Quillback

I'll start by saying that the staff at Lillys' Landing were all very courteous and helpful. The lodging is outstanding - clean rooms that are well maintained. The bass boat I rented performed flawlessly. The trolling motor with spotlock is a great aid in fishing the river. Got out early Friday with John Neporadny. John is an outdoor writer and has a lot of experience fishing the local area including Taney. That experience was very helpful as I had never been on the lake. We started the day throwing jerkbaits and hoping for a big brown, we didn't get much interest in the jerkers so we made the decision to go to jigs. The jig fishing started off slowly, but we discovered some freshly stocked rainbows in the Monkey Island area. They were schooled up around the island and near creek mouths. We caught around 50 of them, 11-13" fish. 1/16th oz marabou jigs worked for us. Milo joined us for some late afternoon jerkbait throwing. He took us up past Fall Creek into the trophy area. It didn't take long before I heard John say something like "big fish!" and I turned and saw a nice brown do some tail walking and head shaking. A neat but also scary sight as that airborne head shaking usually results in the lure being tossed one way and the fish going another way and disappearing into the water. However, the fish stayed pinned, and the battle was on! A word about Milo - He's great to fish with and is very knowledgeable about Taney. He can be intense at times, and this was one of those times. He started barking commands: "JEFF LET ME KNOW IF WE GET CLOSE TO THOSE TREES!" "JEFF - HAND ME THAT NET!" "JOHN GET OVER ON THIS SIDE!" JOHN DON"T LET THAT FISH GET INTO THE TROLLING MOTOR!" Afterwards it was funny, but it was all business at the time. Milo did a great job of keeping the boat away from obstructions and maneuvering the boat to keep John in a good position to fight the fish. I stayed out of the way and took a couple of pics. It was fun to watch. The fight: The fish: It was 24" and estimated 7 lbs., nice thick fish. A triploid to boot. We caught a few more on the jerkbaits, I had caught my 2 biggest fish for the trip, a brown and a rainbow that both were in the 15-16" range. Saturday, John, Milo and myself went right up to the trophy area to start the day. We threw the jerkbaits for a bit, but no interest from the fish except for a few follows. We switched to jigs and started picking up fish, mostly rainbows with a few small browns. Nicer fish in the trophy area for sure compared to what we caught downriver and we caught decent numbers of them. Milo had something like 5 on his first 5 casts. He was using 3 lb. braid (I didn't know anyone made braid that light, but you can get it at Lillys' Landing) with 2 lb. leader. John was also using a 2 lb. leader, and both he and Milo out fished me as I was using 10 lb. braid and an 8 lb. leader, however I was able to stay within shouting distance of them. John got big fish honors once again for the boat, this time a nice rainbow. The fight: The fish: We went back to the cabin for "2nd Breakfast", after eating, John, Ray, and myself went downriver to torment the hatchery fish. We found a bunch of them in a riffle down from a creek mouth and my guess is we caught 60 of them at least. We had triples several times and doubles most of the time. We looked upon it as providing some education to those trout as to the evils of some of the "food" that presents itself. Jigs again. It was a great two days of fishing, we boated between 150-200 trout, and got to see a really nice brown get caught. On a personal note, Marty and Pat gave me a really nice point Marty made which will go on my mantle. And I purchased this nice souvenir coffee cup for my collection.

The air temps are warming up, good time to jump! 😀

Cody has to get some rest at some point. He was chief entertainer and chef in addition to fishing and leading the charge over to The Cheeky Monkey.

I plan on going around 0700 tomorrow when the boat I am renting is available. I have no one with me so far, so if anyone wants to join me, let me know.

Leg and thigh in one piece.

Cody I got you 10 Lbs. of chicken hindquarters. Gives a person a leg to hold onto, and you can eat the leg too.

They need to take that ramp out, put one in somewhere else close by.

Durch and I fished the Kings today and also motored over to Mill Creek. It was very tough for us, we caught 5 bass total. Dutch had two of those and they were both keepers, and one was close to 3 lbs. The few we caught all came on Ned rigs in 10-20 FOW. Tried a swimbait for a while with no takers. Looked at a couple of deep spots, nothing there. WT 43-45, however the upper Kings by the 86 bridge is iced over.

I dunno about the grills, I think he has some.

I have a Humminbird 798 with a trolling motor transducer. It's 12 years old, but still works fine. Color, Side Imaging. I'll be happy to bring it to Taneyfest if anyone wants it. Give Phil $25 for CAM and we'll call it good. Power cable included. No mounting hardware. First I want it response to this thread gets it.

I'm wondering about that myself. Couple dozen be enough?

I'll bring thighs.

Hey buddy, a bunch of us will be down there Thursday-Sunday. I was going to give you a box of golf balls a couple of years ago, still have them if you want them.

How many times did KC stop the Bills on those short yardage plays?

Disco!

He's shown me the pics of BIG smallies he catches. I wish it was closer.

Might be a bit of a drive for you, but JWM Trailer in Reeds Springs is where I take my trailer.