Our Annual Father And Sons Trip

[DaddyO]

Hey guys,

I will be making a trip to Branson with my Dad and two brothers. We do a fly fishing trip every year. I have a timeshare in Branson and we are going to use that as our Base of Operation. We plan on fishing Taney Como, White River, Norfork River and maybe Roaring River. We are going to do some night fishing on Taney, also. I know that these fishieries are all unique, however, what is your recomendation for flies to use mid-September?

Will we still be able to fish terestrials? If so, should I tie up hoppers, beetles, ants??? Is there a specific pattern that is better than any other? I'll be taking my fly tying stuff also and I plan on having a supply of Zebra Midges 16-18, Sowbugs, Scuds, etc.. Are there specific colors that work better on each of these rivers?

What are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

DaddyO

[OKFlyFisher44]

Phil...

Grey, green, and tan scuds have always produced for me at Taney...well they produce for everyone down there. San juan worms in brown and red too. Zebra midges in black and red w/ silver wire have also been good. Sculpin patterns are a must for both day and night trips. On my last trip, soft hackles and cracklebacks worked very well too. I've caught a few fish on egg patterns too...

At night...mohair leeches, wooly buggers, and egg-sucking leeches have worked for me in my short Taney night fishing career. You can throw bigger flies and heavier tippet at night too...just in case you hook into a pig!

Another thing Phil....I really really recommend driving over to the Current River and fishing there for a day. Its a 2 1/2 hour drive but its well worth it. The hopper fishing is supposed to be awesome down there from August till October. Lots of nice water to fish outside of the state park. Replace roaring river with the current...I promise, you'll enjoy it.

[DaddyO]

I don't know a whole lot about the Current River. How do I get to where I need to fish it from Branson?

[Phil Lilley]

Chance pretty much nailed it.

John Berry just posted a report on the White.

Hope they leave the water off for ya... it's raining quite a lot tonight, not sure what it's going to do to lake levels.

[fly2fish]

Phil...

Grey, green, and tan scuds have always produced for me at Taney...well they produce for everyone down there. San juan worms in brown and red too. Zebra midges in black and red w/ silver wire have also been good. Sculpin patterns are a must for both day and night trips. On my last trip, soft hackles and cracklebacks worked very well too. I've caught a few fish on egg patterns too...

At night...mohair leeches, wooly buggers, and egg-sucking leeches have worked for me in my short Taney night fishing career. You can throw bigger flies and heavier tippet at night too...just in case you hook into a pig!

Another thing Phil....I really really recommend driving over to the Current River and fishing there for a day. Its a 2 1/2 hour drive but its well worth it. The hopper fishing is supposed to be awesome down there from August till October. Lots of nice water to fish outside of the state park. Replace roaring river with the current...I promise, you'll enjoy it.

I can get some nighttime flies to you via Mike P. if you would like before you go and I get some time to tie them. I had to bypass Branson on the way back a couple of weeks ago because of my mothers stroke but I am going this Saturday but not to fish. Give me a PM of when you are going and if you need flies.

F2F

[DaddyO]

Well, we got back from our trip last night. This was, absolutely the best trip that we have had. 2 states, 3 rivers, 200 fish.

We drove from Tulsa to Branson on Wednesday night and arrived at our Condo at Holiday Hills about 8:30pm. We spent the evening tying flies and got up early and headed to Taney Como.

Thursday - Day 1 – Overcast skies and mist.

It felt good to get on the water again and start flinging flies. It felt even better flinging flies in the company of my Dad and 2 brothers. There’s nothing like a little camaraderie and trash talk among brothers while competing to catch the most or biggest fish.

