duckydoty

Good suggestion for the spin fishers by hknfsh. They can try marabou jigs also. Phil's has all the flies I've mentioned in my report that I use at night. You will never view Taney the same after one good night down there with the water off.

Phil keeps it in stock pretty good unless I've been in there and bought him out. I usually buy 10-15 packs of it at a time.

Great info Buster and Bill! Thanks for putting it on here Phil!

The rabbit fur is a longer and thinner fur than mink. I've found that the mink out fishes the rabbit. I guess they just have expensive taste in fur?

Started fishing the upper end today around 1pm. Fished below the set of stairs below the boat ramp and started with the slightly weighted mega worm in the still water just above the chute there. Caught 6 fish on the mega worm and changed to an olive pine squirrel to try stripping through all the fish that were midging everywhere. Caught 4 or 5 fish on that while stripping it real fast but could not get much more interest than that. I finally caved in to the midging fish and put on an indicator with a size 16 zebra midge about 12 inches under the indicator. Picked up several fish on that, but nothing of any real size. Decided to start moving around and exploring. Crossed to the South side and started working my way up to the Old Rocking Chair area. Picked up a couple of fish in front of the boat ramp and a few more on the South side of the Rocking Chair. I saw some more midging action on the North Side of the Rocking Chair and was able to cross over there. Picked a bunch of fish up on the North side and started working my way back down to the Boat Ramp. The biggest fish while it was still daylight out came from the North side half way between the Rocking Chair and the Boat Ramp. I caught 3 of them in the 16 inch range and 1 that was a good 17 inches with all of them having huge bellies. They were nice chunkers for sure. Headed up the Boat Ramp to the truck about 4:45 for some vittles and my head light. Was able to fish the zebra midge till dark down by Trophy Run and picked up a few more on it. At dark, i switched back to the olive pine squirrel and spent about 30 minutes catching only 2 fish. When it was completely dark, I switched over to the white mink, crossed back over to the South Side and headed back up, across from the boat ramp. Started picking jup fish on just about every cast till I quit at 8 pm. About half of them were the dinks we have been seeing up there, but the other half were pretty good fish from 14 to 17 inches. A lot of nice fat ones tonight. I would have to say the night fishing was better than the day time fishing. It was good to get out of the house and get rid of some of that cabin fever today.

I see lots of big boats launched there. I launch a 18.5 tracker with a 175 with no problems.

I was gonna volunteer my step daughter's new boy friend, but it sounds like you already got a highly qualified candidate.

thats a good one. I can watch that stuff all day!

Watched a cool video that showed tornadoing really well the other day on FB. Sure wish I could figure out how to post it on here. The video was speeded up a little bit as the birds were coming in and then put back in real time as the shooting happened. The tornados were awesome.

White mink sculpin is just pallamared white mink strips on a size 10 streamer hook with a bead head. Could be a leach too i guess. One of my favorite night time flies to fish on Taney and with the shad kill it should start working good during the day too. By slightly weighted, I am just tying in 1 strip of .015 lead wire about 3/8 of an inch long, length wise on the shank of the hook. When I fished the mega worm the other day with the water off, I wished it would have sank just a little faster and did not want to us a weight because the weight catches the bottom.

Tied 80 white mink sculpins yesterday. Working on slightly weighted mega worms today. Might get into some midges and sow bugs too.

That is crazy. Hope they had insurance.

Caught lots of fish all day on a variety of flys. Lots of midging action everywhere. Maga worm did real good. Zebra midges caught fish and of course the pine squirrel sculpin just slayed them. Fished from the flats below outlet one all the way down to the old KOA. Most consistent numbers were caught from the boat ramp down. Nothing bigger than 14 inches but lots and lots of them. Looks like the roads are getting snow covered again. Might be a day or so before trying it again.

Your getting hammered already? It's just about to hit us. Glad I got out and got some fishing in yesterday. Gonna stay home and tie flies today.

Wade fished the upper end yesterday and everything was good. Snow on roads melted by noon and fish were biting good.

It was a night and day difference between AR and Mo at the state line on the interstate to Joplin.

I drove from Branson to Fayetteville to take my step daughter home and back yesterday. Left at 9:30 a.m. and did not get home till 8 p.m. It was one of the worst drives I have ever been on. Must have seen 150 or more cars in the ditch and off the road. Saw several 15-20 car pile ups.

Great read as always Scott. Thanks again for another great contribution to this fine forum.

I fish small streamers on Taney a lot. Small meaning 1 1/2 to 2 inches long. Most of them are pine squirrel sculpins and white mink sculpins or leaches. When fishing them while wade fishing, I will usually wade out to about knee deep water and cast directly across to the other bank intersecting the current at a 90 degree angle. I will vary the retrieve from a fast strip to a slow strip to dead drifting or swinging. Fast stripping consists of pulling in 4- 6 inches of line on every strip just as fast as you can strip the line in. Slow stripping would be long slow gentle pulling in of the line with pauses between the strips. Dead drifting would be just casting the fly out and letting the line drift with the current. The swing of the drift is when the fly finally catches up with the loop of the line in the current and straightens out. This is when I catch a lot of my fish. While stripping, swinging, or dead drifting, it is best to hold your rod tip right at the surface of the water and follow your line down stream as it flows in the current. This will allow you to feel the take quicker than if you were holding the tip above the water and the fish has to take up that extra slack for you to feel the bite. When the water is off at Taney, fishing with a floating line is very effective due to the slow current. If fishing with 1 unit running or somewhere else that has stronger current or deeper water, you may want to use a sinking line to get the streamer deeper.

Im sold!

Fished in front of the Landing yesterday from 9 a.m. till about 2 p.m. with the primary goal of catching some crappie. Straight lined jigs in the rain the whole time and worked the area hard. Water was off or running just a very little and for the most part no wind. I have not fished for the crappie down there with the water off or running very little and it was tough. Managed to land 10 crappie with only two of them big enough to eat, but all were returned to the water. I could see lots of the structure they are holding close to while the water is up and it is pretty tight to the bottom. It definately gives me a better idea of where I need to concentrate harder when the water is running. I only fished brown and orange jigs in size 1/16 and 3/32 oz. with orange heads and tried a white jig in 3/32 for a while too. Did manage to catch a dozen rainbows and one brown while looking for the crappie. The trout seemed to prefer a faster retrieve and the jig higher in the water column than I was providing trying to target crappie. They are still down there. Probably out in the deeper water while the water is not running. I'm looking forward to a nicer, warmer day to get down there and look for them again

Really cool!

Great pictures! I gotta know….does Brian tie at super sonic speed in real life???? :-)

I'm really partial to them Boykin's. Little dog with big dog heart and drive. I spend a lot of time in Alaska with one. His name is Earl the fetching squirrel. That little dog sure has fetched a lot of ducks for me and I share my bacon with him every morning.

Ok, guys, that one is gonna have to hold us over till next season. A great one to end it on. Nice job and thanks for sharing.