Ran a low two generators almost all day both Saturday and Sunday. Shut it down last night at 8:00 and turned it back on this morning at 5:00. Level has been somewhere between 704.5 and 706.2. Select areas are wadeable.
Jim was on the water Friday afternoon and all day Saturday with a couple of guys from Nebraska, Danny and Tim. Saturday was a challenge with the fierce winds we had all day. Their flies of the day were the red midge, orange San Juan and a baby sculpin.
Carolyn was out for a half day with a lovely young lady, Victoria and her father Chal. Guys you better get in line for this young lady. She has not only taken a liking to fly fishing, but has been tying her own flies for almost a year now. One of the fish she boated yesterday was just shy of 19" by 1/4". Although Dad boated more fish, Victoria was definitely the top dog on size! She caught this beauty on a hot pink San Juan dropped from a red tunghead midge.
These cool nights are cooling down Table Rock. Should see the lake turn over soon which will take the temperature in Taneycomo down and dissolved oxygen level up. All good conditions for Taneycomo. Last week we had no more than two hours of water running during any 24 hour period. This Monday they started dumping Beaver so we are seeing two to four generators every morning for four hours (6:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.) and again in the early evening (5:00 p.m.).
Stan was on the water with Bob from Texas yesterday. After they found what and where the fish were, they had a pretty good half day on the water. Picked up a few on two to three different midges, but the fish just were not taking midges real well. The best patterns were the black wooly bugger and the golden variant sculpin. Of the two, the scuplin worked the best. They were fishing water 3-4 feet deep from below the boat ramp down to the KOA narrows.
Darrell was out helping a couple guys up by the hatchery area. They finally started catching fish around the outlets with size 16 gray or tan scuds.
Better check our site for the balance of 2008 and early 2009 free fly tying clinic schedule. We will again offer basic as well as tying patterns which work most of the time on Taneycomo. We have also added a couple dates for basic casting clinics in the spring, just in time to sharpen up for the spring fly fishing season.
AND, don’t forget to check out the 1-day fly fishing Clinics which start in April with a Women’s Clinic, May with a Co-ed Clinic and another Women’s Clinic in June.
Christmas is coming and we are here at the shop to help you with your Christmas shopping. We still have lots of men’s and women’s waders on sale, a couple more ZG rods (think they are both 2-piece), Rocky Mountain Turbine reels, and lots of other miscellaneous items in select sizes left. If you can’t figure out that perfect gift, don’t forget Gift Certificates!!!
Water running today, starting at 6:00 a.m. Ran four generators until 11:00 a.m. when they shut it down. Scheduled to be off until 6:00 p.m. when they will start it back up for four hours. Folks out fishing yesterday and the day before were catching fish on lots of patterns. Scuds, copper john, olive and black wooly buggers. We have a boat on the water tomorrow so we’ll see what works for us. Let you know.
Received a call from Stan yesterday while he was preparing to launch his boat. "Guess what I just saw?" he said. "What?" I responded. "A pheasant!" "Sure", I said. Well pictures don’t lie. Strutting around the parking area of the Mo. Dept. of Conservation boat ramp was this beautiful cock pheasant! One never knows what they will see around here!!!
Have had boats on the water every day. Wednesday before "Turkey Day" Darrell and Dana were both out. Darrell had Brian and Lona from Texas out. They had a fun day and caught lots of fish on the copper dun midge. Dana had Dan and Daniel, also from Texas, on the water. They caught bunches of fish on a fly Dan had in his bag of tricks. A different version of a lightening bug. They also caught some on the Primrose & Pearl and Copper Dun midges.
Friday, Darrell was out with Joe and Colby. Must be Texas week as Joe is also from Texas. Their best fly was the copper dun and they had to work for them. Stan had Brandon and his mother, Brenda out again this year. This is their second year in a row for the day after Thanksgiving. Brenda beat her catch numbers from last year as well as out doing Brandon. Brandon is probably a good son and let his mother out fish him! They had a fun day and caught many of their fish on the peach fur bug.
Today Stan had Roger and his grandson Riley out. Roger and a friend had fish with Stan on Sunday before Thanksgiving. Roger had such a great time he wanted Riley to get a chance to catch some fish on a fly rod and see if he liked fly fishing….Riley likes it. Riley boated a nice 18" Rainbow (had to out do Grandpa). Best flies were the black wooly bugger in skinny water just above the old KOA area and the burgundy midge.
