Complete White River Fly Fishing Website

 

Shad Patterns

 

I have I think one of the best “suspending” shad patterns out there for imitating the real thing. This one I won’t post, but you’ll want this one in your fly box. I’ll sell it for a brief period of time so make sure you take me up on this offer. Most people who fish my patterns say they’re glad they did because of how effective they really are. Email me if you want to place an order. I’m telling you, don’t miss out on this fly and you’ll catch fish on it all year. Trust me!

June 12 2009

 

Just another brown caught on Upper Lake Taneycomo... What’s going on with the browns and why are there so many up top?

 

This is what I’ve been asking myself lately. It seems like  I’m having good luck finding and hooking browns. We all know that Upper Taneycomo is a rainbow trout fishery except for Oct/Nov during the spawn, so what’s going on with all these browns hanging out in the trophy area so early?

 

I actually just talked to Tracy at the Hatchery and his creel count is up for brown trout being caught in the trophy regulation area on Upper Taneycomo. We had a very interesting talk about several things. One thing we talked about is minimum flow and if it's progressing.. The answer is 'yes', but it's still a long way from it actually happening due to politics...but we might see it in the next several years when least expected. We also talked about banning boats from the KOA Capground up to the cable during one unit of generation or less. I’ve seen some close calls with wade fisherman vs. boats. It’s becoming really dangerous with some of these newer boat models, like Mako's going full out without having any respect or regard for fisherman.  I have a supreme with a twenty five horsepower motor and I fully understand now what some wade fisherman go through. I’m sure we could start a big discussion on this and get two totally opposites opinions about this, but it really boils down to respect. In one unit you can still wade Taneycomo and because there’s not enough good water on those levels to really get around by foot, wade fisherman don’t have the options boaters have. To me, there’s plenty of good, fishable water to go around so it would be fair to break up the 3 really good miles of trophy water into half being for wade fisherman and the other half (downstream) would be for boats. I’m going to bring this up to Shane and see what he says about it. It might not do anything, but it’s worth a shot, right?

(Gabe's note:  How are they going to manage this? What happens if they are running teo units at a one unit level or vice-versa?  There seems to be too many variables, but of course if you could work it out it would be nice. You may have to start at the ramp so people can get their boats in and go down river on lower flows.)

 

A little News from last year's high water and flood event.

 

-Taneycomo lost 300,000 trout last year, mostly from high water temperatures due to spillway releases that pull water from the top/warm part of Table Rock.

-The Shepard of the Hills Hatchery stocks @500 brooders a year between 3 and 7 pounds (these are trout utilized in the hatchery for spawning purposes.  Once their "used up", these beat up behemoths are turned loose where, over time, the become just like all the other great fish in Lake Taneycomo), and these are all rainbows (for the most part...brown trout's  "eggs and milk" are brought in from other hatcheries so there is little need for brood stock.).

Fishing Report-
 
I spent all day on the water yesterday, half with a trip and the other half with my pops. Fishing was great first thing in the morning. They were running two units with probably 40 megawatts between the two (this is like a "full" one unit level or a "light" two unit level). It was really good water, not only for nymphing on the bottom, but for “sight seeing” (when the fish coming over and hitting your fly). I had Doug and Tom from Springfield. Doug actually bought my previous jon boat and he has been out with me the most out of all my clientele. He had not fished Taneycomo in over a year and a lot of that had to do with me moving to Arkansas. Today on his second cast Doug hooked into another brown.  The last three times I’ve been up to Taneycomo we’ve managed to hook a decent brown in my boat. Most of what is being recorded on the creel counts according to Missouri Department of Conservation is 12- 13 inches, but these are all 'bows. So having a shot at hooking a brown can happen, but it's not as common. This brown pictured had a bunch of red spots down his body: a remarkable fish if you ask me. I know Doug was pleased and really didn’t care if he caught anything else for the day. That was the highlight of the trip, but we managed to catch rainbows steadily for the rest of the outing. They did fluctuate the water levels at the dam, and when that happened, the bite only temporarily slowed down a little bit. If anything the fluctuations were on the plus side because the water kept dropping slowly out and by the end of the day it was off and it’s still off has not turned on again as I’m writing this.
 
I’m seeing a lot of nice rainbows throughout Upper Taneycomo, so this river is in good shape compared to where it was last year at this time coming off the record flooding.

Everybody get out and fish this fly, and if you want to know more about how to fish the “miracle pattern”, give me a shout and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. It truly is a different way of fly fishing for quality trout!

