zsmith62

Welcome, this site will definetly increase your fishing IQ infinetly... As for the lake drawdown, I don't neccesarily know how the fishing will be, but I'd say the increased fishing room will make things more bareable. After things settle down after the initial drop, I'd imagine that things will be pretty darn good. (I assume you'll be fishing the upper lake.)

Just tie on a big treble hook and drag it over the back of the biggest brown you can see, or having your little kid splash through the water and scream draws in a lot of the bigger trout. Seriously though, your basic scud patterns in brown, olive, grey, or tan usually do well, as do cracklebacks, pheasant tail and hare's ear nymphs, san juan worms, eggs and even wooly buggers should do the trick. Add some shot about six inches up and fish with an indicator at the appropriate depth so everyone can see your line, and you should do just fine. I for one cant wait to get away from the outlets and be able to spread out and fish the open water once the levels drop and the tourists leave branson.

I hate to see things go to waste, and enjoy keeping and eating a few fish every now and then, but my opinion on releasing a mortally wounded fish back was changed a few years back at bennett springs when I saw a dead fish sitting on the bottom being picked apart by crawfish, while several other trout sat nearby picking chunks as they drifted by. Even if a fish is put back into the water and dies, It is not being wasted, it is simply being recycled into the ecosystem.

I've found that the best way to get some of these people to change (at least temporarily) is to confront them, and at least embarass them into changing their tactics for as long you are there.

Thats the same guy who does the dirty jobs show. When you combine his sarcasm with his incompetence at just about everything he does on the show, it makes for some entertaining tv.

Today was the best day I've had on Taney since the flood, and quite possibly one of the best ever. I worked outlet one with two of my buddies from about 8:30 am to 5 pm I definetly had over 30 fish, with only a handful of small ones. When I first got down, the water was about 8 feet lower than it has been since the flood, and there were fish rising all over the place. So, I took off the indicator and scud and quickly tied on a blue winged olive dry fly, size 20 and hooked fish on just about every other cast. Eventually, the water went back to normal levels and the surface action died off, and nymphing was the way to go. After losing all of my scuds, I then tried just about every thing I had in the nymph box. They took just about everything I could throw at them too. I caught fish on scuds, sowbugs, eggs, san juan worms, and midges of every color I had, Pheasant tails, Hare's ears, Squirrel tail nymphs, cracklebacks, I mean everything. Inevitably, things began to slow down at about four o'clock, so I decided to call it a day. I can't think of a time I've had that much fun fishing the outlets, usually its so repetitive, but getting to experiment a little and catch fish on the the surface, made for one heck of a trip. Here's some pics:

It's not just outlet one, last sunday I found an empty mister twister grub package on outlet 2, and actually saw a guy fishing behind the cable with powerbait about two weeks ago.

I can't think of a better plan. In fact, last sunday i completed the crane, roaring river, and taney section of that trip, spending a couple of hours at each. If you leave roaring river at the siren and head straight to taney, you can get in a good dose of night fishing.

Some people take the pinchers off, and some don't, I guess its a manner of personal preference. You actually want them to stay on the bottom, but with enough weight attached to anchor it in one place so the crawdad doesn't just hide under a rock, but still can move around.

just slide your hook underneath the big plate on it's back, this way it can still move relatively freely. I'd recommend inserting the hook from the tail end, so it can maintain it's natural backwards motion.

But when they're in a privately stocked pond where it's a fish on almost every cast, I really have no problem doing it. Besides, what is the difference from throwing a chunk of stinkbait like most catfishermen do. Also, convincing a fish that bases most of its feeding on scent alone, making them eat a ball of fur isn't as easy as it sounds. No offense taken though, I know this isn't exactly purist dry-fly fishing

One of my buddies has a pond at his farm that has catfish and bass in it, and whenever we are down there, we used to go throw in a cup of the little food pellets and watch them suck them off the top. After doing this several times, I tied up a couple of eggs in tan color and then put some dry fly floatant on it and would cast into the middle of the floating pellets. If you think taking a bass or trout on top is exciting, try catfish. Lots of fun

Great advice Wheatenheimer, but I've got one more question. . . Should I leave the waders at the house or not?

Heck of a fish, be it on a fly or on powerbait Lets not forget that fishing began as a blood sport, and in many ways, it still is, despite whatever our modern take on the sport is. I think that taking a fish or two every now and then keeps things in perspective, and is not neccesarily as "evil" as we sometimes see it.

