Fishing Report

[Phil Lilley]

Fished this afternoon from 3:30 to 5:30 pm. Drove to the dam with only my spin rod and a box of jigs. I bought some #2 Tectan line from Cabela's and tried it. Boy is it light!! Started at outlet #2 and worked down to top of rebar. Didn't get all the way down- too many anglers. Worked a 1/32nd oz jig off the bottom, first a orange head/brown/orange marabou- one small brown (snagged in the nose). Changed to white/red marabou- another small rainbow (snagged in the head). Was starting to get concerned about snagging fish.

Changed to sculpin and started fair hooking fish but was missing alot of bites too. One more brown and about a dozen rainbows. The slack water on the north side was better than the moving on the south. I waded down the middle, throwing to both side. Interesting.

Joined up with Tom Johnson who wasn't wearing waders so we headed down to the end of rebar. I missed even more bites but hooked more too. One more brown- 14 inches with huge spots- and a bunch of rainbows up to 14 inches.

Finished the evening at Rocking Chair where we both hooked a couple of rainbows.

Was alittle slow- trout were biting short.

[Bill Babler]

May be a day late and a buck short, but just wanted to comment on the quality of fishing in the lower section of the restricted area on Saturday.

Had to worm my way thru quite a bit of traffic to get up to the area but the fishing and lack of fishing activity in the zone was great. Only 3 or 4 other boats were in the stretch from Andy's to the Fall Creek boat ramp.

I have never seen the ammount of midging activity that was going on in the zone. Shallow to deep for the 2 plus hrs. I was up there, it was fantastic.

The size 14 tungston headed blood zebra midge was taking fish as soon as it hit the water. The fly would not have to drift more than a foot or two before it was nailed. Extreme action and it seemed the other boats were also having excellent results.

Just a word about the traffic. I have fished taney since the early 70's and that was about the maximum carring capasity of traffic for the area in front of Fall Creek Marina. The number of boats BLOCKING THE CHANNEL ON THE LEFT BANK WAS OUTRAGIOUS. The traffic in front of the working marina blocking access to the dock was just unreasonable. On the way out of the restricted area at 12:30, I counted 35 boats in this very slim stretch of water, from Fall Creek to the end of the dock.

From Fall Creek to about the gas pumps of the marina, directly in front of the marina, a delta of rock and gravel has accumulated over the years and the water depth is not measured in feet, but in inches. The channel is on the extreme left bank going up stream, and this area needs to be kept clear of anchored bait fisherman. If we run over your tight lines or mess you up, we have absolutely no choice. For goodness sakes, why people think this is a trout gold mine is crazy. Believe me, there are much better places to fish than infront of the Fall Creek boat dock. All Phil's tournaments are being won down stream.

Everyone seemed to be very curtious and allow boats to pass up and down stream without much fussing, but last week these channel fisherman were gripping. A great idea would be to anchor on the shallow side and fish to the channel. Probably to complicated. The folks at Fall Creek are very nice but they have to make a living, just like the lower resorts. Please leave their dock open to traffic and don't block the channel on the left. This is the one area that I can see a problem on the lake. If we don't want further government regulations, we had better just plain use some common sense or some one will make the whole area in there a nonfishing section of the lake. Come to think about it that wouldn't be a bad idea. Good luck.