June 10 2009

Darren fishing low water at Taneycomo- using the "so called" miracle fly. That's what I like to call it.

From the Fleld

My Son and I went down for some more low water fun down at Taney.  Another amazing day of fishing. I set the alarm for 5:00 a.m. but woke to some loud thunder so I shined going down at that time. I ended up getting down there at 8:00 a.m. and started fishing around outlet one working my way down to Big Hole. We were catching fish all the way down using Jeremy’s “Miracle Fly”. I can’t believe how well it works; it makes me begin to think I really know how to fish. Anyways it was getting close to when they where scheduled to raise the water and I was down below rebar hole and hooked into the brown in the pictures.

After seeing how we had to chase the fish Jeremy caught a few days before, I jumped off the rock I was on and began chasing him down. He took me down river about 75 yards before I beached him. After that my son and I caught three or four more each and then decided to call it a day. Great day of fishing, I always know it’s been a good day when my arm is sore.

Tight Lines

 

Darren

June 8 2009

 

So to finish up with my report over the weekend, Taneycomo is fishing well and the good thing is we are seeing longer periods of low water. This weekend they had it off for two days (sat/sun), but here recently they’ve been turning it on at 1pm during the week. So if wading is what you’re after then you’re in good shape. Table Rock is almost at pool and for this time of year that’s a good sign of some more low water if you want to ask me. I’ve been putting in the drift boat and taking advantage of downstream. I had a trip on Sunday and we hammered fish on midge patterns along with other things. Saturday the bite was better, but we still managed to catch over a hundred fish everyday. The fish seem to be a little pickier, but not as much downstream. Even with all those people upstream nobody wants to walk farther then rocking chair hole, which mind boggles me. If they knew what was in store, they wouldn’t even fish the upper stretches. To me, the river is filled in BIG TIME up there and the deeper holes are downstream. I saw a few big rainbows, but they weren’t feeding so I just watch them as they swam upstream.  It’s good to see some quality rainbows with really vibrant colors. Here on the White they aren’t has pretty. So both rivers have their own originality, the White is a brown trout fishery for the most part and Taneycomo is all about rainbows except for the brown run in Oct/Nov. It’s a great thing to have all this versatility learning all these tailwaters and I always look forward to learning more. I’m going to branch out and learn the warmwater game for smallmouth and largemouth so be looking for reports on that. I’ll more then likely start doing fly fishing guided trips on warmwater, but the conditions have to be almost perfect from what I’m finding out. I’m on my way to the vise to tie 1,200 v-rib midges in six colors, so I probably won’t have a report for a few days. To see more pictures of that brown caught over the weekend click here.

   

If you’re looking to learn how to fish Taneycomo downstream in a drift boat give me a shout, you can’t beat it!!

June 6 2009

Taneycomo- low water and a nice brown

 

I went up to the dam this morning and did what I came here to do. Last week I saw some big fish in the water and was anxious to get back up and try my luck at them. If you watch the clips of me standing on rocks sight seeing, or should I say “spotting” big fish and casting to them, that’s exactly what I did. Darren met this morning and save the spot for us to get some film. It wasn’t real active at first because the shadow kept us from seeing the bite, but once the light peaked around the corner, it was on. This brown we hooked took about 10 minutes to land and we had to laterally chase her down. These fish are fighting hard, even the small ones. I’ll talk more later.

 

June 5 2009

 

Streamer fishing with Paul and his son John

 

I met Paul from a mutual friend that I’ve been guiding over the years. They’re goal on this trip and maybe it had to do with me a little bit talking them into streamer fishing was to get his boy on some trout. John is 20 years of age and his father had been doing this most his life. John recently got the bug again and wanting to get back into fly fishing hard core. So this was about his son and it normally is always that way. We got a late start, but that was kind of the plan so we put in about 3:30pm and float from Wildcat to Cotter. It’s about a 4 hour float in 4,500 cfs. Paul started out with streamers while his boy fished on the bottom. Paul was a trooper learning this bite, ever throwing big stuff it was a chore, but I’m sure he was glad he did because he had a few opportunities at some big pigs in the 23-26 inch range. The bad part was he didn’t land ay of them, but that’s part of learning this whole “streamer thing”. It takes time to learn not just how to cast heavy grain lines, but hooking is just as important because that takes a little skill to. We did manage to hook a few browns, but they were smaller. All in all I’m sure he was glad to learn something new and to have the opportunity at few hogs will keep him coming back for more. John did well hooking trout after trout, but nothing to big. His best day on the water was only landing a handful of trout, we beat that by a huge margin. He said he lost count after the first hour. The best part about the day for me is to see his cast develop in a big way. I spent about the first hour in my yard showing him some techniques that improved his cast in seconds. He definitely has a knack for this and should stick with it. Great job guys! I had a great time with you. We’ll do it again soon.

