5/31 - 6/3 Report

[Seth]

Thursday, May 31

Me, dad and mom got out on the water for the last few hours of the evening. The water was moving pretty good. I ran up to Fall Creek and drifted down past Short Creek with only a few bites to show for my efforts. My next stop was the big eddy just down and across from Cooper Creek. From there down to the second creek was very productive using pink power worms and trout magnets beneath a float about 5' deep. We probably ended up catching 30-40 fish between us and kept three limits of very nice stockers. I'd say most were around that 1# mark. Those fish would pile in to those current seems when the water was cranking and you would get a bite every cast on the pink worm/magnet or a jig.

Friday, June 1

Got out on the water around 6am and threw a 5" jerkbait from Cooper Creek down to Monkey Island and had three encounters with nice browns. Two followed the bait to the boat, but didn't bite and one absolutely crushed it and I over reacted and broke him off on the hookset.... It looked to be a 20-22" fish. After doing that for a few hours, I went back to the room and grabbed some food. I was back out on the water around 10:30am and fished just below Cooper Creek again. With the water off and light winds, the fishing was harder, but I still caught quite a few out deeper on a sculpin/peach jig and a pink trout worm about 8' deep. Dad and a nephew got back from Steal Your Dollar City around 1 so I went and picked them up and we fished till 3. My nephew had never caught a trout and he ended up catching five or six. A few were on powerbait and the others came on the pink trout worm under a float. His mom got back around 4ish so I dropped him and dad off at the dock and headed to the trophy area. The water was still running pretty hard so the trout were stacked in the eddy below Lookout. White and sculpin/peach jigs produced a bite nearly every cast. At 6pm, I got a call that dinner was about done and headed back.

Saturday, June 2

Dad and I ran up and hit the area about halfway between Fall and Short Creek around 7:30. We caught a couple on jigs, but nothing crazy. We headed up to the narrows around 8:45am and saw a bunch of midging fish. I rigged my fly rod with an olive micro jig and dad with a brown orange head micro about 3' beneath a float and we proceeded to catch around 20 fish each over the next three hours. While throwing that around, we saw a couple fish blow up on shad in shallow water, but they quit before I could troll over to them. Around noon, we went back to the room to grab some lunch and rest a bit. The water was starting to turn on when I got back out so I broke out the jerkbait again and hit the Narrows and fished the rip rap down to Fall Creek. Two browns followed, but didn't bite and one bit, but didn't get hooked up. All were around 18-20". A couple of very aggressive stockers were all I caught. After that,  I ran to the cable and floated all the way back down to Fall Creek and while tossing the jerkbait. I caught a few stockers again, had an 18" class brown chase the lure to the boat by Trophy Run and then finally connected with a 20" class brown just above Lookout. He was on for about 5 seconds, tail walking and jumping before the bait popped out of his mouth. Fished the jerkbait the rest of the way down and caught one more little stocker. My next run was to the cable again, but I threw a white 1/8oz jig this time and caught several rainbows. A few were really thick 16-17" bows. Around 6pm, I headed back down lake and threw the jig and trout worm below Cooper Creek and caught several more really nice rainbows up to 15" before calling it a day and heading in for dinner.

Sunday, June 1

I got on the water around 6:30am and threw the jerkbait between the last docks below Cooper Creek about 1/2 way down to Monkey Island without any action. After that, I ran up to the Narrows and fished for a few hours before heading back to pack up and head home. Fishing was a lot slower than it had been the previous few days, but I did watch a guy boat a keeper brown near the rip rap. He was staying at Lilley's so maybe he got a pic of him with the fish. Not really anything new as far as presentation and lures. Threw the micro olive jig on the fly rod and a 1/16oz sculpin/peach or white jig around midging fish and caught a few.

Summary
The quality of stockers down lake is really good right now. We had several fish that were in that 1.25-1.5# range.  Fishing was easier when the water was running as it pushed the trout in to the current seems by those creek mouths and eddy's across and down from Cooper Creek. When the water was off, we still caught them around there, but they were far more scattered and the bite wasn't nearly as good. The Narrows is full of fish, but we actually caught better quality fish just below Cooper Creek. The better quality fish in the trophy area came when the water was running pretty hard between the cable and Trophy Run. Committing to a big jerkbait can wear on a person. It's a lot of work with not a lot of action (for me at least), but the few bites you do get seem to be from very nice fish.

