Lilleys' Lake Taneycomo Fishing Report, February 6

[Phil Lilley]

This week, the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers is back to running water like last week. There is a pattern now -- running water mid-week, all 24 hours at various speeds. It's slower during mid-day and harder early in the morning. No generation on weekends. Not sure how long this pattern will last. Table Rock Lake came up a good solid two feet from the rains last week but still is very low for this time of year.

Catching trout and their size has steadily improved this winter so far. Earlier in January, we were only seeing small rainbows being caught, but as the weekends past, we saw numbers and size improve. This last Saturday, we had 54 teams compete in a trout tournament. Weighing in that many fish gives me a good sense of what's out there, as well as fishing on my own. This week, a sinus infection kept me inside until this morning.

Here's a short video of a few trout I caught. Again, I was getting short bites and not many hook-ups. I trimmed the marabou on my jigs, which helped, but still missed many more than I hooked and landed. I was surprised to catch much nicer rainbows below Lookout compared to below the dam. Maybe this generation is moving some of those better trout downstream, which it normally does.

I tried the combinations of white, sculpin/olive, sculpin/ginger and brown/black and the brown/black did the best. The wind was blowing upstream closer to the dam, but in this video, when I was fishing below Lookout, it was blowing me towards the bluff.

Some guys are staying with us from Ozark Fly Fishers (St Louis). They were up drifting and using what I believe were Miracle flies under an indicator four to five-feet feet deep and doing quite well despite the wind. When it's that windy on the lake, using something under a float is easier than straight-lining a jig. I also saw a gentleman throwing a silver Cleo from the bank and doing well. He was fishing about 50 yards below the cable on the north side.

Guys fishing around the outlets today (with water running) were doing very well, probably using scuds or egg flies under an indicator.

Below Fall Creek this weekend, which is where all but one team fished, there were a lot of trout caught on night crawlers. Teams are given a choice to fish up or down. Fishing down, where almost everyone chooses, means you don't go above the mouth of Fall Creek. We sold a bunch of blow bottles, a tool to inject air into a worm to float it off the bottom. There is a big difference between fishing a worm with and without air. Some people use Power Bait to float their worms. I also witnessed some anglers using minnows.

The Missouri Department of Conservation is stocking larger numbers of rainbows each month this winter, building up to their biggest numbers of around 90,000 in the summer months. There does seem to be a lot of trout in the lake right now.

I will end this report by posting this image of a angler and his lifetime catch. It is reported he caught this male rainbow while fly fishing below the dam one night this week. He weighed it on a boga, (12 pounds) took pictures and released it. His name is Mr. Keener and he lives here in Branson. The image and story is from a facebook post.

[laker67]

Thanks for a great report Phil. Glad you are feeling better and able to get out and fish. I would like to say congrats to Mr. Keener. A trophy fish in anyones book.