  

Chasing smallies and wild trout

 

So we went on a wild goose chase looking for smallmouth in some of the creeks in Missouri. Bear Creek and Bull Creek were the main focus. Even though we didn’t manage to catch any smallmouth or even see that many it was good to find the spots to go back to. We need a little rain to get them on the move. Most the water we saw was to shallow, but we did find some great access points that hold these fish in the right conditions. I can’t believe how clear the water was. I took Darren and his son Jordan with me and we had a blast. It’s just has fun doing this has it is fishing. Looking for new water and using four wheel drive in the Rover was a ball. I’ll be back that’s for sure. We did get a little footage of a couple of nice rainbows with one hooked but not landed. It’s great trout porn though and I think you’ll like it. Watching a nice rainbow cruising the shallows was a sight to see...and I never get tired of seeing that.

June 2 2009

 

Fished Taneycomo in low water- first time in a long time

 

So the good news is there are a lot of fish in the river and a lot to be caught. The bad news which I want to touch on first is how filled in the river is up top. Most of the deeper channels, like the big hole, rebar hole and in between chute (outlet) 2 and the rebar hole are all a little over ankle deep. The rebar hole at the bend is still deep, but I’m wondering what they are going to do about this problem. Yes, I think it can be a big problem for the bigger fish that come up to spawn in October and the early part of November. If they generate the big browns can make it, but if they don’t generate for a number of days I wonder what these fish will do. I bet they’ll stay down below in the deeper holes and more than likely stay down below the old KOA campground which is now called Trophy Run, but it looks like to me they stopped construction and the turkey buzzards are taking it over again. I guess they have a nice place to stay.

 

What I would do is get some minimal flow and raise this river about six inches. This river would thrive big time. I’m going to mention this to a few people just to see if I can get their attention. On the positive side, the rainbows are everywhere and they are all well proportioned and seem to be eating fine. It sure is a change from last year when we lost several thousands of fish due to high temperatures from the water coming from the lake. I’m glad to see it in this kind of shape.

 

I had a trip with Bob and since the water was low my goal was to go everywhere in the drift boat just to see how much this river has changed and also to see what changed. I floated three days and spent most my time from the public boat ramp all the way to the houses at point lookout. I would say from KOA to Fall Creek there are several trout holding and most the bigger ones you’ll see will be down there, and that’s due to deeper water. Bob caught several nice fish and lost a few 18 inchers, but all in all it was a great day to be on the water. Most of the fishermen were up top. I did see a few hooking fish on wooly buggers and soft hackles, but if you ask me where to fish I would say from the boat ramp down. The few days I was there, which was on a weekend, I only saw a handful of fishermen fishing this whole stretch of water. That was amazing, and a lot of it has to do with walking that far down. Take my word for it, start fishing down and you’ll see a big difference on the quality of fish you catch. That’s just my suggestion, you can put it in the suggestion box (lol).

 

Sometimes I don’t like to give my secrets out, but you know me, I don’t mind if it helps someone have a better day on the river. The last day I was there I woke up that morning which was on Monday. I thought the water would be running so I didn’t give it much thought. I checked out the charts and realized it was shut down. I immediately got ready and told my dad let’s go check out the upper section by chute one. That was the only place I haven’t checked to see if it had changed. My thoughts were it’s probably the deepest part of the river since the water that was coming through the flood gates was coming down so hard it pushed most those rocks downstream to fill in other parts of the river. From what I saw, that was the case. There are a few deeper spots that held most of all the fish from up top. I was the only one fishing it, which was rare to me. If they knew what was up there I bet they would be fishing it. But because there is minimal current you have to know exactly what to use up there. I actually caught a brown up there and that was the only one I saw the three days I was there. I did see a few rainbows that were pushing 23-24 inches, had a few lookers, but no takers. Still it was good to see a few big fish in the river. I bet that’s going to be the night spot, but to really get out there you’ll need a pontoon boat to row out to the middle. So I’ll let you in on a little secret, go fish up by the cable. You’ll thank me later. I actually filmed some footage for you to check out. It’s a little different then the norm. I’m standing on the rocks and sight seeing for every fish I caught. You also had to do a salt water cast or you’ll catch lots of trees on your backcast. Until next time, tight lines and see you on the river.