Four boats on the water again yesterday.  Great day on the water.  Weather nice and so was fishing.  All the boats came in reporting good numbers.  Still running lots of water, but they cut it back to three generators flowing 6000 cfs for most of the morning and dropped it even lower in the afternoon.  Really helped fishing!!  We are getting closer to normal power pool.  So far today, they have run four generators.

Gina’s guy, Kevin, from New Mexico, caught a 16-1/2" Rainbow.  This is a lucky guy.  Not only did he catch lots of fish, but his wife bought him the 1/2 day guide trip as his anniversary gift.   He and his wife are in Branson celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary.  Kevin caught most of his fish on the Burgundy and Primrose & Pearl size 18 midges.

Stan had out a birthday boy, Doc from Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Lots of fish, food and a good time.   Their flies were the size 18 Buyrdungy midge and size 16 Red Tunghead midge.

Darrell’s client, Ken, from Wisconsin, was getting away from the cold.   Ken had a great catching day, mainly on the Burgundy midge and the size 16 Red Tunghead midge.

Don’t know what Jim’s guys were catching fish on.  They are on the water again today and scheduled to go out tomorrow (based on weather). 

We had four boats on the high water yesterday.  The two guys in Jim’s boat, Ed and Bob, were catching fish on a size 6 Bug-Eyed Bugger, olive.  They also caught a few on a red midge.  Darrell’s guys, Dave and Dan, caught them on the red midge, but did best on the Olive filoplume.  Stan’s boat with Jim and John, caught them mainly on the red tungsten midge.  They caught a few on the Burgundy and Copper dun midges.  Ken and I, in my boat drifted the back of the island looking for fish.  We tried some midges back there, but not only didn’t see any fish, we didn’t get any hits either.  Drifted on down and noticed fish coming up in the flat area at the bottom of the island.  Normally this area is the island.  Anchored over the grassy area (now under water) and started picking up fish on cracklebacks.  Ken had some he had tied with the burgundy holoshimmer we use for the midge which were working very well.  I used the holographic green and caught several, but I believe Ken’s burgundy was working best. 

We have seen four generators running 24 hours/day since the morning of March 4 thanks to the big rain we had.  Table Rock Lake level is up 2.2 feet over power pool (915.0).  We will probabaly see this trend for a while until they get the lake level down.

Had one boat on the water yesterday.  Despite the high water they had a great time and caught quite a few fish.  Best flies were a size 12 red tungsten midge and the olive grizzly filoplume on a sink tip.  They had so much fun, they just left to tryt it again today.

No one could believe it was the first day of March!  Sunny, warm (70s), light wind and two generators going in the a.m.  Fishing was also perfect.  

Taisha helping Dad

Stan had Taisha and her father, Jim, out for a half-day float.  They set a record for his boat—29 doubles!!  They had a wonderful day and lots of fun.  I believe Jim described the trip as perfect.  They fished the size 18 copper dun midge for the entire trip.  With two generators in the morning which was cut to one late morning, it made for a nice drift.  They caught fish all the way down to about 500 yards above the Fall Creek Boat Dock.

Carolyn had a brand new to fly fishing gentlemen, Steve, and his brother-in-law Jeff, out for half day.  Jeff fishes here quite a bit and wanted to introduce Steve to the finer things in life.  They too had a great day.  Caught  lots of fish.  We started with the size 18 copper dun midge, but also caught several on the Primrose & Pearl as the sun got higher.  After we drifted down a ways, we found a good seam so I changed Jim to a sink tip with the filoplume.  He picked up several fish on that while I worked with Steve on getting his basic casting down.  We then proceded to drift out.  Fished the high side with the copper dun.  It was catching fish pretty steady, but we changed out to the size 16 red tunghead midge and started catching at a faster pace. 

Nice Rainbow Malcolm!

Jim and Darrell were both out on full day trips.  Know they both had good days.  Saw some pictures of nice fish caught in the the Rockin Chair area.  Darrell was fishing the filoplume and copper dun.  They were out again today with the same group.  We’ll let you know tomorrow how they did.

Jim had a trip out yesterday.  Pretty nice day.  Even with four generators going in the a.m. and then shutting it down during the morning to two, they had some pretty good fishing.  Red tunghead #16 midge and the black midge, #18 were the two best flies of the day.  Once they turned it back up to four generators about 2:30 p.m., the water got real dirty with lots of debris and vegetation.  Couldn’t keep your fly clean long enough for a fish to find it!

Weather has not been the best, but there are still quite a few brave people standing in the water catching fish.  Stan was out earlier in the week with a friend of his from when he worked on the Sheriff’s Dept.  Tim had never fished before and wanted to learn so he could teach his kids.  They had a great day, mainly with midges and specfically the size 18 Burgundy midge.  He’s ready to get his kids going!

Folks in the shop all weekend and everyone was catching at least some fish.  Up around the Hatchery Area, most everything working, gray scuds, black or burgundy midges and olive woolly buggers.  Even had one guy come in yesterday afternoon and he had been catching the devil out of them on the Primrose & Pearl.  Not the pattern we usually go to on the dark and gloomy days.  As we always say, "these fish don’t read the same books we do!"

Water was off all weekend.  We’ll have to see what affect all this rain will have on the generation.  As of 4:00 a.m. this morning Table Rock Lake had come up a foot over yesterday at the same time.

This weather has gone from the upper 70s to the lower 30s in a matter of hours!  And all in the same day!!

