Fishing Report

[Jeremy Hunt]

Well, I can honestly say there is a shad kill going on at Taneycomo. Since I haven’t been fishing lately I can’t really say if it is the start or the end of it, but I can say the bite was definitely steady while we were out there fishing. I took a buddy from tying class who really doesn’t fish the upper section of the river. So he was anxious to see what this whole shad thing was about. After reading some articles on Ozark Anglers forum we both wanted to see if we could maybe have a chance at one of those big ones. However we didn’t catch anything big, we did catch a lot of rainbows in the 12 to 16 inch range. Russell was fishing with a spinning rod throwing white jigs and I started the day fishing this zonker style streamer tied with some really nice rabbit I had lying around the house. It wasn’t white, more of a fleshy white. I think it was just one of those packs that was a cool dye and I’m glad I tied up some of these flies last night because that seem to be the fly of choice for me. I did fish the Davy Wotton shad only catching a few before I switch back over. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have more hits on the shad. I believe the movement on whatever you’re throwing is crucial to how these trout want it. Marabou or rabbit make a much better natural looking drift I think when dead drifting in high water and I think the fish do to.

We only ended up fishing for four hours in the afternoon catching mostly rainbows with one brown and that being the biggest of the day. Most the fish we caught were in the 12 to 14 inch range and I would say the brown was 17 inches or so. You can tell they’re eating shad because there belly’s are bigger than usual. I really don’t know if we are in the prime of it or if it we’re in the tail end of it, but white flies are definitely working and the bite is steady. And from looking around it seem like everybody had fish on. I would say we had to share the water with six or seven boats the whole time we were out there. I also think the bite is better right at the cable verses downstream. It seems like the further down we went the less activity we got.

I only saw one other fly fisher up there and the rest were using conventional gear fishing jigs. I saw alot of people using lip type crank baits. Some of the people I saw were throwing at the bank and reeling back to the boat across current. I really didn’t see much action with people doing that as I was paying close attention because Russell was trying to figure out the bite thinking that it might be better then fishing jigs. When he first started fishing jigs he was tight lining having not much luck the first hour. So we put on an indicator set it about six feet and that made all the difference in the world for him. I ended up fishing only two patterns the whole time I was out there with both being shad type imitations. Russell stayed with jigs for the day and never tried anything else.

I had really great luck on this pattern!!!

[mwfischer]

Jeremy,

By "indicator" do you mean keeping the jigs at a steady 6 feet down? Pardon my knowledge level, as I was brought up a bass fisherman... (hence the throwing at the bank and reeling through the current) But we are visiting Taneycomo this weekend and want to make sure we have all bases covered!

Where were you on the lake where you had the best luck?

[Jeremy Hunt]

1.By "indicator" do you mean keeping the jigs at a steady 6 feet down?

Yes, six to seven feet is about where you should be set at.

2.Where were you on the lake where you had the best luck?

At the cable down to chute 2 was the most active for us. Fishing the left side of the bank seems to be the key because of the way the current forces everything to that side if you start fishing right at the cable. They're usually leaving all four units running, but they will drop it to 706 and I’m sure people are thinking they turned it down to two. Also it seem like when they would raise it back up the fish would turn on again. maybe that has something to do with the more current the more flush into Taney.