Summer has decided to stick around a little longer this year. Temperatures are in the 90's again this week, but being on Lake Taneycomo's cold water makes it bearable. The lake water is a cool 55 degrees, and the dissolved oxygen content is holding at about seven parts per million, which is very good for this time of year. The trout are active, feeding and fighting hard when hooked. What else does an angler wish for?
Generation patterns remain the same as last weeks --- dam operators are still running at least 35 megawatts of power 24/7 and kicking it up to two to three units late in the afternoon and into the evening. This is to meet the power demand on these hot days. As soon as it cools off, I believe they won't run it as hard in the evenings.
If you haven't read about it or seen the pictures, an angler caught another big brown this past week and broke the Missouri state record for brown trout again.
Bill Babler, one of our long time fishing guides, was fishing with a friend Wednesday morning when he hooked and landed a 40.4 pound brown trout. He was fishing, yes, the pink worm under a float. This is the same bait I've been writing about in my fishing reports for the past ump-teen years, and he had rigged it the same way we've been describing.
They were out just fishing for dinner . . . sound familiar? Scott Sandusky and his friends were doing the same thing when he caught his state record brown trout in 2009. He caught his fish on Berkley PowerEggs.
The video of the weigh in has been viewed on Facebook more than 450,000 times so far, and the story made most of the major national news outlets. Babler's brown missed the world record mark by less than two pounds!
So if you have to ask me, "What are they biting on?" I'd have to say Berkley's Pink Power Worm.
I fished it the other day on One Cast and caught one and missed a couple of bites, all in a few minutes. I don't fish it much, but if you just want to catch numbers, it's the best.
Duane advises fishing four- to five- feet deep early in the morning and then move to up to 10 feet deep when the sun gets up over the water. Again, two-pound line is a must.
Both Duane and Bill have had fly fishing trips this week, and both said #14 or #16 tan or gray scuds in the trophy area are working well. Fish them under a float four- to six- feet deep and in tandem with an egg fly. Babler uses a beaded scud and egg for weight, or you can add small split shots to get them down. Again, use 7x tipper.
We're still catching trout on jigs, throwing them straight with no float. Best colors are sculpin, sculpin/ginger, black and olive. The times I've gone out, early and late, the trout have been towards the top of the surface, about three- five-feet deep. I'm working either a 1/16th- or a 1/32nd-ounce jig using two-pound line, not letting it sink very much and working it at that depth. During the day when the sun is over the water, you need to let the same jig drop to the bottom and work it slowly.
There are a lot of "stockers" from Cooper Creek down through Monkey Island right now. From my outings, it seems they are wanting to chase. So try a spoon or spinner and work it slowly and steadily, even trolling with it.
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