I'll post videos to go along with my reports once I get a chance to edit the GoPro footage. Between work, baseball games and getting caught up from being gone the past four days, it may be next week before I get it done though.

[Travis Swift]

Good report as always Seth!  I'm headed down next Saturday for 8 days and can't wait.  I plan to throw the usual jigs, but also a jerkbait a lot more than the past years.  I'm also going to throw a swimbait and or a big glide bait hoping to entice a bigger brown.  Also I just bought my first fly rod last night so I'm going to tinker with that and try to learn how to fish with one.  Last but not least I'm going to spend a lot of time on lower taney trying to learn the bass fishing a lot more as well.  I plan to throw some big trout imitating swimbaits down there to see if any monsters wanna play.  That's my plan for now till I get down there.  Glad you had a great trip!

[Bill Babler]

Very nice report, Thanks a bunch, sounds like you all had a blast.

[JestersHK]

Nice report buddy!  Sounds like an awesome trip.  Wish you could of got that keeper brownie in.  After our texts back in forth I started thinking we need to start a thread on how we all fish our jerk baits differently and also how to fish them in the different flows... I've watch Duane fish them on the white, and try to model my day fishing like him, but at night its a whole different game for me and I slow it waaaayyy down, and fish them up towards the surface.  Glad you stuck with it.  It's def a quality over quantity type of day when you are chucking them.

[Travis Swift]

4 minutes ago, JestersHK said:

Nice report buddy!  Sounds like an awesome trip.  Wish you could of got that keeper brownie in.  After our texts back in forth I started thinking we need to start a thread on how we all fish our jerk baits differently and also how to fish them in the different flows... I've watch Duane fish them on the white, and try to model my day fishing like him, but at night its a whole different game for me and I slow it waaaayyy down, and fish them up towards the surface.  Glad you stuck with it.  It's def a quality over quantity type of day when you are chucking them.

I'll throw my word in on them if you would like Jesters.  I started fishing jerkbaits probably 20 years ago on taney and always had my best luck in the summer which is always came fishing the bluff across from lilleys.  We always started at the last dock below where sun valley resort was and threw them all the way to cooper creek and would go back up.  Back then I threw them on a spinning rod, 6 pound test and my best luck by far was a 5 inch or bigger fire tiger colored floating rapala.  I also had luck fishing between the docks from short creek down to sun valley.  The other place that was good for me was fishing lilleys side from short creek to lilleys dock, on that side it's shallower and there are a lot of lay downs or brush piles.  They seemed to have browns in them a lot back in the day.  That was in the 90's and 2000's and I felt like there were more browns in the lake than their are now, but they weren't as big or as many big ones atleast.  We used to get a TON of follows back in those days.  Seemed like every 3rd cast there was a follower.  When you did hook up it was very exciting, they would just go plum stupid when you hooked them on a jerkbait and fought very hard.  The last few years when I have thrown one I have thrown the Megabass 110+1 in the Pro Blue color.  I throw it on a 7 foot medium Falcon casting rod and spool the reel with 8 pound test pline.  I caught several beautiful browns' that way last year.  I fish mine with a jerk then a jerk jerk then a jerk then a jerk jerk and don't pause much.   I have found threw the years atleast to my personal experience that the water flowing is a major factor, it's been way better for me when they are running water as opposed to not following.  I hope Seth doesn't me posting this, not trying to hijack his thread as it was a great thread with a good detailed report.  If you want to start a new thread Jesters (and it's a great idea) I would be glad to post this on that thread instead.  Just my 2 cents, I have years and years of experience but nothing result wise like Duane and some of the other guys.  It's an extremely exciting way to fish taney though!  Even if you don't hook up if you have a good set of glasses you will see a lot of fish and I kid you not you will see a lot of BIG browns like this.  It really will open your eyes as to what is swimming in taney!

