Seth

We usually throw right up on the bank with our jigs and jerkbaits when fishing that stretch and get most of our bites up shallow. Don't feel like you have to get out as far as possible to get bit. I'd think swinging a streamer and letting it swing all the way until it's directly down stream of you and then stripping it back close to the bank would produce bites. I'm not sure which dock you'll be able to fish off of, but we catch a lot of fish all the way from Fall Creek down to Short Creek up next to the bank in between the docks.

My hands usually start hurting after catching a few fish when it's that cold. One thing I started doing this year that helps a lot is to wear nitrile or latex surgical gloves. They keep your hands dry, which makes a HUGE difference in how long you can hold out when it's cold. You can even stick a little hand warmer between the back side of your hand and the glove to help keep them warm.

I'd rather be in a boat than stuck on the bank regardless of the temperatures. Fished plenty of times when it didn't break the freezing mark. Dress warm and wear a Save Phace, motorcycle helmet paintball mask or good set of ski goggles to block the wind while running and you're golden. Best day I have ever had on Taneycomo was during a shad kill is January 2016 when the temperatures never broke the freezing mark. When the fishing is that good, you don't even realize how cold it is.

I went down Saturday with a buddy who really brags about it, but the fishing was very slow. He said that was definitely not normal. Others who fish it a lot were saying it was the worst opening weekend that they had ever seen. We left and headed to Maramec and pounded the trout pretty good on jigs, trout magnets and orange worms. Judging by the lunker board, Montauk definitely stocks bigger lunkers than Maramec. I don't think anything over 5# was caught at Maramec and there were several 6-8# and one over 10# already on the board at Montauk.

I buy most of my jigs heads from flatheadjig.com or stock up on the new Lilleys jig head when I get down to Taneycomo. Powder painting is preferable, but I've been using Sally Hansens nail polish on my jig heads for years. I like a collared jig for anything 1/32oz and heavier, but collarless for anything smaller.

If I didn’t have to constantly deal with ice in my guides, I wouldn’t have a problem fishing in the teens and 20s. I fished Friday and the ice in my gyides was driving me crazy.

I mostly fish them straight on 2# line and just bounce the rod tip while reeling. Try to keep the lure just slightly above the fishes level. I have done decent fishing them beneath a float in the faster water below the dump offs though.

Dad and I got down at 6am and found our usual spot to be full so we started across from where the water trickles out of the concrete wall between the river bend and the bathroom hole. I started off with a 1/16oz orange head sculpin/olive and caught 4. Dad caught 6 and kept his fourth in the first 30 minutes. A friend stopped by and I quit fishing to shoot the bull for a little while. Afterwards, I moved down toward the bathroom and setup under the big trees and caught 9. It was about 9am so i headed up river and stopped above the bend riffle and caught two more and kept my fourth fish. Caught most on trout magnets in white and black/green, orange head sculpin/orange jig and one on a white mega worm. I went back today around 10pm for a few hours after a lack laster start at Montauk and caught 20+. Orange power worm and trout magnets were good and also caught a few on green/white rubber leg jig.

Awww man, I am sorry to hear about that. The thought of not being able to fish would be very difficult for me to handle. I truly hope you are able to get back out there and wet a line one day soon.

Ever heard of this thing called a replica? No reason to kill a big fish at all these days if you can help it. Has it been so long since you have fished that replicas weren't even a thing yet? What kind of injury did you sustain that prevents you from getting out and fishing at all? I've seen some pretty crippled up people who still manage to get out and fish.

MoCarp and that whitesnoop guy bumping in to each other on the water.

Some people avoid it like the plague and others wouldn't miss it. I think everybody should experience at least one opening day to see what they think of it.

