Fishing Buddy Report-February 29Th-Day Three

[eacoffman]

We planned on going to the dam early this morning but the tornado sirens woke us up just before 1:30 AM and we went back to sleep around 2:30 AM, so we slept until 8:00. We decided to go to Bennett's on the strip for donuts before starting to fish, only then did we learn about all of the destruction on Highway 76. Due to all the detours we didn't get to the dam until about 11:00 AM. The sun was shining, temperature was in the 50's and it was very windy. There were not a lot of fishermen on the water when we arrived.

We each had the same midge rigs that we had used on day 2. Janet had a #16 rust and brown zebra midge about 18 " under an small football indicator. I used a #16 rust and brown zebra midge over a #16 gold zebra midge dropper. We went up near the cable and the wind was really blowing. We had to time our casting when the wind died down so it wouldn't knock our line down in front of us. We each caught one rainbow, neither was of any size. A couple of wind knots later we decdided to eat lunch and return in the late afternoon in hopes of lighter breezes.

We returned to the dam at 5:00 PM. It was still sunny, about 60 degrees and the wind had slowed just a bit. Janet went to the cable with the same fly she started the week with and caught four rainbows, the largest were in the 14" range and had good fight. She lost about six other hits.

I went to the area just above outlet number 2 with a #16 white chami worm. I put a small split shot about 8" above the worm and a medium football indicator 2' above the worm. I threw the worm near a down log very near the north bank above outlet #2. I caught four ranibows, the second and third were the best fish I cauhgt this week. They were both in the 15" range, good girth and very dark pink color. The other two were silver with very little color or size. I had lots of misses and always seemed a little slow to set the hook in the shallow (about 9") water.

Thanks to duckydoty who gave me the worms and advice on how to fish them. I intended to fish them without an indicator and sighting the fly sitting on the bottom, however the wind was still blowing hard enough causing riffles on the surface and I couldn't see the fly most of the time. A couple of times the indicator helped me, the other times I reacted to the rod tip, so the indicator was probably not necessary. The horn blew at 6:00 PM so we headed to the parking lot.

Janet and I want to thank everyone at Lilley's for making the Fishing Buddy Special available. Lilley's has been our favorite lodging option since the first time we stayed there years ago.. We also want everyone to know that we will be praying for the people of Branson as they recover from damage brought on by the tornado.