[Editors Note: As used in this report “Trophy Area” refers the portion of Branson’s Lake Taneycomo between the mouth of Fall Creek and the base of Table Rock Dam. It is treated separately because of its unique topography, it’s a trophy management area, and the special regulations and limits in effect within the area.]

Those five days of some sun and blue sky was just a blip on the radar screen.  Memorial Day weekend was hit and miss with rain showers, but mostly a hit.  However, foggy, soggy weather was not a deterrent for our fly fishing tourists from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and our Missouri faithfuls from the St. Louis and Kansas City area.  That’s good news for us and Branson.  We’ve had boats on the water everyday, and I think a few of the guides are about waterlogged.

Clients are getting good numbers of fish to the boats.  In these high water conditions the best ways to fish are with an indicator and heavy split shot or with a sinking line and a streamer.  Best flies are the red tungsten bead midge (size 16), the lightning bug (size 16) and the red San Juan worm.  The best streamers are still the olive bug eye bugger (size 6-8) and the olive filoplume (size 12).   If the sun shines, try a holographic green crackleback (size 12).  The streamers were getting hits being stripped cross current and on the swing.

The past week we have seen a change in the water generation pattern.  The story is that sometime around midnight the generation has been cut back to one or two units and then ramped up to four by noon the next day.  On Saturday generation was off early in the morning for two hours, then ramped up with one generator, followed by two by 5:00 a.m., three shortly after then four by noon.  It slowed down a little at 10:00 p.m. last night, but they never shut it down completely.  Two generators were going when the boats hit the water this morning, Memorial Day, and they cranked on the third at 9:00 a.m. and the fourth shortly after that. So it is still random, but if you might take a pot shot at it early or overnight, you might find a bit of wading opportunity.

Submitted by Carolyn Parker, River Run Outfitters

[Editors Note: As used in this report "Upper" refers the portion of Branson’s Lake Taneycomo between Short Creek and Fall Creek. The difference between "Mid" and "Upper" is subjective and is based primarily on the average water depth throughout the defined area. "Trophy Area" refers to the area of Lake Taneycomo between the Table Rock Dam and the mouth of Fall Creek.]

Finally… a real good fishing report. For Taneycomo, it’s been long overdue.

It might be expected - for there to be a bunch of rainbows in the lake for a holiday weekend like Memorial Day weekend. It’s a good thing.
Shepherd of the Hills did their job well, stocking much loved and sought after rainbows the week before.

At least our guests here at the Landing (Lilleys’, not Branson) were happy with their “catching”, even though the weather wasn’t the nicest.
Rumors of big rainbows abound from 2 to 4 pounders being caught off the dock plus a 10 pound rainbow caught above Fall Creek by a client fishing with one of our guides.
I guided with Bill Babler both Saturday and Sunday. Armed with fly rods and silver scuds, we pounded the water between Lookout and Fall Creek both mornings and came up with alot of nice rainbows on each drift. We set our #14 scuds anywhere from 8 to 12 feet below an indicator and tried to stay in the middle-to-shallow side of the lake. Sunday morning the bite was light - the rainbows weren’t taking it and running but spitting it out rather quickly, causing quick releases.

Down lake, night crawlers drifted on the bottom was great from Fall Creek down past Short Creek. Anglers picked up some real nice, colorful rainbows on this drift. Minnows too. The larger rainbows that have been in the lake for a long period seemed to go after more natural baits, not the power baits. They seemed to catch more of the freshly stocked rainbows.

Even drifting below our place downstream was very good using Gulp white with pink eggs.

Back to the trophy area, drifting jigs under a float worked well for one of our guides- Vince Elfrink and his clients. He started out with ginger1/50th oz jigs under a float Sunday morning, then quickly switching to pink jigs when the generation was bumped up from one unit to two. One of his clients caught over 40 rainbows that morning.
Throwing 1/8th oz jigs straight was also good this weekend, using white, sculpin, scuplin/peach and brown jigs. Most worked the bluff banks but some just worked the bottom of the lake, staying in the middle.

Submitted by Phil Lilley, Ozark Anglers

[Editors Note: As used in this report “Trophy Area” refers the portion of Branson’s Lake Taneycomo between the mouth of Fall Creek and the base of Table Rock Dam. It is treated separately because of its unique topography, it’s a trophy management area, and the special regulations and limits in effect within the area.]

What a week!  To rain or not to rain.  Everyday the weather man predicted thunderstorms, but we managed to do all our guide trips without getting too wet and sometimes avoided the wet stuff altogether.  The real upside was the fishing—it has been very good from the drift boats.  We have had boats on the water everyday and good reports from the guides.   The water level has been above 710 with four generators going twenty four hours.  You have to wade at the boat ramp just to launch the boat.

In these high water conditions the best ways to fish are with an indicator and size A or BB split shot about 6-7 feet deep or with a sinking line and a streamer.  The red tungsten bead midge (size 16), the black zebra midge (size 18), the lightning bug (size 18) and the hot pink San Juan worm are still catching fish consistently on the indicator rig.  The best streamers are the olive bug eye bugger (size 8) and the olive filoplume (size 12).   Carolyn got a chance to get on the water Sunday do some fishing herself, and  claims she couldn’t keep the fish off her holographic green crackleback (size 12).  She was casting cross current and getting hits on the swing.

Water levels continue to fall behind the dam, but don’t expect any wading too soon.  Good news is just like we predicted more sunny days are in the forecast.  Get your sunscreen on and go fishing.

