Lilleys' Lake Taneycomo Fishing Report, May 15

[Phil Lilley]

Generation pattern: After a significant rain, Table Rock Lake rises above 917 feet which triggers the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers to release the maximum amount of water through their turbines until the lake stabilizes and then drops below 917. Then the Corps cuts generation back.

That's what we've seen here in the last five days. Thursday night last week, we received an inch of rain here in Branson, but some areas to the south and west of us gained as much as five inches. Beaver Lake jumped up and so did Table Rock. We saw four units of water from Friday until late Monday afternoon. The Southwest Power Administration schedule says today we're looking at one unit in the morning, increasing to 2 early in the afternoon increasing to 3 later, into the evening. The water was actually completely off early, then started generation at 7 a.m. As the lake levels drop, so will generation levels on Taneycomo.

While three units are running, it's fairly easy to get and keep your bait on the bottom, as long as the wind isn't playing havoc with your drift. Your bait has to be on or close to the bottom to get bit.

There's been a few hot spots we've found while drifting either Gulp Powerbait or night crawlers. The first place starts at the mouth of Fall Creek and down about 1/4 mile. Another spot starts at the Riverpointe ramp down to the mouth of Short Creek staying on the south side. This water is deep where the area was washed out in the 2011 flood.

The next good area is drifting from 1/4 mile above Monkey Island down through the island to the Highway 65 bridge.

One report I heard involved boating down lake to Rockaway Beach. One of our guides caught quite a few rainbows throwing spoons from a half mile above the mouth of Bull Creek down to Bull Creek.

When fishing night crawlers from Fall Creek to Short, remember to break the worm in half, hook the worm right in the middle of the worm, letting it hang off each side of the hook. When you get a bite, let the fish take the worm before setting the hook.

Above Fall Creek, now that there's less water running, catching should improve. Guide Bill Babler has been catching trout drifting a floating rebel or Trout Magnet Crank Bait (Hawk) on a drift rig from the dam down to Trophy Run. Steve Dicky has either been using a float to drift a scud/egg fly rig or drifting a shad fly or white wooly bugger using a drift rig and doing well.

I've gone out in the evenings and thrown 1/8th-ounce jigs from the dam down to Fall Creek and done fair. This morning while the lake level was rising, I fished white, sculpin/ginger, black and ginger colored jigs. The trout liked the ginger color the best. All but one brown, they were holding pretty tightly to the bluff bank and in the eddies. Drifted the small crank bait and a miracle fly on a rig and caught fish, too.