Taney

[Jeremy Hunt]

Taney was scheduled to generate at 10am so I left the house at 6am to get in a few hours before picking up River from the Grandparents house. I got on the water around 8:15. The parking lot wasn’t all the way crowded, but there were a few fisherman already in the water. I walked down the steps by chute two and noticed a few things different about the river. Along the banks there seems to be a sandy type bottom now. It’s not everywhere, but you can tell it’s not what it used to look like. It’s really along the bank that we like to call “brown boulevard“. Its also a lot shallower now, but the browns don’t seem to mind. They were in there general spots as they were in previous years. Still tough to catch them, but a few have already been caught. It’s a little early for the browns to already be upstream then other years so I’m thinking the high water generation had something to do with it. As I was fishing down by the gauntlet hole I saw the biggest and prettiest rainbow I’ve ever seen at Taney. Kind of felt good to see there is a decent size rainbow still hanging around in Taney. In the last five years I haven’t seen any this big. I bet this fish was pushing 16-18 pounds. I noticed it swing off downstream in a hurry like it got spooked from the rebar hole. It was hovering right under the water and the color was quite noticeable from a distance. I did take my camera out to try to get a snap shot, but the cloud cover and wind chop got in the way of it. If was bright and sunny I bet you could’ve seen this fish. What a sight to see.

I started the day fishing the bank below chute two and spent about a good hour fishing real shallow for these big browns. Most of the water they’re holding in is between 6-18 inches of water. I threw on a size 18 rusty midge set under a half pulsa about twelve inches. There was a guide working the upper stretch so I went down to the bottom where I saw fa ew fish holding right along the bank. I got real low to the ground because at this time it wasn’t windy yet and made a downstream cast. I immediately spotted this brown come over and take it. Set the hook with the first fish on for the day. Felt like old times when the waters low. I then proceeded to make another cast and caught a rainbow about the same time. One thing I noticed was these fish are all healthy and have a ton of color. I spent about an hour fishing this one spot before it got to windy to see the bite so I headed downstream. I was able to hook one big fish, but 6x tippet didn’t hold a chance to this fish. He was off in a hurry.

The rebar hole was crowded so I went down to the first area that wasn’t which was the big hole. As I was walking down I wanted to see what else has changed. At the end of the rebar hole it has widened out big time. I couldn’t really tell if it was filled in, but it did look like you could still get a good drift in there. It also is deeper at the run into the rebar hole. I think that’s a major improvement from what it looked like before. At the start of the gauntlet hole there’s a nice tree stump right smack in the center of the current. Something we’ll have to get used to…. I guess. That’s about as far as I made it before the horn blew. Fishing was good and caught fish all day. Overall I think Taney changed for the better. I’ll be going back once hurricane Gustav dumps another batch of rain showers. If I were you I would be planning a trip down to Taneycomo real soon.

Notice all the shadows, browns are evrywhere.

[Tightline]

Hey Jeremy, it was good to meet you today.I really appreciate all the good advise and pointers you gave me.Oh and thanks for the flys too.I'll try to put them to good use.

I know that with any kind of fishing its easy to get stuck in a rut.You will always go back to what has been successful without giving something new a 100% try.

Advise coming from tried and true trout veteran makes it easier to stick with.

Man it was really nice wading Taney again!!

Tightline.

[Jeremy Hunt]

Good to meet you to. It's always a pleasure putting names with faces.. and also meeting people from this board. Hope to meet everyone in time.