I agree with @Ryan Miloshewski on the bigger bait increasing your odds at a bigger fish. These 20+ pound fish are needles in a haystack though. Ryan and I hung out all weekend for the Elfrink and it's very obvious that he has a lot more will power than me when it comes to throwing those big jerkbaits for trophy class trout. It shows because he has a bunch of them and I've yet to break 20" on browns. If he and I drifted from the cable to Fall Creek and he threw only his jerkbait and I threw only my jigs, I'd clobber him on numbers and possibly not break the 20" mark, but he would have multiple that break that mark. The odds are in his favor to catch the largest trout as well, but that lucky cast with a jig could always land in front of 20 pounder. Throwing big baits for browns is more like muskie fishing than trout fishing. In my experience, you fish hours for a few opportunities. Sometimes the stockers will eat those big jerkbaits and give you something to ease the boredom, but not always. Last June, I dedicated about 6 hours of early morning fishing across two days throwing a Luck E Strike RC STX along wooded banks above and below Fall Creek. I had six 20"+ browns rise and two strikes. One I broke off on the hook set and the other tail walked and spit the hook after a few seconds. I think those really big fish are just going to eat whatever is easiest. Camping out by cleaning stations or sitting in the current and letting the water bring a buffet line of scuds right to your mouth are both easy meals. Maybe I am wrong, but my guess for Frank leaving Lilley's dock after being there for so long is due to the heavy generation Taneycomo has had for so long and causing the trout guts to be washed down stream instead of sitting in a pile. It forced him to get out and actually find real food. I hope @Phil Lilley doesn't mind, but I've dubbed my inability to leave the jig rod alone as a case of the Lilley's. It doesn't take long for me to get bored and I have to pick up my jig rod and catch a few to keep me sane.

Only one of the last six record browns was caught on a "big fish" bait. After doing some internet scouting, this is what I was able to put together. Correct me if any of it is wrong. Kevin Elfrink / 24-15 / Shad Assassin jerkbait Rob Caudel / 26-13 / tube jig Bryan Chapman / 27-8 / Little Cleo spoon <----I've heard some "stories" about this one so who knows whether it's even legit Rick Osborn / 27-10 / #14 scud Scott Sandusky / 28-12 / rainbow power bait Paul Crews / 34-10 / 1/8oz sculpin jig I believe Brett Rader had a client catch a 25 pounder last year on a small baitfish jig. There is also a post about another 24-25 pound brown on the forum from a long time ago that was also said to have been caught on orange and green power bait. I think luck plays a far bigger role than anything when it comes to tying in to a fish of this magnitude. The skill really comes after the hook up and the battle begins.

Same here. Rig and fish it just like you would a fluke. If the water has less than 4' of visibility, I tend to go with a fluke. It seems like fish can pick up on the thicker bodied bait a little bit better. With that said, my personal best smallmouth ate the trick worm when there was about a foot of visibility. The fish was laying between a log and the bank in about a foot of water. I threw right on top of the fish and it came charging out and inhaled the worm after just a few twitches.

I've caught my biggest Gasconade and Osage largemouth on that silly thing. Also caught my two biggest smallies on the Gasconade with it as well. If I an see 4' or more, you can pretty well guarantee that I am throwing that thing most of the time I'm on the water.

River bass hate pink.....

Still not certain yet, but knowing me, I will more than likely be down there. We usually fish by the rear parking lot near the cleaning station on opening day. Sounds like I am going to Montauk on Saturday with some guys I know who fish it a lot. I've only fished it once in my life and that was almost 20 years ago so it will be a new experience. Here's my opening day video of the madness from last year.

