Fishing Report For Nov. 7-8

[snagged in outlet 3]

I had planned on going Monday to Wednesday but my buddy backed out at the last minute. I went ahead and drove down myself from the St Louis Metro Monday morning, 4 hour drive.

When I got there, there was somewhere between 1 and 2 units running. The rain had cleared off and it was very nice weather. I fished behind the island across from #2 but the catching wasn't very good. 4 guys were leaving when I pulled in and I caught a bunch of small rainbows on scuds. Nothing of any size and not that many of them. There wasn't as much water as I normally like behind there. Around 4PM they blew the horn but the water only came up about a foot and slowly ran out after that. I fished till dark with very little to show for it

I went and checked in at Lilleys and went to Chili's for dinner. I hit the sack early while watching the weather channel radar. I woke up at 3 AM to thunder and rain. I got up around 6 and it was raining pretty steadily. It rained the whole day alternating between a steady rain and an outright downpour.

I got on the water around 7 and started below outlet 3 by myself. The fishing was very good with the rain breaking up the surface. They were running the same 1-2 units. When the water was a little higher the fishing was better. When it was dropping out they didn't bite as good. I caught two fish right at 20 inches and many more to boot. They were chasing and all were colored up to spawn.

All the fish either dropped eggs or spilt milt. All had hook wounds and were pretty beat up. None fought that well and both 20's had to be revived for quite a while. The fights didn't last long since I was using 5X Flouroflex plus which is 5 lb test. They just wanted to roll over if you didn't help them for a while.

I love fishing in the rain and I have many old pictures of big fish caught while it was rainig or overcast. I never switched from the scuds although I changed colors a lot. I saw one guy in a boat come up and I guess it was Phil. People were around the outlets and 2 guys were behind the island, otherwise not many people around. After a while a group of people came down to fish in the area so I took the opportunity to go up the the first outlet and fish my way down to check out the changes.

There were 3 guys at outlet 1 and I started fishing just below them. I started with the scud but quickly switched over the bugger. I added some extra weight and started firing it out to the boulder clusters. If I got the lead right and the fly would get sucked in behing the boulders the fishing was good. The boulders are just barely reachable from shore if you have enough back cast room.

I worked my way down past outlet 2 and was swinging the bugger when I hooked something big. I had it on for under a minute and it was motivated to head out into the current. I was putting a lot of presure on and I broke it off. By now it's absolutely pouring so I went up to the pavilion to rerig and get a sandwich. While there I met a couple guys from Joplin who were fishing with Brett Radar. They reported good success also.

While there it started thundering and heavy lightening. I knew I couldn't fish wednesday morning so I packed up and drove home in the rain Tuesday afternoon. The room at Phil's was very nice. I had one with a kitchen which I didn't use but the flat screen TV was an unexpected bonus. Better to see the impending doom on the weather channel radar.

All in all a good trip. I spent $50 on gas and $64 on the room in two days. 8 hours in the car and I fished Monday for 4 hours and Tuesday for around 5. The fishing Tuesday made it worth while. If you can pull it off the deal at Lilleys is great. I just looked at the chart and Taney got amost 4 inches of rain Tuesday.

Thanks, Pete