Week Stay and Fishing, Lileys

[stolly]

I have been trying to sit down and type this for days, but once vacation was over work has kept me busy.  

We stayed at Liley's last week Sunday through Friday and as always loved our time there.  The staff is great and I can honestly say we could not have asked for anything (except more white jigs).  

We have been coming to Taneycomo for years and every year things are a little different.  Well this year we struggled to get on the fish like we are used to, but the fish we were catching were larger than average.  14-16 inch fish were actually common and we even had a few break 18 in the first day or two.  As we struggled through Monday we decided we would change things up a bit on Tuesday and head down river to do a little bass fishing ( yes they do exist we always catch some on our trips).  However, after breakfast on Tuesday we ran up river to check on the trout fishing and see what was going on.  On the way up we noticed a lot of debris in the water and that the current was stronger than usual.  Once we arrived at the cable it was easy to see why there was some water coming over the top of the darn.  I have been to Taney the last 6 years and the guys I am with have  been coming for another 10 and we have never seen the gates open.  It was not much water at the time it appears we got there just as they were opening them.  However, by the time we made our first drift it had picked up a lot and the fishing shut down.  Discouraged we headed back to Lileys and got ready to go bass fishing.  However, on the way up to the room we ran into Jackson and of course Phil was not far behind.  He told me in not exactly the same words, but this is what I took from it, "Go to the Cable and Fish".   He seemed to think we were crazy for going bass fishing with the gates open so we loaded up and headed up river.  We will forever be grateful for that advice.  We spent the next 4 or 5 hours until dark catching 16-19.5 inch rainbows whose bellies were bulging from shad.  Both boats with us were catching multiple fish per drift and I do not think we saw one fish during that time under 15 inches it was absolutely amazing and all we had to do was cast out the white jigs that we bought Lileys out of earlier that day.  You didn't even have to reel it in just let it drag along and wait (usually not that long).  I lost count how many we caught that night, but we were the last boat to leave and the first ones back the next morning.  We even ran into Phil that night on the water and we even made his report the next day.  We were the Giddy Fisherman he was talking about.  Well the fish did not stay fired up like they were Tuesday night.

We got up there bright and early on Wednesday and had a great first drift.  I think we caught 7 from the cable down to the boat ramp, but after that they just shut down.  I do not know if it was the sun or the army of boats that showed up after us, but they turned off.

So we started talking to few others and someone told us they were in the trees.  So we went bass fishing for them in the trees and it worked.  They were not as big, but we were still catching fish.

We did go bass fishing later that day and only caught one, but we did not try as hard as we have in previous years.

As always we had a blast and learned a few things about fishing.  The most important one is always listen to Phil when you are on Taneycomo.  It is like the guy lives there.

Below are a few pictures from the trip.

I will get some of the fish pictures soon.  They are on the phones.  We did not want to stop the fishing action to get out the camera.

[stolly]

[Phil Lilley]

Thanks, guys!!!

[Travis Swift]

That's a great report and great pictures.  Thanks for sharing and congrats on a great week!  Taney is a special special place!

[Johnsfolly]

Great report and photos. Congrats on your trip and thanks for posting.

[champ187xr6]

Nice report.

[Stevan]

Great report and photos.  Thanks.  Hope it's that good when we head down in June!