Lake Taneycomo Fishing Report 9/03/09 - Branson, MO

We received some well needed rain this week. No downpours but a nice, gentle, soaking rain that really didn't affect our area lake levels. But for most of this week, the water has been running 24 hours a day at about one unit, bumped up to 2 units for a few hours in the late afternoon. I like this flow but I'm sure the fly fishers below the dam are aggravated because it takes away most of the wading area up there. But with one unit they can get out on the big gravel bar below outlet #3 and drift a scud or strip a wooly and catch trout.

But I think come this weekend, they will not run much, if any at all. The weather forecast says highs are going to be in the mid 70's which is unbelievable for this time of year. So the power demand shouldn't be high and they usually don't run water on weekends. So my prediction is very little to no generation this holiday weekend.

Trout fishing here on Taneycomo has been flat - great! I contribute it to the weather. Cooler temperatures seems to agree with our trout here, as well as other species of fish in area lakes. Plus it just seems like there's a lot of rainbows in the lake right now. I took a pontoon ride to the Branson Landing last evening with friends, ate at the Fish House and boated back after dark. Cruising down, a watched for midging rainbows and did see quite a few from Taneycomo Acres down to the bridges. Coming back, I could see more rises, especially in the Monkey Island area. That's evidence that there's big schools of rainbows in these areas actively feeding on bugs on the surface. If I were fishing last night, I'd try several things... cast a rooster tail, throw a jig and float or just cast a jig straight, probably a small jig like a 1/16th or even a 1/32nd oz if I had light enough line to throw it and work it close to the surface. The idea is to keep the lure close to the surface where the rainbows were cruising for midges.

Now during the day, most of these rainbows are close to the bottom, especially if it's bright out. So I'd go with bait - either night crawlers or Power Bait. Our water is clear so have to go with no larger than 4 pound line, small weights and small hooks. For worms, I use a #6 or #8 short shanked hook and for Power Bait I use a #8 hook. Colors of Power Bait - if I'm using Gulp Eggs, I putting a white egg on with another color... yellow, pink or orange. Some of the nuggets and paste are working too. Berkly has a hatchery nuggets that's brown which is doing pretty well. Anytime we have a big rainbow caught off the dock, the bait it was caught on becomes the hot bait of the week. There was a big rainbow caught last week on the brown nuggets so we've been selling a lot of brown hatchery nuggets.

Fishing up in the trophy area has continued to be very good. We've been seeing a lot of very nice rainbows up there and they've been biting pretty consistently. With this flow, we've been using a jig and float with an olive or pink jig fished 4-6 feet deep and drifted basically down the middle of the lake from Lookout down to Fall Creek. There are a couple of hot spots above Lookout but for the most part I haven't done that well up there so I've been starting my drift at Lookout. Of course, I like working a jig straight, no float, off the bottom as well. Sculpin has been the best color in the 3/32nd oz size and working it in the deeper water, channel side of the lake.

Hope everyone has a relaxing and enjoyable holiday weekend!