. The tactics I use down here are next to impossible to duplicate above Roark Creek. They just dont relate to cover the same as you get further upstream. So with that said, I hope I have been helpful.

What kind of updates?

Too funny gf. I have been there a few times. Haha Back in '83 I was night fishing and one fell in my boat out of a tree. Unloaded a 38 revolver in the bottom of my boat. Messed up thing about it, was just a harmless tree snake. I still laugh at myself to this day for that.

Otter Slayer! Boy do I have shoreline for you. South bank of Taneycomo between Mile 8 and Mile 10. Help yourself.

Welcome

I am a little happier today. Was a great day. As usual I hit my dozen or so cover points before looking for the Bass. Picked up 3 brownies, (3-2,4-11,4-13) and seven bows with the two biggest I hung on the digital at 2-5 and 5-3. Was surprised my biggest trout of the day was a bow and I still caught 2 brownies over 20 inches. Back in the "lost forest" cove I landed 7 sport bass with one hovering just under 3 at 2-14. Probably would have caught alot more bass but those brownies made me forget about time. Weather was very nice so I spent 6 hours on the lake today.

I thought the question was about lower taney. My bad. In this part of the aquarium you will catch alot of logs,sticks and leaves dragging bottom. Not that you cant catch fish off that rig but you definately wont like it if your drift fishing. Also, if there are any brownies resting in those logs and sticks, the weight will discourage them from moving up to your bait.

Another example why the human anthill needs to be eradicated.

Haha What hick tone? In these parts it is just polite to assume you didnt know better. Kind of like drool at the special olympics.

Haha Hey Phil, at least you admit that it is about the money, not just about the fishing. Even though I thought I smelled sarcasm. Money will tempt a cheater. And many trout do die after being held too long and then released after tourneys. Might as well just eat them. Farm raised trout eat very good. JR....The difference between a Trout and a Bass is that Bass can survive O2 deprivation a million times better than a Trout. You might as well say whats the difference between a Catfish and a Bass. I have seen Cats live 30 minutes out of water.

When I do any drifting I just vertical jig, making sure I am as close to the bottom as possible without actually hitting it. Stay in the current so you can get below twenty feet and still be able to drift at a good speed. I prefer to use spoons like the Johnson Sprite, rattle traps, lil georges, and I have been experimenting with a large Sworming Hornet tipped with a varity of plastic jig tails. Am having some good results so far but the way I like big ones I am content enough to work it without any expectations of catching alot of fish. Might not be your cup of tea. Keep in mind that the larger your bait, the less fish you catch but your quality is pretty much guaranteed. If your looking for more numbers just use smaller baits like a road runner, marabou, little cleos, or little tiny rattle traps. Most any thing you can present in a vertical fashion at a depth. I really wouldnt use anything like what you graphed out. For one, the weight hitting the bottom or swinging below your lure will scare off your bite and second, you will lose alot of rigs from snagging the bottom. The lakebed in Lower Taney is nothing but acres and acres of sticks on top of sticks. In some places 3 feet thick. Nothing messes up a good drift faster than trying to pull up a snag. Plus the bottom is already decorated like a Xmas tree from all the tourists that cant figure that out. Haha

Today was a rough day. Literally. Had 12 inch white caps when I hit the water. Everything told me to find a place out of the wind. Brownie hunting was out of the question because I couldnt stay on the cover. So I worked my way as far up bull creek as I could muster and just fished my way out. What clear water I could find was stained from the waves hitting the shoreline. It really felt like I was fishing on a busy weekend because my boat never stopped rocking. Constant wake. Anyway, I caught 5 little Bass and a bluegill who was hungry enough to hit my lil jenny. By the time I got back to the island I just called it a day.