The fish in Taney Como were as beautiful as ever and sometimes willing to consume our midge offerings. We ran into Tim, of Tim’s Flyshop, while we were there. Needless to say, he caught more fish than any one of us did. My mojo was off that day as I had forgotten my sun glasses and couldn’t see the fish that I was trying to catch. I also left my truck keys with my Dad and then promptly forgot the combination to get back into the truck. (I must be getting some-timers disease) Anyway, they blew the siren too early and then ran more generators than were scheduled for a longer period than scheduled. So, we decided it was time to call it a day and get something to eat and tie up more flies for the next day of fishing.

Friday - Day 2 – Overcast skies, mist, light rain off and on.

We got up and found out that Taney had the generators running again and were scheduled to have them on all day. So, we decided to make the drive from Branson to Mountain Home. We stopped by the Blue Ribbon Fly Shop and picked up our licenses and a few other goodies. Then we headed down to the Norfork River.

The fish in the Norfork have always cooperated with us. They must know that we release all of them. I used #16 Olive thread midge with a peacock herl collar and silver bead. My brother used a #18 Zebra Midge and my Dad used #16 grey sowbugs. We caught Rainbows and a few browns. Dad caught a fairly nice rainbow.

Saturday – Day 3 – Overcast skies, Rained cats and Dogs

Generation at Taney again. My Dad and brother didn’t want to fish Taney with the water moving even though I told them that it was fishable. So, we looked at the generation schedule for Norfork and Bull Shoals Dam. BSD was supposed to run from noon to 3pm and Norfork was supposed to start at 4pm. Our plan was to go to Norfork first and BSD second after the blew the siren and Norfork. So, we started our drive to Mountain Home again. It rained on us the whole way down there and stopped just as we pulled in to Quarry Park. We changed into our waders and headed down to the river to find it cloudy from the muddy stream runoff caused by the rain. We walked around searching and casting for fish in areas that used to hold fish. No nibbles and no hookups. My brother said “I’m ready to go.” I saw a fish jump and told him that the fish were in here, we just had to figure out what they would hit. Dad was working his way down to us and I was tying on new tippet when he caught his first fish on our faithful BobWhite micro jig. Before Dad could land his fish, my brother caught his first fish of the day on the BobWhite also. I decided to tie on a BobWhite and join in on the fun. Before the siren sounded we had caught 86 fish with my brother and I getting 3 fish in on the Norfork Grand Slam. I needed a Brookie to complete the Slam and he needed a Cutthroat to complete his Slam. The consolation was that we achieved the Slam as a team. Dad caught his biggest brown to date.

During the course of catching the 84 fish, we ran out of BobWhite’s. We switched to a fly that my Dad tied up and had good success with it. I don’t have a name for the fly but it was tied on a #10 Scud Hook with a Brass tungsten bead and the body was wrapped pink chenille with a white or black thread collar.

We moved to BSD and arrived just after the park flooded from all the rain that they got. The river was full of muddy water that looked like it was coming from the Golf course. There were seams of clear water interspersed with the cloudy muddy water. We walked down to the water and started tossing our pink flies in the seams. The fish would hit them as soon as they hit the water. I caught 6 fish, Dad caught 4 and my brother caught 4. Those 14 fish made our catch an even 100 for the day.

Sunday – Day 4 – Overcast skies

This was our last day to fish and we fished Taney until noon. I caught 6 Rainbows and got to fight a really nice Brown for about 10 minutes before losing him. I was able to get him to the net once but he juked when I jived and he took off for another run. I lost him a few minutes after that. (by the way all of the fish on this day at Taney were caught on a #16 black zebra midge with a copper bead and a copper rib.)

I'll post pictures later.

[Greg]

Sounds like a great trip. I'm glad you did well. I love all 3 of those places (Taney, Norfork, and the white).

Greg

[DaddyO]

Brother (Steve) with a small Norfork Brown.

My favorite photo of the trip. Me and Dad posing with Steve's Norfork Brookie.

Dad with a Taney Rainbow

Me with a Norfork Cutthroat

Dad with a Nice Norfork Brown. (Notice the BobWhite hanging from it's mouth)

[patfish]

That is waaaay cool DaddyO! Thanks for sharing.