Submitted by Carolyn Parker, River Run Outfitters

[Editors Note: As used in this report "Upper" refers the portion of Branson’s Lake Taneycomo between Short Creek and Fall Creek. The difference between "Mid" and "Upper" is subjective and is based primarily on the average water depth throughout the defined area. "Trophy Area" refers to the area of Lake Taneycomo between the Table Rock Dam and the mouth of Fall Creek.]

There’s something funny brewing as far as generation here on the lake.

Of course, we’re the step child of all the lakes here on the White River. We are the pass-through channel where all the water from NW Arkansas and SW Missouri flows through. There’s talk of flood gates which I don’t understand. The Corp is supposed to meet with local officials to talk about what they (the Corp) needs to do to alieviate some of the high water levels above Taneycomo. Table Rock is in great shape. It’s only 2 feet over power pool which for this time of year is perfect. Beaver Lake, on the other hand, is very high - 1129 feet which is only one foot below flood pool.

Now from past water levels, this level on Beaver isn’t unusual. I remember a few years back, the Corp held Beaver Lake at 1129 feet for weeks. At the time, I didn’t understand why. Keeping a lake right at the top of the flood pool where one good rain would put it over the top, taking away all control of flow doesn’t seem smart to me. One foot of variance isn’t much room for error. But today, they have the dam at Beaver shut down. Why?

Today, they shut Table Rock Dam back to 2 units most of the day and off during the night. I understand that move in light of TableRock’s levels but at some point the Corp is going to have to move a lot of water through Table Rock, through Taneycomo into Bull Shoals, which is another story altogether. The rumor of flood gates is strange. Flood gates are only used in extreme cases, although fishing wise, I love flood gates in May and June. Some of the best fishing EVER has been when flood gates are opened on Table Rock in the spring.

Our water is 46 degrees right now. That’s cold, even for trout. They like 50 degree water. If they opened flood gates, the water would rise into the 50’s for sure plus dump a bunch of shad into the lake. Our trout would respond immediately, moving to the dam and feeding on the shad. We’ve seen the browns move up and feed, making them fairly easy to catch during these runs.

But we’ll have to see what happens. Bottom line, we’re going to see generation for most of the month of June. How much remains to be seen.
Fishing… has really picked up this past week. Boy, it was really slow for several weeks. Our guides were really crying the blues and when they cry, everyone else is finding catching trout extremely hard.

Why the turn around? Not sure. More trout stocked- yes. But we’re seeing some real nice rainbows below Fall Creek coming on night crawlers and minnows that must have come out of the trophy area. This isn’t unusual at all. We see this every year about this time, 17 and 18-inch rainbows taking natural baits mostly. Jigs too. Some flies like scuds and san juans.

Had some great reports of rainbows coming on jigs worked along the bluff banks this weekend. Kelly Stammer and his church group did real well throwing brown and orange 1/8th oz jigs along the bluff banks. I’ve suggested throwing rooster tails and small crank baits too. It seems they are hugging the banks, staying out of the current.
It’s hard writing a report right in the middle of a transition like this. Not knowing exactly what they are going to do with the water is tough but you can be assured there will be a lot of rainbows stocked for the upcoming holiday weekend. Hopefully the weather will be nice to us.

Submitted by Phil Lilley, Ozark Anglers

[Editors Note: As used in this report "Mid Lake" refers the portion of Lake Taneycomo between the mouth of Bee Creek, in Branson, to a point immediately downstream from Short Creek. The difference between "Mid" and "Upper" is subjective and is based primarily on the average water depth throughout the defined area. ]

Lake Taneycomo fishing this past week has been decent. Seems as if from Thursday on it has getting better every day. We have seen some good stringers with great Rainbows, and have had folks using a variety of lures and bait to get them

A lot of different lures have been working, Rapalas in Gold with Black Back, or Silver with Black Back, Kastmaster .Spoons in Gold or Gold/Red and Thomas in the Gold Red or Copper. Trout Magnet jigs in Bubble gum or Chartreuse. Rooster tails were working well recently as well.

In the live bait area, Night Crawlers closer to the Fall Creek area and Minnows for some of the folks heading down toward Rockaway/Forsyth have been working well.
We’re going to have a great week of weather it seems, we’re certainly looking forward to a great holiday. I hope we all remember what Memorial Day is all about.. and take some time to reflect on that.

Have a great day on the Lake

Submitted by Lamar Patton to multiple outlets, Scotty’s Trout Dock & Marina

[Editors Note: As used in this report “Trophy Area” refers the portion of Branson’s Lake Taneycomo between the mouth of Fall Creek and the base of Table Rock Dam. It is treated separately because of its unique topography, it’s a trophy management area, and the special regulations and limits in effect within the area.]

Heavy rains over the past week raised lake levels a couple of feet and as of this writing we are looking at three feet over power pool [918.51],so you can expect high generation levels to continue for a while; not really news, is it.

Folks on vacation in Branson who want to fly fish have proven to us they will tolerate wind, rain and chills. We appreciate these diehard fishermen keeping us busy.  The report from the guides was “wet” and tough fishing.  The high water favorites for the trout were hot pink and red San Juan worms, and we caught fish on olive wooly buggers, size 10, with sink leaders.  At the outlets, our customers let us know that although fishing had been slow, they landed fish on small gray scuds and the red San Juan worm.  Our prediction is that sunny days are on the way.

Submitted by Carolyn Parker, River Run Outfitters