Lilleys' Fishing Buddy Report, Feb 17-19

[Phil Lilley]

 

Lorn M. Dennis

 

This week my 79 year old father, my son and I stayed at Lilley's Landing for the first time.  I had only seen the resort from the water and a short visit to the fly shop last summer.    After adding my son at the last minute, the friendly staff was helpful in changing our reservation to a room that would accommodate the 3 of us.  We enjoyed lakefront room and view.  Our room was immaculate and ideal for our needs. We found  the resort to be clean and well organized. Overall, it was much more than we expected.

 

Now about the fishing:

 

Monday morning dad and I began fishing about 9 am.  Prior to this trip, I had primarily fished with Powerbait eggs which kept us out of the trophy area.  I had discovered Phil Lilley's video on Jig fishing and had made dad watch it.  We tied on black Bassnapper jigs and caught a dozen or so rainbows just above the mouth of Fall Creek.  The biggest of these was  about 14 inches but very fun catch even though they had to go back.  At about 1 pm my son arrived and  after lunch we headed back out.  We fished just downstream from Fall Creek and caught quite a few fish on both black and olive colored jigs.

 

Tuesday we motored all the way up to Table rock dam.  It seemed they were flowing water until about 10 am and generation was just ending as we got there.  We still got a good drift out of it.  Almost immediately, my son hooked and landed a rainbow that measured 16 inches. In total I would say we caught  a dozen or more between us on that drift through the trophy area.  We saw a Bald Eagle perched in a tree overlooking the lake while we were up there.  We fished the afternoon across from Branson Landing.  Several nice fish and we kept about 6 for dinner. My dad and son out-fished me today. I was working the net a lot but you know what they say about fishing with kids (he is 28). 

 

Wednesday morning we headed back to the trophy area by the dam.  We didn't make it up before the stopped generating so it was a slow drift out.  Still, we were able to land a dozen or more fish in about and hour and a half.  I'm having much better luck with these jigs and Phil's technique than I have with anything else combined.  In the first couple days I tried white and scuplin  colored jigs but didn't seem to catch fish with them.  Black and olive were working so I quickly switched back.  Maybe I just wasn't patient enough.  My son had to return home for work and he left around noon.  Dad and I headed downstream of the landing a short distance to a place we had heard about.  This was the place to be for just the pure fun of it.  Over the next 2-3 hours we landed about 50 fish between the 2 of us.  We also caught about 6 small browns in the 14-15 inch range.  It was almost work catching so may fish.  We boated back tired and happy.

 

Thursday after checking we headed back to the spot below the Landing.  We only could fish for about an hour but during that time we landed about 20 fish between us.  Did I say I like this jig fishing?  The weather was changing and it was getting windy so we trailered the boat and headed home about 1130 am.

 

A little more about how we were fishing,  I have always used ultra-light spinning rods when I have fished for trout.  In his video, Phil suggest using a medium spinning rod.  2 of us had medium spinning rods and found it landed more fish because of a better hookset.  The flexibility of the ultra-light rods didn't allow good hook penetration.  Use a heavier rod when jig fishing! 

 

I have never been able to cast a light jig very far so here is the setup I used:  7 ft. medium spinning rod with ultra-light reel spooled with 4lb. test. I added a slip cast spin float, a bead, then a swivel to the end of the line.  At the swivel I used 3-4 feet of 2lb test tied directly to a jig. The spin cast floats are clear and can be filled with some water for weight to help with casting.  these are not "bobbers" as they slip back up the line and allow your jig to drop to the bottom.  This worked well for all of us and we were able to put lightweight jigs 100 ft or more out from the boat.

 

We had a great time this week.  The weather was perfect.  50-60 degree weather all 4 days.  Water temperature was 41-43 degrees.

 

Thanks Lilley's and Thanks Phil for the Jig Fishing Video on Youtube.

[duckydoty]

Great report! Sounds like 3 generations put the smack down on Taney. Thanks for sharing.

[mwfischer]

Awesome report. I too have been converted to jig fishing through reading the posts here and talking to the folks around the area. Heading down next weekend and hoping to avoid the cold/rain and do some fishing. Usually always tie direct but may try this method as an alternative if the water is slow. Thanks for the report!

[BFTMASTER]

Always glad to read reports with Dads and Sons. Those are the days to be treasured!!

Thanks for the detailed report!