I'll throw my little report in here for the weekend as well. We fished from Scotty's down to the water treatment plant Friday evening for the last few hours of light. The bridges produced a solid 1.5# rainbow and we also caught another one around a pound down by the Kanakuk docks. We were throwing 1/16oz sculpin/ginger, sculpin/orange and black/yellow jigs. None of the colors seemed better than the other except for white. They wouldn't touch it down there. It looked like it was raining from all of the fish rising down by the water treatment plant during that last hour of light. There must be thousands of fish in that area right now. Everything we caught was around 10-12". Nothing very nice down there for us. On Saturday, I decided to go fish Fall Creek down to Trout Hollow even though I knew there were some good fish by the bridges. I was really hoping we'd get that lucky 2-3# bow that seemed so prevalent in the area during the RAW tournament, but 1.49 was the best we managed. All of the fish we weighed were caught by 11am. We knew we were going to have to catch them early before the wind picked up. White and sculpin/ginger jigs in 3/32-1/8oz caught all but one of our weigh fish. One came on a white mega worm fished below a float. My partner was catching a lot of fish on a size 5 countdown rapala in brown trout that morning, but nothing of any size. There was a bunch of fish holding near the bank and just in front of the wood pile across and just up river from Trout Hollow. I'm not sure exactly how many fish we caught, but I went through my GoPro footage and counted just shy of 30 for myself and I missed quite a few due to the rain forcing me to take down the camera. My partner easily out fished me on numbers as well. I'd say between 70-80 fish is a good estimate. Fishing was almost impossible for us after the wind really started ripping so we weighed in a lot earlier than we normally would. We were the third team to weigh in Saturday and were already in third place as the 1st and 2nd place teams had also weighed in. I was happy with our weight of 8.57, but didn't figure it would hold up at that point so I went and hung out by "Frank" and missed the weigh in. After it was done we went back up and low and behold we had 4 wrote down by our name! The eddy across from Short Creek was a hot spot Saturday. We pulled five of our 8 weigh fish out of that little pocket and the team that took third said they caught their 2.25# rainbow out of that same spot right after we had decided to give it a rest and make another drift from Fall Creek on down. That was after we had just sat and beat that spot to death for over an hour straight. On Sunday, we ran up and made a drift from Trophy Run down to Fall Creek before leaving. My buddy had a 24"+ brown charge his jerkbait just below where the rocks end and clay banks start, but it didn't commit to biting. This is where Phil lost a big brown the week before on a white jig on his one cast. Fishing was pretty slow and we really didn't catch much of anything until we got below the Narrows. What we did catch was all little stockers. There is a huge school of them on the shallow flat just across and above Fall Creek.

No it isn't! I'd rather fish Taneycomo than any trout park, but the parks are a lot closer and more convenient.

I don't notice it nearly as much on Taneycomo either. I'm sure the constant bombardment of bait and lures every few seconds plays a part. Aside from outlets, Taneycomo trout probably don't experience that too often.

Park trout are terrible for doing this, especially when fishing a wacky rigged trout worm. They will grab the worm and swim around with it and never actually get the hook in their mouth. All you can do is pull it out and let them some back and grab it again. Sometimes they will grab it a half dozen times before finally getting the hook in their mouth. Same with a full bodied marabou or even a trout magnet. When they are being that finicky, I usually have to drop down to a micro or thread jig to hook them.

Nice brownie! The best way to tell the difference between a brown and a rainbow is by the tail. Browns will have few if any spots on the tail where as a rainbow will have a bunch.

That would be me. I actually did get to personally inspect the new state record fishes mouth and I did not find a #6 circle hook in it so I can't confirm that it was the same fish. Whatever monster dad had hooked and fought for nearly 10 minutes was within a few hundred yards of where the record was hooked and landed. The way dads fish acted and how the record acted in the video of the fight were incredibly similar as well. It's possible it was different fish, but we've never fought anything that compared to how that fish felt and we've been fishing Taneycomo for nearly 30 years with trout up to 10lbs to our credit. It's such a coincidence that this monster was caught in such close proximity in such a short time frame.

I'm not sure if you are insinuating that the fish wasn't released alive or what. This fish was given the utmost care during the process of getting it weighed on certified scales before it was returned to it's rightful home. Here is how it all transpired. 1) Fish is hooked shortly after 3pm and landed around 3:30pm 2) Fish gets put in aerated livewell and rushed a few miles down lake to Lilley's where it gets put in a large aerated minnow tank being pumped with fresh water from Taneycomo. 3) It stays in there until 5:15 when Phil and his team get a large water trough filled to the brim with fresh water for transporting the fish to the hatchery where certified scales are waiting. 4) Phil, Duane and a few others put Dale Earnhardt to shame driving to the hatchery where they can get the fish weighed, snap a picture and get it back to Taneycomo. I was around to witness nearly the entire process. If Frank does eventually succumb from stress, it definitely wasn't due to the lack of effort by the anglers, Phil, Duane and everybody involved! Somebody even mentioned that Bass Pro would likely pay some good money for that fish, but Paul only wanted to see that fish released back to the waters where it has resided for many years.