Fishing Report - For Real

[Phil Lilley]

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<p>Funny how things can change in a day.&nbsp; I wrote a lengthy fishing report Wednesday morning, but then stepped away from the computer for an hour and my report was gone. Wrote another report that evening, but Word locked up and I also lost that one.&nbsp; It’s hard to get enthused about writing anything three times, so I quit for the day.&nbsp; Here it is another day and everything has changed -- well almost everything.</p>

<p>Wednesday I wrote that generation patterns had not changed for more than a month.&nbsp; Today they changed.&nbsp; It got warmer.&nbsp; I think it hit 60 today, and when it hits 60, the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers doesn’t run as much water and not for as long.&nbsp; Today less than two units ran for a couple of hours.&nbsp; Tomorrow, according to the schedule, there will be no generation.&nbsp; So… I will guess that if it stays warm, there will be very little if any generation.&nbsp; If it gets cold again, and I’m sure it will, look for generation early in the morning and none for the rest of the day.</p>

<p>The changes also negated the video I shot (This is what I hate about posting a video and then waiting a day to write about it.)&nbsp; It was cold when I shot the video… the report was a good one but would not apply to, say, this weekend with the expected balmy weather. </p>

<p>&nbsp; This morning (Thursday) I launched out with Flip Putthoff of the Northwest Arkansas Times — a great guy to enjoy catching fish with. We started at 8 a.m., thinking we’d have two hours of good generation, so I already had the white jigs tied on.&nbsp; They didn’t stay on for long.&nbsp; I boated up to the Big Hole but decided not to go further since it looked like the water was already dropping. I didn’t think the “white bite” would be too good, and I was right.&nbsp; I threw a one-eighth-ounce white jig and I tied on a sculpin/ginger one-eighth-ounce jig on Flip’s rod.&nbsp; After a couple of throws, I picked up a rod with a sculpin jig on it, and we proceeded to hook a “Double-16” --&nbsp; that’s two 16-inch rainbows caught at the same time.&nbsp; Flip was immediately impressed.</p>

<p>The “Double-16” could have meant that we were in for a slow day – if you cater to the catch jinx and all.&nbsp; But it was just the start of an incredible morning of catching rainbows.</p>

<p>We drifted and fished down to the boat ramp using the same colors and caught several more rainbows.&nbsp; Then we picked up and boated down past Lookout Island.&nbsp; I advised Flip that since we were in deeper water there, he needed to let the jig sink longer before starting his retrieve.&nbsp; He didn’t need much coaching at all – none, as a matter of fact.&nbsp; The trout were just on the mark this morning, on anything with sculpin that is.</p>

<p>We fished all the way down to the narrows, catching rainbow after rainbow.&nbsp; There were slow times, and I did switch colors a couple of times but went right back to either a sculpin, sculpin/ginger or sculpin/orange and kept doing well.</p>

<p>About 11 a.m., the fishing slowed way down, so I tied on a 1/16th-ounce sculpin jig and played around with it.&nbsp; The wind picked up but kept wildly changing directions on us. We could hear it swirling overhead in the trees on the bluff but the wind speed wasn’t that bad. It was the changing in direction that was difficult to handle.&nbsp; So we motored down below the narrows and stayed in an area where the wind was blowing us downstream.</p>

<p>When using a 1/16th-ounce jig, especially in wind, you hardly need to work it at all.&nbsp; As a matter of fact, I was basically drifting with it, keeping the boat from moving too fast in the wind but enough to keep us moving ever so slowly.&nbsp; This let the jig drift along the bottom. I lifted the rod every five seconds to make sure something had not taken the jig. The rainbows loved it, and we caught some of the best and biggest rainbows of the day. </p>

<p>In all, I bet we caught more than 60 rainbows up to 18 inches long.&nbsp; Flip took a lot of pictures.&nbsp; I look forward to reading his article next week.</p>

<p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/1-27b-250.jpg" width="250" height="188" hspace="4" vspace="4" align="right">This afternoon, I picked up a good friend of mine, Vince Elfrink.&nbsp; Vince and I have known each other since I moved here in 1983.&nbsp; We raised our kids together and been blessed to venture on many, many fishing and hunting trips together over the years.&nbsp; He’s my best fishing buddy.&nbsp; Vince is now battling a quarter-sized malignant tumor in the middle of his brain discovered a few months ago.</p>

<p>One of these days, I’ll detail his fight with this cancer and how he and his family are standing strong in their faith in God to sustain and heal.&nbsp; God is doing both.&nbsp; But today, we were just a couple of friends, catching trout, laughing and giving each other a hard time as usual.&nbsp; </p>

<p><img src="http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/images/2011/1-27a-250.jpg" width="250" height="188" hspace="4" vspace="4" align="right">We caught our fish on a sculpin 1/125th-ounce jig under a float about five feet deep.&nbsp; We fished from above the Narrows down to Fall Creek.&nbsp; Vince hooked and landed the largest trout on his last cast of the day, about an 18-inch rainbow. </p>

<p>I talked to others who fished today and most said it was a very good day.&nbsp; Some said the Cooper Creek area was good.&nbsp; One gentleman shared a photo of a rainbow he caught there that looked to be about three pounds.&nbsp; He caught it on a jig but since he’s entered in the Masters Tournament Saturday, he wouldn’t divulge the color --&nbsp; seriously.</p>

<p>With the water level expected to be down for the next few days, fly fishing below the dam is going to be pretty popular and rightly so.&nbsp; There are some great rainbows that should be caught (and released).&nbsp; The water is pretty dark, normal for this time of year, so seeing or sight fishing is difficult, but if you move around and cover big areas, you should find at least a few of them.</p>

<p>There’s been some big midge hatches mainly in the afternoons, which the rainbows have been keying in on.&nbsp; One encouraging report&nbsp; said fishing a #16 zebra midge under an indicator 10-inches deep was the hot ticket the other afternoon, yielding “a bite on every cast for a solid hour.”</p>

<p>I did get out last weekend and fished night crawlers, blowing them up with air and fishing them on the bottom out in front of the Riverpoint Estates’ boat ramp.&nbsp; We did very well but didn’t catch anything of any size.&nbsp; </p>

<p>There are lots of trout in the lake right now, so fishing should be very good this weekend.&nbsp; Hope you can get out and enjoy this nice weather.</p>

[rainbow]

Phil, great report and video.

[fishin_addict]

Thanks for the updated report Phil. Already had some sculpin jigs tied on so I guess I'm ready for tomorrow!!!!