I plan on fishing crane for the first time sunday (needin a change of pace from the constant four units at taney) A few quick questions: Where should I start fishing at? What flies should I be using? Leader length, tippet size?

Leonard looks like I missed you again... me and a couple of the boys came down after work on sunday, and fished by outlet 2 from about 6:30 to midnight, we did okay, picking up a few every once in awhile on the scuds. Meant to bring the box of dries, but left it at home.

I managed to get down today after work around 6:30, and fished outlet 2 until about 11. In all, it wasn't a bad night, I caught eleven rainbows, and one small brown. Several of the bows were pretty thick. I was using a brown scud until about an hour after dark then switched to a black wooly bugger. Leonard: I did notice a few fish rise with a little more vigor than they usually do when sipping midges, especially as it got later, they must've been going after the bugs. That scud was working so well at the time, it never occured to me to try a hopper. Here's pic's:

As far as the weight goes, I would say it was definetly ten at the least, but was very likely bigger. The fish itself was about 2 inches bigger around than a football. The fish kinda had those hooked jaws like salmon do. The colors were absolutely amazing, with lots of red, just a classic looking trophy brown. Dano: I've been fishing pretty steadily every week even after the flooding, and have figured out that if you put a splitshot about six inches above the fly, you can get it down to where you want without too much trouble. I don't use any particular indicator depth, i've just kinda learned how to eyeball it depending on the water, and then adjusting accordingly. Laker: I agree completely. I tie my own design of scud pattern, and have never had any trouble catching good sized fish, you just have to know where and how to put the fly in the right place. I should be going for a night trip sunday, so I'll try and report for sure. This time, I'll try and get some pictures, I should have better luck landing fish, since I replaced the old net with a bigger one from BCO today.

Got down to taney at about 8:30, and thought I'd check out outlet 1 until I saw the flock of people headed in the same direction. Judging by the look of them, I'd say they were branson tourists. So, I headed over to outlet 2 and the situation wasn't much better, so I just fished between 1 and 2 until 2 looked a little better. I got in on the side opposite from the stairs, closest to the dam, and immediately began catching fish. I fished right along the seam where the outlet flow meets the main flow, drifting a size 14 brown scud under an indicator. I really found no need to change patterns. The highlight of the day came when I hooked up with the biggest brown I've ever had on my line, it probably was 30-34 inches. I thought I was snagged for sure, until it ran into the main current, where I thought it was gonna break off. Finally it made it's way back to me, where I proceeded to get it out of the water. As soon as I reached for it, it thrashed about and threw the hook. After it swam off, I realized my knees and hands were shaking uncontrolably, and that a crowd of about fifteen people had gathered above the stairs to watch me lose the fish. How embarassing. In all, I caught somewhere between 14-16 fish, with a fair number being browns.

I've been going down about once a week recently, and the fishing last week, seemed fairly consistent with what greg said. However, along with the midge and eggs, dark brown scuds seemed to do good as well. Outlet 2 was pretty hot, along with the stretch between it and the outlet 3 cable. I'll be down tommorow morning, and I'll be sure to post my findings.

With all this talk on bigfoot and black panthers, here's something I came across on the internet awhile back ago, apparently some believe that this thing may live in our area, hence the name the Ozark Howler. Here's a few links, see what you think... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark_Howler http://ozarkhowler.20m.com/

Thanks, I usually have them too, but I forgot that I had used the last of them up, but I was doin' alright with my light, it was my fishing buddy Brady that was having trouble seeing, but he's blind as a bat anyways. (hope he reads this, he need contacts. . .BAD.)

The other times I've been out there at night, I had some of the little glow stick things too, but didn't find out i was out of them till i was down on the water, but I had a little hat light that has blacklight bulbs in it, and it made my line and indicator glow as long as they were within about 15-20 feet. I was a little nervous about using the thing at first because I thought it may spook the fish, but it didn't cut through the water hardly at all. Once that moon came out over the trees, I didn't have much of a problem seeing the indicator.

That was me in the green shirt at right at outlet 1. We didn't do bad either, but didn't stay out too long. Were you guys fly or spin fishing. I fly fished the entire time, had the most luck drifting a brown woolly bugger. My buddy did both, and picked up fish using the bugger and one of those little rapala plugs with the roostertail blade in front of it. Not an impressive fish, but fun. I ended up with six of about the same size or larger in the hour and a half we actually fished in the dark

I've only fished there once or twice, but both times I did, I did okay throwing Brown 3" grubs or zoom craws in brown or black with blue pinchers on a jig head. You should probably catch at least a few smallies doing that