Good Southern Council FFF Conclave Last Weekend!

Weather has been absolutely gorgeous!  Crisp mornings (upper 30s to 40s), and days are sunny and in the upper 60s to mid 70s.  No rain chances until possibly Monday, then warning up a little more….probably into the 80s.  Water generation has been half way nice to us over the past five days.  All day Saturday and Monday, they had water generating.  Sunday, yesterday and today, lots of wading water.  

Last Thursday water was generating all day.  Fluctuated up and down all day between 704 and 706 feet elevation.  Jim on the water with a couple of pretty new fly fishers, Bruce and Kathy from Texas.  Fairly good day on the red midge, pink or orange San Juan worms, and the size 16 gray scud.  Stan had Doc from Oklahoma and Mac from here and Kansas (that’s another story) out all day.  This crew would have fun fishing in a bath tub, but fortunately they had Taneycomo and it treated them pretty good.  Best flies were the primrose & pearl midge and the holographic green crackleback.  

Friday, Gina and I left early in the a.m. for the Southern Council FFF Conclave held in Mountain Home, Arkansas.  Conclave ran Friday and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.  Guess where we were from 5:00 p.m. until "O" dark hundred.  Had a fun time fishing the Rim Shoals area thanks to some nice folks from the Tulsa Fly Fishing group who were staying there and hauled us up the river in their boats to the shoals, and, of course, hauled us back at dark.  They even fed us one night!  We wade fished and stripped sculpins, holographic green cracklebacks; drifted various midges and just had a great time.   

Saturday, Jim had Khris and Billy out for a full day float.  Khris and Billy are from Oklahoma.  Khris has been fishing for some time, but Billy is, or was, not a fly fisher.  Jim spent most of his time with Billy working on casting and other skills.  Good day on the red midge, gray scud and a red San Juan worm

Darrell and Stan were out both Saturday and Sunday mornings with a group of new and experienced fly fishers.  Darrell had Allan and David and Stan had Marc and another David.   Primrose & pearl midge, gray scud, San Juan worm, ruby midge and olive floozie were their bugs over the two mornings.

Sunday was play day.  Gina and I were going to fish below Bull Shoals dam, but, as is the case with these wonderful tailwaters, they turned on two generators.  Soooo…with cell phone in hand, we called Table Rock and it was off.  So, three of the Tulsa Fly Fishing group, Valley, Leah and Greg, plus Gina and I, headed for Taneycomo!  Loaded up one of the drift boats to carry all our stuff, rods, boat bags, water, cookies (thank you Mary Ann and Virginia), nets, you name it, we had it in the boat.  Parked the boat on the gravel bar below the Rocking Chair area, walked into the river, and proceeded to catch fish.  What a wonderful afternoon we all had.  Greg was fishing from his nice drift boat he built and catching fish on an wooly bugger type fly tied with olive marabou tail, peacock herl body and gold bead head under an indicator and having a grand time.  We threatened to throw him out of his boat several times.  However, we were all catching fish on tan scuds, pink San Juan worm droppers, copper dun midges, the Miracle Scud, and missing a lot and sticking a few on a charcoal sculpin, golden variant sculpin and the olive floozie.  When Valley’s knees got tired, we parked her in a good spot and she proceeded to catch several fish, among them, a nice 21 inch rainbow.  Leah just got a new rod for her birthday over the weekend and it definitely worked well for her!  This was her first trout out of Taneycomo on her new rod….but she didn’t stop there. 

 Valley – 21" Rainbow, 10/3/10

 Leah – 10/3/10

 

 

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.


*