Lots of people fishing today. Mixed bag. Fish are spotting. If you are in the right place, good fishing. You need to move around and find where the fish are holding up.
From all the team at River Run Outfitters, we want to wish you and your a Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you don’t eat too much turkey so you are so full you can’t go fishing!
Water was off yesterday until about 5:00 p.m. when they turned it on for an hour. It is off today and scheduled to generate at 6:00 p.m. today. Fishing is very good. Had boats on the water yesterday and today and everyone is catching fish on lots of things. Copper Dun zebra midge was the best midge yesterday. Also caught them stripping the holographic green crackleback and the olive filoplume on a sink tip. Just had a customer call me to say he was catching them on the golden variant sculpin pattern.
WE ARE CLOSED TODAY, WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 26 AT 3:00 P.M. AND TOMORROW, NOVEMBER 27. WE WILL BE HERE FRIDAY!
Water is off this morning…it is 8:30…and the projection is that it will be off all day! Maybe there will be a Thanksgiving! They have run two or three generators pretty consistently since last week. The tailwater level has been maintained somewhere between 706 and 705. However, the past two days it has started in the morning at 705 then dropped to 704 and stayed from mid morning untill early afternoon.
Fishing has been spotty. You’ll find a bunch of fish, fish them for a while and then they shut off. Still getting lots of opportunity to fish dries. Both extremes of size. As I mentioned in an earlier report, the size 24 Sproat or Spot Light midge in various colors (depends on the day), the parachute Adams, black midge, cream midge and then the Big Ugly have been working. We are fishing the Big Ugly alone and also with a midge pupa dropped anywhere from eight inches to two feet below the Big Ugly.
Stan was out with Doris and Dan from Texas yesterday and I had Nicole and her grandfather, James, on the water. Nicole is a lovely eleven year old who decided she wanted to try fly fishing. After just a short time, Nicole was throwing a very good line so getting her fly in the water is not a problem. Watching for the strike is the challenge. After several "pick and rolls" and just missing a hit, she did get her first fish to the boat. Proud grandfather is in the back of the boat taking pictures! She got a few more to the boat and we eventually had to come off the water. Not certain if she was really ready. Her hot pattern was the pink San Juan.
Stan and his crew did well on the Big Ugly with the burdungy midge dropper. Fish were taking both, but probably the midge the best.
We both found the fish to be very spotty as to where they were located, but once you found them, they were pretty consistent.
Three of us on the water today. Anxious to see what the no generation will bring!
At least they are maintaining the water level at a level where you can do some wading in places. Today the water level is 704.5 plus or minus. Even though they are running two generators, they are running the equivalent of one. Let’s hope they give us a break and turn the generators off for Thanksgiving weekend!
Fish are taking small dries in various places. Sometimes you really have to work at which one they want, but keep changing flies enough and you’ll figure it out. That’s what we have been doing. A few starters would be a parachute Adams in a 20 or smaller, mosquito, griffith’s gnat, or the other extreme….the Big Ugly, size 6 or 8. Stan, Shannon and Steve are out playing today and the last time I talked to them, they had caught fish on all these flies. Cracklebacks are also working in certain places.
It was nice to be on the water this weekend and look up stream and see lots of people standing in the water! Table Rock Lake has been below power pool (915) for over a week now. They continue to run water most of the time as Beaver is still about 6 feet over their normal power pool. However, there seems to be more of a pattern in how they have been generating. They actually turned the water off last Friday at 11:00 a.m. and left it off until 5:00 p.m. when they turned on two generators. Saturday and Sunday followed the same generation pattern so there was lots of good time to wade.
Don’t know if we are going to have a normal Brown trout spawn this year. Not seeing the numbers of Browns we usually see by this time of the year. The water is extremely warm (60s) and the dissolved oxygen is low. Have seen a few Browns, but it is getting late.
So far this week, they have started generation at 6:00 a.m. and run the equivalent of two generators until 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. when they shut it off until the next morning at 6:00. The tailwater level has been holding between 705 and 706 feet elevation above sea level. When I checked on tomorrow’s flow, they stated they would be running the equivalent of one generator from mid-night to mid-night.
