Fishing Report 10/6 To 10/9

[vanven]

Saturday 10/6

It took me a while to get the wife and dog motivated and out the door and down to Taneycomo. I managed to hit the water around 4pm and fished for a couple hours mostly between outlet 1 and rebar hole. The water was just dropping from about 30 minutes of a single generator. I caught the first fish as I was stripping out line in preparation for my first cast. I had pulled about 10 feet out and flipped my fly and indicator in front of me. When I looked up the indicator was gone. There was a couple standing there watching me. I was proud to make it look that easy. The next few fish proved a bit more challenging. The fish were active on the falling water and I managed to bring 5 average rainbows to hand. All were caught on a size 18 gray scud with a bit of orange flash.

I came back down after a decent dinner and fished from 10pm til 2am. I caught several stocker rainbows right off the bat just above the ripple leading into rebar on a purple mohair. Most of the fish preferred it slow stripped or dead drifting. I moved up to the flats just below outlet 1 and caught several more rainbows on a mini pine squirrel sculpin pattern.

Sunday 10/7

I took the wife out for a couple hours Sunday and tried to get her into some fish. We fished the gauntlet from 11am til about 1pm. She was getting frustrated by the crowds and the lack of cooperating fish and called it a day. I moved back upstream and caught several fish again stripping the pine squirrel sculpin pattern. I ended the day with 10 or so fish, nothing over 16 inches but enough to keep me interested all day.

Hit the water Sunday evening at 10pm and actually managed to talk the wife into giving it a try with me. It was nice for her to see and understand what I talk about. Fishing at night is so surreal it is hard to really get someone to understand it. They just have to see it once for themselves. We fished about an hour and a half. I had her using the pine squirrel sculpin while I used every fly in my box it thought wouldn’t work. I wanted her to catch more fish than me. We each ended the night with a couple fish. Michelle had a lot of strikes, but i think her inexperience at night hurt her success rate. I have a feeling she was letting her drifts go too long and the hits were coming as she was stripping back at a 90' angle to her. When she was setting the hook she was likely pulling the fly directly out of the fish’s mouth instead of setting the hook into the corner.

By the end of the night she was convinced it wasn’t fish she was hooking, but dead bodies. To be honest that started to freak me out a bit too. Since I usually fish alone at night the dead bodies concept was new, I am usually trying to convince myself that the water is too cold for monster crocs and mountain lions won’t snatch me off the shore if i can just hurry into the water.

Monday 10/8

I managed to crawl out of bed super early and got to the water around 9am. The plan was to start at the cable and fish down to the gauntlet. There was one small snag, I forgot my flannel wader liners. I tried to wade out and fish the far bank near the cable. I had to give up after a few minutes of cold water at my waist. I packed up my stuff and moved down past outlet 1 and picked up a couple fish on a small scud pattern. I moved down to the point and started moving back towards the gauntlet and landed a nice 18" brown on a small silver on black zebra midge. The thunderstorm blew in just after I landed the fish and chased everyone to the shelter.

I had to leave for a few hours to go listen to a time share presentation. Horrible horrible idea. Next time I pay for the room and just suck it up. I am never ever going to be fooled with the concept of 2 hours of my time = free hotel room for 3 nights. It never works as advertised. Enough on that rant...

I got back to Taney around 4pm and 2 generators were running. I refused to be denied and walked down past rebar and close to the outlet 3 outflow. I started flipping the silver and black zebra midge just on the edge of the submerged grass and instantly hooked up. It was the fish of the trip and after a nice 10 minute fight I landed a very nice 22" brown. He was not very large in girth and still had the long torpedo shaped body and was just starting to get the hook in his jaw, but he put up a nice fight on 7x leader and tippet.

At around 5 pm I watched a gentleman hook into a very large brown right at outlet 2. It took him about 30 minutes, but he eventually landed the fish right at rebar. From my shaky memory, the fish was approximately 30 inches and 17 pounds. The fisherman spent quite a bit of time making sure the fish was in good shape before releasing him.

I fished my way up to outlet 2 and the water and sun had dropped enough to start throwing my pine squirrel scuplin again. I caught a couple of nice rainbows right off the bat slow stripping. I was stopped suddenly about 50 yards downstream of outlet 2 when i caught sight of something in the water just downstream of me. The first though in my mind was back to my wife talking about snagging bodies at night. I though I saw someone's thigh in the water. it looked to be about 30 inches long and very thick. Then the tail of this thing flipped a bit and it shot away. I got a nice side view and it was clearly a rainbow and was easily 10+ pounds. It actually scared me a little bit. I am used to seeing stuff swimming around, but not stuff big enough to have my leg in its mouth.

As the sun set, I moved down to the gauntlet and the water was almost back down to it's normal low level. I was having a hard time stripping my sculpin through the faster moving water and decided to call it a night. As I was walking back I saw another fisherman stomping through the middle of the gauntlet with his fly rod above his head screaming something about a "hawg". His fly line was a perfect straight line to the opposite shore and the fish made a couple very smart runs directly at the guy. He handled the slack and landed the fish a few minutes later. Again from memory, this brown one was a bit smaller at 27 inches and 14 pounds. It was a very nice fish.

No fishing Monday night.

I had a great time all weekend chatting with folks around the parking lot. Some were avid readers of the site some werent. My wife doesn't seem to get the comoradery of fly fishing, expecially at night. "It takes you 45 minutes to actually get into the water". Most of that time is spent slowly getting ready and chatting. Sometimes those are the best memories about fishing trips.

-Jerod

[Danoinark]

Excellent and consise Jerod. Thanks for a great report.

Dano