Taneycomo Fishing Report

[Bill Babler]

The lower end of the restricted area can be a fantastic place to wet a fly, and it can also be very fickle.

Great to get out this AM with no fog. Had the Mike Hawkings crew from KC and no matter where Mike fishes, he catches em.

Thought the wind was going to blow, but the clouds helped on this mid-90 degree day. Started out where I have been starting for the past 3 weeks, just past the ramp at Fall Creek, fishing the chanel bank with ginger and olive-orange head 1/2 micro's. Buster was already there, doing the same thing and I guess both guide boats had 10 or 15 fish apiece till it started getting really hot and flat. He took off to bait fish the flat, below Cooper and I was just about to amscray myself, when the horn sounded.

In about 20 minutes, it was the absolute dinner bell as the fish positioned themselves and turned on.

Again, the water was running clear and low, so I went to the size 12 ginger weighted scud. We boated over 30 fish in the next hour and a half using this pattern, driftiing the mid-channel of the river, from Point Royal thru Fall Creek.

We were catching enough, that I experimented with Mike going from the size 12 and graduating down until I reached a size 22, all in the same pattern. Had to use some shot, to get the 22 down, and it just would not pickup anything in the moving water. The 12 was by far the better size and it just caught fish. Nice to try different things when you have people who like to play the game. A 14 worked pretty well and he caught 1 on a 16,18,and 20, but none on the 22.

Mike is a great fisherman, and goes with me about a dozen times a year, so it was great making him my guinea pig and haveing his son and son-in-law hang it on him while he tried the bitty bugs.

When there is a generation pattern, these trout, will wait on it and just fiddle fart around until the water flows. It dosen't have to be on a hourly time schedule, just so it runs sometime during the day. When it runs, they feed.