Fishing Report 6-25-08

[Jeremy Hunt]

A brief report on Taney,

I had a break from guiding in Arkansas so my dad and I hit Taney because the generation schedule was awesome. The day before my dad was telling me he got to fish Taney and it was one of those days you dream about. They had four generators running if you called in, but if you were out there you could see it was a lot lower than that and for most of the day. We fished for about five hours on the upper end and caught a lot of quality trout. The strange thing about the fishing conditions was where the trout are feeding and were they weren‘t. You here that saying that you have to be out there to know what’s going on, and you do. Last time I fished Taney the fish were feeding in areas that I couldn’t get one to hit this time around. So I do believe the trout will pick were the best feeding spots are for whatever water conditions they’re faced with. It’s funny that when four generators are running they will actually feed more all over the river, but when they run two they will hold in pocket water that has little current. The good thing with this is you can comb them out once you find them. Yesterday I would have to say right up at the cable on the hatchery side was producing the best for us. I was shocked not to see tons of people along the banks fishing. We pretty much had it all to ourselves. Occasionally someone would come down and give it a shot with no results and then leave. The bite really started picking up after two o’clock and it really didn’t matter so much where you were just as long as you had what they wanted. The flies of choice were still anything loud that would get their attention with red and pink san juans out fishing everything else we tried. Egg patterns were also working, but I didn’t fish them much to really say.

If you’re looking to catch some of the bigger trout in the 18-21 inch range. I would find drop offs from shallow water to deep and make sure you get the fly down before you get to the drop. A few good areas that we caught some on were the banks on both sides of the cable. Another great spot is across from outlet three. If you know the water when it’s down then you’ll know the spot I’m talking about. In low water it is right where the gauntlet hole starts to widen out. You’ll notice some bigger rocks that are out of the water, but when they are submerged they make for some great holding water for big fish. They seem to hang all around the shelf of this area and there’s quite a few. I hooked two last week that were both over 23 inches in this spot in the same day. I landed one and lost the other one. Overall Taney has some great fishing right now and big fish are definitely in there. Take advantage of any day when they’re running lower units. Should make for some of the best fishing you’ve had if you’re used to fishing max units since they started all this generation.

[Phil Lilley]

Long time no hear from.... your reporting is appreciated.

[Thom]

Great report Jeremy:

Fishing the area you described we caught lots of fish last week. Especially at night. There are some spots where the fish are podded up behind the islands and structure. I did real good on rust shell back scud under a y2k in those spots all with the water running 4 units. I also fish near one man and his wife that was fishing slack water below lookout island and also on the point royalle side up from there stripping wollie buggers on top.

The first rainbow was caught on 14 soft shelled scud rust colored and released below the island at fall creek

The whites were caught on white 1/16 jig along with several other bass at outlet one around the corner

The second raibow was caught on a y2k below lookout island and released both were near 20" didn't want to take the time to measure accurately because of the long time fight the fish in swift current. I brioke anothe large rainbow off right at the boat at fall creek trying to land and release him to quickly. I'll catch him agian later this summer.