Taneycomo Vs. White River (Below Bs)

[kc outdoorsman]

I have never fished below Bull Shoals dam. I have fished Taneycomo every year and done well. I am considering making the longer drive to the White River but I would like to have an idea of how it stacks up against Taney. We don't fly fish. We live in KC and it takes about an hour longer to get to Bull Shoals

[rainbow]

We did that one year and we like Taney better. On the river you are at the mercy of the dam and the water can really go up and down a lot.

[bigredbirdfan]

It's not apples to apples.

I'll take White River under normal and low water flows and Taneycomo on normal and high water. I do not prefer Taneycomo when the water is low and a couple hunderd people are stacked up like salmon spawing in a very few places. Additinally, the White is good for moving water all up and down. Taney is white river like a relatively short ways below the dam and then turns into "LAKE TANEYCOMO" after short creek.

[kc outdoorsman]

which would you guys prefer now... with the high water below Bull Shoals and the low to normal level at Taney?

I have to figure in the expense of extra fuel and license plus time to learn the 'ropes" on the White since I already know Taney and can hit the ground running there

[Phil Lilley]

I don't have a lot of time on the White- not as much as I'd like. But if the water is running and you can run up and down freely, it's a great river to fish. If there's no generation, you can wade in at the access but if you get a boat and go down through any riffles, you can't get back up easily- better to get a shuttle.

I love the White because there's more water to fish- more good, fishable water that hold big fish. Taneycomo is limited to 8 miles, really only 5 miles and only 3 miles of trophy area. But I like to fish for non-stocker size trout. The White has BROWNS and Taneycomo is low on Browns. The White has Cutthroat and Brooks too. We don't! On the White, the trout tend more to take dries and I love fishing dries. Taneycomo's trout don't really take flies- not as much.

[Firefish]

We fish both every year and love them both. The White is like multiplying the upper few miles of Taneycomo by a hundred. We pretty much just fly fish now, but up until a couple years ago my kids used spinning gear and caught them on about the same things you do on Taney. The learning curve is definately steeper on the White, simply because there is so much fishable water, but that means there are a lot more areas to explore. As far as the water flow question, I don't know what to tell you. I normally don't like to fish the white as much on flows up over 10,000 FPS or so, but then I've never fished Taney as low as it is right now.