They did not generate water from 3:00 p.m. on Friday until 5:30 p.m. Tuesday!  Then they ran it for about three hours and shut it off.  Yesterday it came on at 7:00 a.m., went up and down for a couple hours where they kept it at one generator until 8:00 p.m. Wednesday night.

Saturday’s trip was a father and son-in-law from Oklahoma.  It was in the 50s that day.  Fishing was good and they caught lots of fish.  Best flies were the Burgundy Midge in the morning and the Primrose and Pearl in the afternoon.  Father, Don, had been out with us before with his son.  He decided to bring his son-in-law, Travis,  this time and expose him to fly fishing.  Think Travis likes fly fishing.  Got to casting pretty good until he started catching fish.  Once he started catching fish, casting took a back seat…..normal.

Sunday, was Super Bowl Sunday.  Good Game!

Monday, Stan & I fish for a while in the late monring until early afternoon.  The temperatures made it into the the high 70s, low 80s.  Great day on the water or anywhere with weather like that in February.  We were catching fish on the olive filoplume.  I was using the sink tip in deep (6-7′) of water.   Some of our fishing friends, Peter and Ellen, were using it in shallow water without the sink tip and catching fish.   We caught fish on a gray soft hackle, size 20; a dark olive soft hackle, size 18; and a size 18 Burgundy Midge.   Ellen was having a great day fishing the holographic crackleback in the shallow water.  However, the best part of her day was near the end of the day, sun going down and she was heading back upstream toward the Rockin Chair area.  She had one Blondie crackleback in her fly box which she tied on and started throwing into the riffle at the Rocking Chair.  It would barely hit the water and she had a fish.  This frenzy continued until Peter almost had to drag her away for the evening. 

Before the storms came through Tuesday, Stan caught 40-50 fish on the Primrose and Pearl.  One of our other friends, Donna,  caught a 17-18 inch Rainbow on the the Burgundy Midge and her husband Darrell caught one a little larger (guess he’s not going to let her out do him).  Fishing was great until everyone was chased off by the tornado warning!

We stole another day in January.  It was in the 60s yesterday, a little chop on the water from a light breeze (good for fishing), and the fishing was good.  Fishing was probably not quite as good as Saturday, but it was still very good. 

One of our guides, Gina, had her sister and nephew out for a few hours.  Think this was his birthday outing and definitely his first time fly fishing.  He landed 8 and "missed a boat load".  Gina’s sister quit counting her fish at 25.  Lots of dinks still, but they also caught some nicer ones.  Best fly in the late morning was the copper dun midge fished just above the KOA narrows.  Once they fished out this area, they went on down to the Pointe where they fished the Primrose & Pearl.  All in all, they had a wonderful day and lots to talk about at the birthday party last night.

Stan went out with a friend in the boat, and I took off wading.  They did well on the midges, but finished up their day with Stan throwing dries on the north bank between the Rocking Chair and the boat ramp and his friend throwing the filoplume out the other side of the boat.  I never took off my sink tip and filoplume.  I caught a few dinks, but the ratio of larger fish to the dinks was much better stripping the filoplume on the bottom.  Seemed like the bigger guys were staying low to keep away from the tons of smaller fish feeding near the surface.  I was mostly slow stripping the filoplume.  If I missed a soft take, I would give it two real short, quick strips and many times get a take shortly after that.  Two other couples we know were out fishing yesterday afternoon.  They were doing well on the olive wooly bugger and the crackleback.  Not sure which color crackleback.  Forgot to ask.

They had four generators going by 6:00 a.m. this morning.  At 1:00 p.m., they still had one generator going with a level at 704.6  I am a little surprised they have not turned it off by now.

Had two boats on the water yesterday afternoon.  What a perfect day!  The weather was great,.  Temperatures were in the 50s, not too much wind, they turned the water off at noon, and the fish were crazy.  The only downside to the fishing was that many of the fish were small.  Looks like they recently dumped in a bunch of Federal fish. 

Stan had a couple from Gardner, Kansas out.  John and Becky Bloomer caught "bunches" on everything.  Large dry flies, Madam "X", Trude, filoplume, Primrose & Pearl Midge, and John even caught two on a  dry fly he had made out of his dog’s fur!  Becky did had a really nice fish on for a while that she hooked with a size 12, flashback gray scud.  We did catch a few in the 13-14 inch range but most were 9-11 inches.

My boat was some of our regulars, Rick & Kristi.  Between the badgering back and forth as to who had caught the most fish or the largest fish, they were catching fish or getting hits on almost every drift for most of the afternoon.  We did catch lots nice fish in the 13-16 inch range and what COLOR!  Some of them were brilliant with deep purple tones.  And, as we said, also caught lots of smaller ones.  Although I put a Big Ugly on Rick with a midge dropper, they were all after the midge.  Kristi finally retired her beat up Primrose & Pearl midge.  She wanted to keep it to remind her of her great fishing day.

How many afternoons in January can you do this?  As Rick said on the way back to the shop "we stole this day".

They go fishing.  Darrell, one of our guides, took advantage of the water being off for a few hours yesterday.  He had a good day fishing in the riffle area up above outlet 2 at the Hatchery.  He caught several fish on the Primrose & Pearl.  As he noticed the clouds moving in, he changed out to the Copper Dun and continued catching fish.  He also did real well on a size 8 weighted gray leech using an accelerated downstream presentation in this same shallow water area.