Slow start to a good morning, Taneycomo

[Phil Lilley]

Headed out this morning about 8 a.m. towards the trophy area.  Not many boats out, cloudy, a little breeze out of the NNE and no generation.  The lake looked a little lower than normal too, and as soon as I got up to the Narrows, the big gravel flat out of the water confirmed my suspicion.  

My objective this morning was to get out and wade the gravel bar there at the Narrows but I made a detour and started throwing streamers just above the bar to what I through were feeding rainbows in fairly shallow water.

I went through several patterns -- olive bugger, light gray sculpin, brown sculpin, olive Mohair Leech and a brown PMS - no bites.  There was a good chop on the water but very little midging activity.  I tied on a #16 olive soft hackle and caught a small rainbow on the first cast.  After casting a couple dozen times and only one fish on, I decided to get out and fish the channel.

Started (and finished) with scuds, small at first.  Remember the Trout Crack scud?  Never did like the name but the pattern is a good one.  I tied on a #16 light T.C. and caught one nice rainbow.  Tied on another simple gray scud #18, nothing.  There was a fairly good current moving through and I could see fish milling around but they didn't seem to be feeding.  I decided to tie on something they couldn't ignore, a #12 mink scud tied on a 200R hook.

Someone hit the switch. . . fish-on!  I was thinking about going from 6x tippet to 7x (which I really didn't want to do) but it wasn't the line, it just wasn't lunch time yet.

In quick fashion, I caught about 10 rainbows, most of which were bright red, colored up 15-17 inch trout.  I shot a picture of the first 2, then just kicked the rest loose.

I worked down lake and spotted several very nice, red rainbows but I couldn't get them hooked.  But did catch another dozen fish before turning around and headed back to the boat.  It was a quarter after noon and time for my lunch.

Chop on the surface made a big difference.  It got calm a few times... I could see almost every fish in front of me, and they could see me.  Had to wait it out till the next breeze blew by, then it was fish-on! again.

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[Ozarks Chillbilly]

Awesome report and really pretty fish. Thanks