Current Lake Taneycomo Fishing Report

[Phil Lilley]

It’s spring! Trees have popped out the last few days. Everything is green. It’s a great time to be an outdoors lover.

Mild temperatures and little rainfall means very little generation for Taneycomo. They’ve been running water in the evenings for a few hours and this is good for the lake. Algae has been growing during the day in the upper end of the lake and after a couple of days it builds up. When the water kicks on, it breaks lose and washes down lake. It’s nice being on a tailwater for several reasons and this is one good reason.

Catch has been pretty good the last couple of weeks. MDC has been stocking rainbows often so the population has been good, especially up in our area of the lake. Even fishing off our dock, as well as the Cooper Creek public dock, as been fruitful. Mainly bait off the dock—night crawlers and Power Bait.

Out in the boats, the creek mouths are still producing some trout. Even on up in the creeks, where the water is alittle warmer, trout fishing is good. In Roark Creek, I’ve been down there looking for crappie and notice a lot of rainbows midging the surface. Try a rooster tail or small stick bait in the creeks, as well as a jig and float. The water in the creeks is warmer and you’ll find those trout more active and more readily will chase down a lure than trout in the lake.

Also there’s a bunch of trout in the Monkey Island area as well as between Short and Fall Creeks. Again, jig and float works. Drop a micro or marabou jig down 4 to 6 feet deep. Good colors have been olive, brown, sculpin, tan and pink in that order.

Because they haven’t been running as much water, our water isn’t as clear as it’s been so 4-pound line is fine to use. A couple of weeks ago, I was advising anglers to drop to 2-pound line because our water was so clear but not necessary now, unless you’re using small flies or jigs—then I would say to go to 2-pound line or even less.

Don’t think the channel or deeper water is the only place to look for fish. Sometimes I’ve found that trout move to shallow places where boats and people aren’t. Move around! Try new areas. I see people sitting in the same spot for hours not catching. When guides go out, they are constantly moving around, especially if they’re not catching fish.

Air injected night crawlers and minnows have been catching more trout than any other live bait, bar none.

[Phil Lilley]

Going to add-

A client came over from Kansas to fish for the day. They took a boat up to the trophy area and started at Lookout. Water was clear above Fall Creek, they reported. Very windy, blowing downstream. They threw, with spinning gear, 1/16th and 3/32nd oz sculpin/ginger jigs and let the wind push them downstream, drifting the jigs along. They were moving fast enough the jigs didn't get to the bottom. They caught a bunch of nice rainbows up to 19 inches doing this.

I'm sure Kelly will report when he gets back home tonight.

Bob from St Louis is here for the weekend. He said the same jig caught him some great rainbows yesterday in the trophy area with one unit running. Today they didn't run any water.