Had boats on the water all weekend and Monday this week. No one out yesterday or today, but have talked to several folks who are fishing up around the Hatchery Area and everyone is catching fish. Catching them on lots of different things. Of course, the gray scuds. Gina was out Saturday with Mary and Becky from Raytown, MO. First time for both of them to fish from a drift boat. Had a good time and caught fish on the black midge, and olive wooly bugger using a sink tip. Stan had Dan and Shelley from Kansas on the water. This was after they took a bunch of pictures of Caddis at the shop! They had fun catching trout on the Big Ugly with a burgundy midge dropper. Fish were hitting on both! Darrell had Jeff and his 12 year old son, Nate, out. Had a great time and think Nate will be back to do it again.
Sunday Stan took Eric from Kansas and Carolyn took Becky from Texas out for half day. They were really together, but we kept them in separate boats! Becky is a new fly fisher and actually got tired of catching fish. Both Eric and Becky were catching fish on the Big Ugly with a burgundy midge dropper. Again, the fish were taking both the dry as well as the midge. While we were waiting to take our boats out, we threw the olive filoplume out using the intermediate sink tip and caught several more this way.
Monday was another day of Big Ugly and the Midge. Stan and Bob, from Michigan, had a good half day just using this combination. Several nice size fish in the 16-17 inch range.
Friday schedule from SWPA said they were going to have the water off from midnight until 6:00 a.m. then on until 11:00 a.m. or noon; off until 5:00 p.m. and back on until 11:00 p.m. Within an hour either way, that is what they did! Best news is that is what they are projecting for today. Think we will see more wading time again today!
Had a couple boats on the water yesterday. Lots of hits on almost everything but the wind was a devil! First it would blow upstream, the cross strea, and eventually down stream. Didn’t know which way it wanted to blow. We fished the filoplume with a sink tip line at the lookout island when the water went down and hooked and missed a lot of fish. On our way out with no current, you could see fish suspended on the high side below lookout island. The Big Ugly with a #18 burgundy midge dropped anywhere from 8 inches to 14 inches was picking fish there. Red midge with the red San Juan dropper worked drifting, but the gray scud seemed to worked better after the water shut down.
Generation has continued to run almost 24/7 for the past 7 days. They did shut it off for about three hours last Friday night and again Tuesday night at 10:00 p.m. until Wednesday a.m. at 6:00. The tailwater level has been pretty stable at 706.0 feet plus or minus. This is actually wadeable in some areas. Big problem continues to be the warm water temperatures, in the 60s, and low dissolved oxygen levels. We really need a bunch of cool days and nights to cool down Table Rock so it can turn over.
Boats on the water every day since Friday. Catching fish but we are working for them. Jim had Mike from Oklahoma on the water Friday. He was celebrating his 66th birthday. Started pouring down rain late in the morning so they cut the full day down to a half day. They did boat some fish on the #6 bug eyed bugger and the red midge with a pink San Juan dropper until the storm came in.
Saturday Stan was out with Bruce and Larry. Larry had booked a full day to learn different techniques and catch some fish. Bruce from California happened in and wondered if anyone wanted to share a trip. Worked out great and Bruce and Larry had a good time, learned some new techniques and landed quite a few fish between the two of them. Both really liked fishing the big Ugly with a midge dropper.
Sunday, Stan was on the water with Jerry and I had his wife Cathy out. They are friends from the Kansas City area. We were having a him and her tournament. Yeah! Cathy won. Think she out fished him 2 to 1. Better luck next time Jerry.
Monday Gina had Joe and Pam from Texas out in her "yacht". They caught fish on the Rojo Wormo (red San Juan). Darrell was out with Albert and James from Louisiana. They too caught fish on the red San Juan dropped from the red midge. Stan and Bob, from Michigan, hit the water throwing and catching on the Bug Ugly with a primrose & pearl midge (this is one of the few times this midge has worked this year) as well as the red San Juan. Seems like the red San Juan has it!
Tuesday, Gina had a brand new fly fisher, Sistie, and her husband (who is a fly fisher) on the water. Gina’s work with Sistie paid off. Sistie boated a beautiful 17-1/2" rainbow. Her first fish on a fly rod. Is that nice!
Stan was also on the water Tuesday with "Doc" from Oklahoma. They caught several fish on the Big Ugly with a black midge dropper, and drifting the red midge with a Miracle Scud dropper fished about 6-1/2′ deep.
