Lilley's Lake Taneycomo Fishing Report, April 7

[Phil Lilley]

This report is pretty photo heavy, short on text fishing report for Lake Taneycomo.  You'll see why.

As of Monday morning, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was running 5,000 cubic feet per second of water over five spill gates and about 10,000 c.f.s. of water through three turbines.  This is a reduction of 5,000 c.f.s. of water because Table Rock's lake level dropped below 920 feet.  Beaver Lake is still more than eight feet above its seasonal power pool, but officials are running water through their turbine, and it is dropping but very slowly.  Bull Shoals has risen more than 20 feet since the rains started over a month ago, but operators there are now running between 17,000 and 21,000 c.f.s. of water so may be they'll drop it to decent levels by summer time.

The lack of boats on our lakes is so very strange.  Marsha and I were on Table Rock around Clevenger last evening and watched one single sail boat out to enjoy the lake alone.  I'm sure they were amazed, too.  No wakes, just smooth water.  Some days here on Taney, we don't see a boat go up lake until mid morning.  So you'd think we wouldn't have much to talk about or to refer to for reports.  But that's not the case.  We have lots to report.

Last week when the Corps opened five gates three feet wide to accommodate divers diving on the lake side of the dam to make repairs, it sent a lot of shad into our lake.  Some were stunned and floating down, but there were a lot that came over live.  We believe these huge schools of shad made their way down lake while our trout ambushed them as they swam by.  There are a few guides out and other anglers, as well as Blake and Duane targeting these fish, drifting a variety of shad flies, jigs and lures in areas that we don't usually fish.  And the results are eye-opening.

Almost every day, it seems, someone sends us an image of a trophy brown or rainbow -- and that's with very few anglers actually fishing the lake.  I'm not sure we've seen this many big browns caught in one week, let alone within 24-36 hours.

The only other thing I can report is that the fish some guides are cleaning, coming from below Fall Creek, have been packed full of scuds.  Now we've tried drifting scuds and San Juan worms and haven't done that well, but with the slower flow we might start having more success with them.

While we are sure missing our spring anglers, we appreciate everyone taking the needed safeguards to curtail the virus so that everyone can  enjoy health -- and some great fishing memories in the future.

Credit Captain Steve Dickey for images.  https://www.facebook.com/www.anglersadvantage.net/

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[netboy]

Those are some fatties...

[MOPanfisher]

AWESOME 

[crazy4fishin]

Man - makes me really want to be down there!!!!!

C4F

[willyfish]

Those are absolutely beautiful fish. I gotta give this trout fishing a try. 

[trythisonemv]

That is a lot of donkey browns ... streamer rod calling  my name!