Taneycomo Streamer Fishing

[Ryan Miloshewski]

I have been trying to fish streamers on Taneycomo for about a year now. Not your average wooly bugger, etc, but big streamers like they use on the White River. It has been difficult. The forage structure is different on Taneycomo and they just do not seem to be triggered as easily. So, I decided to try some somewhat smaller stuff this time. I tied up some shad patterned Lunch Monies, Gongas and Butt Monkeys in size 4 and 6 to try.

I fished Monday and Tuesday afternoon for about 4 hours each time and dedicated to throwing those. I did throw a jerkbait a little bit, but the bite just wasn't worth it. Seems after they opened the three additional flood gates the scud bite is the only hot option. I know I could have caught plenty using a slip bobber rig, and I did try it yesterday afternoon and caught two immediately. But I was on a R&D mission: 1) do my flies look good in the water 2) catch fish on them.

I succeeded, which makes me quite content. I tried stripping and dead-drifting and dead-drifting was the ticket. I had a 12 ft 7 ft IPS sink tip on and I would get enough line out to be dealing with fly line and not the sink tip. Then I would let it just drift with me as I drifted down. With the floodgates, it never reached the bottom and just kind of floated through the water column. I would give it a few pops here and there to try and imitate a dying shad. I ended up catching 5 browns from 13-19.5-inches doing this. Now, that is certainly not great numbers for 8 hours of fishing Lake Taneycomo, but I proved my flies and technique idea worked!

I did not get any pictures because I had two dogs with me, with one being a foster from KC Pet Project, so it was a cluster in the boat. Well behaved, but just having to deal with two animals is nerve wracking. Phil has all the Lunch Money flies I tied so if he posts a pic of one you can see that. I will tie some more tomorrow if not. This gonga pattern was effective:

It was brutally cold yesterday morning. I tried to go out around 7am but I casted three times across from Phil's and I had ice 3x the size of the guides built up. No thanks. So I went back and tied some more flies and waited until 2:30pm. Still cold, but at least sunny.

On the way back home today I stopped to fish the Sac. I caught 8 and missed 6 walleye within the span of 1-hour. If you're around there, it's on. Not sure what the front is going to do to 'em, but today was epic. I got a new job offer, caught a limit of walleye, and it is 66 degrees back home in Kansas City. It's the little things that make life worth it, folks!

[walleye4butch]

Nice walters surprised you didn’t catch any whites 

[Ryan Miloshewski]

42 minutes ago, walleye4butch said:

Nice walters surprised you didn’t catch any whites 

WT is only 46 right now. Need some 50s for the whites to stack up

[Johnsfolly]

Congrats @Ryan Miloshewski on figuring out your streamer fishing and catching those browns and the nice walleye!

Also congrats on the job offer!

[netboy]

Good report and some really nice Walleyes.

I have been using a tandem shad streamer rig here on the White and doing pretty good. Fishing it the same way, dead drifting and then real slow strips on the swing. I have seen a number of trout following the trailing fly on the retrieve and when that happens, I stop stripping and let it sink. Many times they will take it as it sinks. The flies are size 6 with white/gray marabou tail and white eggstacy body with lots of lead wrapped on the hook. This method has been good since they opened the C&R area below the dam on Feb 1, but has definitely slowed since then.

[trythisonemv]

50 minutes ago, netboy said:

Good report and some really nice Walleyes.

I have been using a tandem shad streamer rig here on the White and doing pretty good. Fishing it the same way, dead drifting and then real slow strips on the swing. I have seen a number of trout following the trailing fly on the retrieve and when that happens, I stop stripping and let it sink. Many times they will take it as it sinks. The flies are size 6 with white/gray marabou tail and white eggstacy body with lots of lead wrapped on the hook. This method has been good since they opened the C&R area below the dam on Feb 1, but has definitely slowed since then.

Lets see that fly! Very curious

[netboy]

4 hours ago, trythisonemv said:

Lets see that fly! Very curious

Here it is. The eggstacy material looks great in the water, has sort of a slushy look when wet. I have been using it on my egg flies as well.

[JimDog]

@netboy Thanks for the picture, but I am having a hard time seeing the eggstacy material in that fly.  To my old eyes, the body just looks like the maribou.  I had to google eggstacy, and what I found looked more like a "fuzzy chenille".  Do you wrap with the eggstacy, then hit it with a dubbing brush?  This looks very similar to a cream colored wooly booger variant that I have done well with.

[netboy]

14 minutes ago, JimDog said:

@netboy Thanks for the picture, but I am having a hard time seeing the eggstacy material in that fly.  To my old eyes, the body just looks like the maribou.  I had to google eggstacy, and what I found looked more like a "fuzzy chenille".  Do you wrap with the eggstacy, then hit it with a dubbing brush?  This looks very similar to a cream colored wooly booger variant that I have done well with.

The colors in the picture of the fly didn't turn out very well as that fly had been used a few times. Here is a better pic of the material. There are a couple different companies selling yarn under the name of Eggstacy, one is Cascade and the other is a UK company that sells it as Eggstacy NX Gen Fibre. They both have that "slushy" look when wet.

[JimDog]

That helps.  My Google search took me to https://www.orvis.com/eggstacy/2RLB.html which looks more like mop fly material.  I mentioned my cream colored wooly booger variant - it is essentially a wooly booger with palmer chenille in place of the hackle body.  What you are showing looks more like palmer chenille but with a little "fluff" to it.  I'm going to add that to my bench list for sure.  Thanks for the info.