[Seth]

In the past I've always used the 3-3.5" countdown or husky jerks and caught plenty of fish along with having a ton of followers, but most were your average sized fish. My buddies have caught a few 20" browns out of my boat from the Short Creek area on those baits, but I've yet to do it. Going that a full size jerkbait reduced the follows drastically, but it also increased the size of the followers as well. I've typically done better in moving water on them as well, but I have had some decent days when the water was off and there was a good chop on the water and overcast skies.

Has anybody every tried a soft plastic jerkbait like a fluke? I know a previous state record was caught on one back in the 90's. Wasn't sure if you would need to use a different style of hook since trout mouths are softer than a bass or what. It would definitely allow you to keep the bait in the strike zone a lot longer and fish in around the heavy wood cover a lot better than a traditional jerkbait.

[Travis Swift]

4 minutes ago, Seth said:

In the past I've always used the 3-3.5" countdown or husky jerks and caught plenty of fish along with having a ton of followers, but most were your average sized fish. My buddies have caught a few 20" browns out of my boat from the Short Creek area on those baits, but I've yet to do it. Going that a full size jerkbait reduced the follows drastically, but it also increased the size of the followers as well. I've typically done better in moving water on them as well, but I have had some decent days when the water was off and there was a good chop on the water and overcast skies.

Has anybody every tried a soft plastic jerkbait like a fluke? I know a previous state record was caught on one back in the 90's. Wasn't sure if you would need to use a different style of hook since trout mouths are softer than a bass or what. It would definitely allow you to keep the bait in the strike zone a lot longer and fish in around the heavy wood cover a lot better than a traditional jerkbait.

I remember that Seth and I'm pretty sure he caught it out of one of the brushpiles or laydowns from what I remember.  I have asked myself that question thru the years on the hook as well.  I'm guessing maybe a 2/0 or 3/0 hook texas rigged like you would fish for bass would work but you would have to make sure they take it good.  I'm guessing on a 10 pound plus brown their mouths are plenty big enough for that bait though.  I have only caught 1 brown over 20 myself, close to 20 years ago or more.  Caught it on a husky jerk and it came out of one of the brush piles down by cooper creek just down from the water fall.  I have caught several 18 inchers and a 22 1/2 inch rainbow but not a bigger brown yet.  I know your like me though and have seen some fish that make you weak in the knees follow your jerkbait.  Do you stare at the water saying "take it, take it" under your breath all the time? 

[Seth]

6 minutes ago, Travis Swift said:

I remember that Seth and I'm pretty sure he caught it out of one of the brushpiles or laydowns from what I remember.  I have asked myself that question thru the years on the hook as well.  I'm guessing maybe a 2/0 or 3/0 hook texas rigged like you would fish for bass would work but you would have to make sure they take it good.  I'm guessing on a 10 pound plus brown their mouths are plenty big enough for that bait though.  I have only caught 1 brown over 20 myself, close to 20 years ago or more.  Caught it on a husky jerk and it came out of one of the brush piles down by cooper creek just down from the water fall.  I have caught several 18 inchers and a 22 1/2 inch rainbow but not a bigger brown yet.  I know your like me though and have seen some fish that make you weak in the knees follow your jerkbait.  Do you stare at the water saying "take it, take it" under your breath all the time? 

I think the weakest I've been was when those fish hammered the jerkbait over the past few days. The follows are cool, but I pretty well know they aren't going to bite when they start doing that. The browns that actually did bite didn't follow the bait at all, they just came screaming up from the bottom and tried to kill it. The one I broke off actually jarred the rod in my hand enough that I about dropped it. Those strikes got my blood pumping and adrenaline going more so than anything I've experienced before with trout fishing. Dad and I watched one swim out from under Lazy Valley Resorts dock back in the late 90's that we know was easily north of 20 pounds. I think it was back around the same time when there were several huge browns found floating dead in Taneycomo. I remember LIlley finding a few big ones and we saw a boat bring in a decomposing brown that weighed 29 pounds. It was would have been well over 30 alive. I've caught several 18-19" rainbows, but only one over 20". It was WAY over that mark at 27" and 10#. My goal is to get a brown over 6#. That's the mark I have set before I get a reproduction made for the wall to go next to the rainbow.