BRANSON, Mo.
If these rainbow trout swam in water any shallower, they might get chiggers or a tick.
At A Glance
Taneycomo Regulations
A slot limit for rainbow trout is enforced on upper Lake Taneycomo. From Table Rock Dam to the mouth of Fall Creedk, all rainbow trout between 12 and 20 inches must be immediately released. Only flies or artificial lures may be used. The daily limit is four, but only one may exceed 20 inches.
Below Fall Creek, rainbow trout of any length may be kept up to a limit of four. Bait or lures may be used.
Brown trout must be 20 inches or longer to keep on the entire length of the lake. Only one brown may be part of a four-fish limit.
Source: Missouri Department Of Conservation
Ripples of Lake Taneycomo barely covered their backs as the fish fed in the shallows 6 inches deep along a gravel shoreline. They were easy pickings for Phil Lilley of Branson, Mo.
"They're feeding on scuds," Lilley said, hooking and fighting another trout. The fly he cast imitated scuds, a tiny fresh-water shrimp, perfectly. In the clear, shallow water we watched the trout bite.
"Other than catching them on a dry fly, this is some of my favorite kind of fishing," Lilley said. "Fishing for trout that you can see."
Lilley and I were fishing deeper water when Lilley noticed the swirls from trout feeding in thin water along the pebbly shore. We moved in and unleashed our scud flies. Trout immediately pounced them.
This fish-after-fish action was the finale of a great day of trout fishing at Lake Taneycomo, a waterway that's part river, part lake.
HOP A JIG
We climbed into Lilley's boat on Oct. 30, a chilly Thursday, and took off from Lilley's Landing, the resort and marina Lilley owns on the lake west of downtown Branson. The boat ride from the dock to the mouth of Fall Creek was about as cold as the start of our fishing. Lilley's black Lab and usual fishing buddy, Jackson, reveled in the chilly boat ride.
We started with small brown marabou jigs made by PJ's Finesse Baits of Fayetteville. Hopping the jigs off the bottom produced quick strikes the last time we fished Taneycomo. Fishing was slow enough now to wonder if we'd catch one fish.
The skunk was out of the boat when a 15-inch rainbow trout bit and become fish No. 1 for the day.
Dark jig colors work best if there's no current, Lilley coached. That's when Taneycomo is like a lake.
When electricity is generated at Table Rock Dam, Taneycomo becomes a river with a current that can be swift. Then Lilley switches to white jigs.
Trout gave the cold shoulder to our jigs this trip. We switched to fly fishing.
TWO OF A KIND
Rainbow and brown trout ply the depths of Taneycomo. Anglers catch mostly rainbows, but brown trout become favorite targets during fall when they spawn. Late October is the tail end of spawning time.
"People fly fish for brown trout by the dam in the faster water, any kind of moving water when they're spawning," Lilley said. Browns are typically nocturnal feeders so the best fishing is at night.
"I like to use streamers, light colors during a full moon and darker on dark nights," he said. "The fish hit them hard."
Our first flies out of the box were small elk-hair caddis, a dry (floating) fly. Lilley advised casting them to the bank at the water's edge and work them out from there.
I was tickled to be using a dry fly. Your faithful outdoors reporter leads a sheltered fly-fishing life and I've never caught a trout on a dry fly.
So I was giddy when a trout swirled at my elk-hair caddis but missed. The fish hit again and I battled my first dry-fly trout. It's akin to catching black bass with top-water lures.
Dry-fly fishing was exciting, but a long time passed between strikes. Lilley switched gears again. We started fishing near the bottom with zebra midges, flies that imitate insect larvae.
"This is the go-to fly at Taneycomo, the top producer," Lilley said, tying on a zebra midge.
These flies sink down to where most trout feed. "Most of the time here, whatever you use, you want to keep it near the bottom, especially as the sun gets higher and brighter," Lilley said.
Trout were in a feeding mood and Lilley caught several, much to the delight of his pooch, Jackson. Each trout got the Lab's tail wagging.
What started out as a slow morning was now in high gear. Lilley and I routinely caught doubles. Another trout bit my midge, but this trout looked different.
"Hey, you've got you a brown there," Lilley said. The trout was gorgeous with a belly of light caramel color and brown spots. Lilley never lifted the fish from the net. He eased the fly from the trout's mouth and off it swam, just like all the trout we released that day.
No one was counting, except maybe Jackson, but a guess is we caught 30 to 40 rainbow trout and one brown.
WARM-WATER OPTION
Trout are the draw at Lake Taneycomo, but Lilley said warm-water species like black bass can be caught on the downstream end of Taneycomo between Branson and Forsyth, Mo.
"A lot of the locals fish for bass. There's a bass club in Forsyth that fishes lower Taneycomo about three times a year. There's little fishing pressure, and they do pretty well," Lilley said.
Taneycomo isn't the only place the resort owner enjoys trout fishing. He spends part of the summer as a fishing guide in Alaska, putting anglers on trout, salmon, char and grayling.
Most of the year finds Lilley casting a fly at Taneycomo, catching another trout for Jackson to admire.
Outdoors on 11/20/2014