Elfrink - finals

[Phil Lilley]

The board tells is all.  Tough fishing.

This is the toughest water conditions we've ever experienced for a tournament. Three inches of rain last night and about 2 inches today.  Lightning chased them off the lake about 1:30 - 2 pm.  But it cleared off and fishing picked up, especially uplake close to Fall Creek where the water was clearing.

Duane said we had 8 inches of visibility at 8 am. They ran 1700 cfs all day so it pushed the dirty water down, until the rain came again and it dirtied back up again but not as bad.

We had 50 teams sign up but I think 4-6 teams either cancelled or had issues getting started. Out of those that did start, 9 are fishing "UP" which means they headed for clearer water above Fall Creek. They're restriction is that they can only weigh in rainbows under 12 and 20 inches and over. Browns of course have to be over 20 inches.
The winning fish was caught on a jig below the Branson Landing... it's the only bite Jim had until late in the afternoon.  They weighed in 4 trout.

25 inches.  8.36 pounds.  They kept it in good shape and it was strong when we released it.

Yes it was a triploid.

Winning rainbow was a 2.34 pound trout caught by Nick Whiteman.

[Travis Swift]

You here alot these days about fishing below the landing.  Not specific locations but do you think some of these browns and bigger bows are being caught below the mdc ramp down there? Are we talking rockaway or further? Also what do you think the population is like for browns from say rockaway area on down?

[Phil Lilley]

30 minutes ago, Travis Swift said:

You here alot these days about fishing below the landing.  Not specific locations but do you think some of these browns and bigger bows are being caught below the mdc ramp down there? Are we talking rockaway or further? Also what do you think the population is like for browns from say rockaway area on down?

I guess you have to fish down there or know someone who does... I do neither.  There are guys who fish these tourneys that do regularly but they don't speak much about it and I don't ask... they may tell me but then they'd have to silence me.  They know me all too well.

[Phil Lilley]

I said they ran 1700 cfs all day... I was wrong.

24FEB2018    0800      911.35       703.96       1479            21
 24FEB2018    0900      911.47       704.19       1886            27
 24FEB2018    1000      911.56       704.52       2379            35
 24FEB2018    1100      911.66       704.34       2464            36
 24FEB2018    1200      911.77       704.11       2137            31
 24FEB2018    1300      911.91       704.24       2162            31
 24FEB2018    1400      912.08       705.26       3439            50
 24FEB2018    1500      912.18       705.69       4222            61
 24FEB2018    1600      912.34       705.23       3560            51
 24FEB2018    1700      912.52       705.16       3304            48
 24FEB2018    1800      912.66       706.14       3546            51
 24FEB2018    1900      912.80       706.76       5971            92
 24FEB2018    2000      912.85       706.75       6062            93
 24FEB2018    2100      913.02       706.46       5988            92
 date ` ` ` ` time Table Rock Level  Taney Level   CFS ` ` ` ` ` `megawatts

They were all over the place.

[Travis Swift]

57 minutes ago, Phil Lilley said:

I guess you have to fish down there or know someone who does... I do neither.  There are guys who fish these tourneys that do regularly but they don't speak much about it and I don't ask... they may tell me but then they'd have to silence me.  They know me all too well.

Fair enough Phil. I'm spending more and more time each trip from the gold mine on down.  Granted alot of that is bass fishing but its a whole different world down there. I'm starting to fall in love with it, its so peaceful, beautiful and the boat traffic is very much less. I just have figure out how to catch trout from the gold mine down.  While reeling in a certain bass bait last winter i would have schools of 20 or more rainbows follow or bump the bait but the hook was to big.  I have a solution for that, as i make my own baits and i cant wait to get down and test my newest trout bait out.

[Seth]

That was a brutal day on the water! I was VERY tempted to just disqualify myself and go up in to the trophy area to fun fish the rest of the day at noon just so we could catch something. We ended up stopping and making a few drifts from Fall Creek down to Short Creek and started picking up a few fish using a pink jig with an olive micro dropper beneath an indicator.  You couldn't hardly fish a moving bait because you kept picking up line trash on near every cast. Our first fish didn't hit the boat deck till 12:30 and we managed a total of ten by the time we had to weigh in. We were lucky enough to catch five decent rainbows though.

We trolled some flicker shads on Friday from Scotty's on down and caught a couple of nice rainbows. I tried doing that Saturday morning, but I couldn't go very long before my jet was clogged from the surface trash so we tried throwing jigs around at the sewer plant and Monkey Island where there are always plenty of fish and I never even got a bite that I could tell.

For anybody who doesn't follow Lilley's Landing Resort and Marina on Facebook or watch the one cast on YouTube, I've attached a picture so you can see just how nasty the water was. Fall Creek to Short Creek was cleaner and you could see about 2' during the middle of the day, but started to get dingier as the afternoon went on.

[Seth]

@Phil Lilley what is the biggest trout ever weighed in during these tournaments that you host? I remember reading about a 7+ pound brown being caught during one of the tourneys in the past.

[snagged in outlet 3]

Dirt water 

[Phil Lilley]

One of the Boswell tourneys had a 13 pound brown I think.  That 8 yesterday might be the biggest in a public tourney.