Taney Fishing May 5-10, 2014

[Rolan Duffield]

My son, Richard and my brother, Ed and I had a great 5 days staying at Lilleys Landing and fishing Taneycomo last week. Fishing is good. All of us caught Rainbows each time out in spite of the varying water flow conditions. We primarily fished from Lookout to Fall Creek in the restricted area out of my boat.

I always consider my first day at Taney as a search of water and weather conditions to determine what flies to use and how best to fish the lake. I prefer using a fly rod almost exclusively when fishing Taney so there are times when big adjustments are needed if they change water flow conditions. We started off Tuesday afternoon with the water off for about two hours fishing 1/100 oz. Jigs and midges under a float until they turned on two units. Fishing really slowed. I did notice the water temp. was 42 degrees when the two units were flowing. That's cold. We switched to 1/50 ounce pink jigs and Jig eggs with some success.

Those conditions remained the same through Wednesday with no flow in the mornings and two units starting up in the afternoon. Fishing and catching was fair for us though we were enjoying the trip.

On Thursday, the flow rate changed to about 1/2 a unit which I believe is an ideal condition. My fishing partners and I were catching and releasing trout in the 6" to 13" size and having a great time.

On Saturday, they were still running only about a half unit and we continued to catch rainbows readily.

That afternoon I decided to try my old favorite "Peppy" (gray scud). I used a 1/00 oz. jig above the fly to get it down in the running water. Wow did catching change fast. I caught and released at least 8 trout in the 14" to 16" range with one going 21.5" That was the best afternoon of fishing I have had in a long time.

Just proves that you need to try different techniques at times.

Rolan