December 4th Fishing Report… and more

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Winter officially starts December 21, a little less than three weeks away, but it feels like winter this morning here in the Ozarks. Early temperatures dropped into the teens for the first time, giving the air a bite. Several boats left the dock this morning with eager anglers looking to catch some Lake Taneycomo trout. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is running water this morning for a couple of reasons, and you’ll find these reasons pretty consistent to how water is run water all winter. Beaver Lake is still high from the rains this fall. Table Rock is at power pool or normal levels. Water is being run at Beaver Dam to drop lake levels there, and this water basically has to be washed through the system, from Beaver Dam to Table Rock through Taneycomo and Bull Shoals into the White River. Another reason for running water here: it’s cold! Power demand and water management work hand-in-hand.

We did fish some down water last week as well as this past weekend. I, as well as other anglers, enjoyed getting out and seeing our lake as a lake again — still with no current. The trout seemed to like it, too. They adjusted quickly and feasted back on midges, scuds and sculpin, their three main foods.

Looking back on this past fall fishing season, there really hasn’t been any periods when trout fishing has been slow. Typically in the fall, we see fishing slow down because of the low dissolved oxygen or higher water temperatures, but fishing, or catching, has stayed consistently good all fall. Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery has kept up on stocking good numbers of rainbows, and it seems that once they’re stocked, they grow fairly fast. Their colors change from dull-hatchery gray to bright silver, reds and greens. The trout we’re catching now are fat, strong and sassy, pulling hard when hooked and then showing off their aquatic acrobatics.

As far as generation patterns and how to guess what may happen on any given day or weekend . . . typically little water is run on the weekends. Power demand is lower on weekends, but if the temperature dips below freezing early, generation may occur only in the mornings and be turned off in the afternoon. Otherwise, it’s hard to predict. For most of this week, dam officials are running water 24 hours a day. I’m sure that is to release water coming in from Beaver Lake. Once that water is through, we will start seeing less generation unless we get more rain.

Our scud population is very good right now, especially above Short Creek to the dam. As a rule, we fish larger scuds, up to size 8, when the water is running and smaller sizes when it’s off, down to size 20. But we are using size 10s during generation and size 14 when it’s not right now, at least in the restricted area above Fall Creek and below Lookout fishing from a boat. Below the dam while wading you may have to size down further to get bit. Honestly, I have not been up there since they’ve started shutting the water down — I’m only going by reports I hear from other anglers.

I did catch a few rainbows the other day while drifting orange PowerBait Gulp eggs between Fall and Short creeks and found their stomachs full of midge larvae. The larvae themselves were way too small to be imitated by our flies, but I bet the trout would still take a larger fly, too. We’ve had some incredibly big midge hatches lately, and the trout have seemed to target them.

As I mentioned, I did get out and fished the other day. I tried some different lures — tried a jig and float using a 1/32nd-ounce brown with a orange head jig under a float six- feet deep. Dam officials were running one unit that day, all day, and I tried to keep the boat where I was fishing the edge of the channel or in water that was about six- to eight-feet deep. I’d work or twitch the float just a little every four seconds to give the jig a little more action. The rainbows I caught were all bigger than the ones others were reporting. All my trout were 14 inches or more — and boy did they fight!

I didn’t change my technique as I drifted past Fall Creek. I stayed closer to the shallow side of the lake, targeting the same depth of water and kept picking up rainbows all the way down to Short Creek. The size of rainbows didn’t change either. I was amazed that these larger, older rainbows liked what I thought was a larger jig than I would normally use. I normally use a 1/100th-ounce jig or smaller when throwing a jig-and-float rig but left my small jig box at home.

Heading back up, I wanted to catch some rainbows for dinner so I started at Fall Creek and drifted PowerBait Gulp eggs on the bottom. I used a small, 7/0 spilt shot only, just enough to tick the bottom. I started with orange and caught two right off. They were smaller, whichis the size I like to eat. Switched to pink and . . . nothing. Back to orange and finished my limit before Short Creek. Now with one unit, the water is running pretty slowly, so I had lots of time to limit out in one drift. If I had been planning ahead, I would have known to pack night crawlers to drift live bait below Fall Creek. Night crawlers seem to catch bigger trout than Power Bait. But this worked out just fine.

Winter Forecast: What is a normal winter??? After the last three or four seasons, I’m not sure what is normal anymore. Global warming? Well to be honest, it was nice to have warm winters, if nothing else, to make it easy on the hands and face when fishing! But, alas, that mild pattern for a few years was tooo fleeting, and it seems we’re back to cold winters. Wet? We’ve had more ice than snow, which is irritating for sure. I like snow — a little. One snow and that’s all. It’s nice and pretty for an hour or so, but then we have to go out and deal with it. But no ice, please!! I guess I’m spelling out my wish list. No gifts this Christmas, please, just give me the weather that’s good for trout fishing!

All kidding aside, weather plays a big part in fishing. Ideally, I would like to see a cold, wet winter for our fishery. We need the lakes to get cold to be healthy for the rest of the year. We also need some generation to keep the food base in good shape for the trout. That’s it in a nut shell. I would also like to see a good shad kill (a natural shad kill on Table Rock), but this time I’d like to see the shad come through the turbines and into Taneycomo. Last year we saw lots of shad dying on Table Rock, but for whatever reason, they didn’t get down to the inlet vents at the dam-face. Threadfin shad are our trout’s dream Christmas dinner. It’s gives them lots of protein and makes them mature to be lunker trout in little time.

If you like to wade below Table Rock Dam when the water is off, you might be interested in a project that the Missouri Department of Conservation is working on, in conjunction with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Bass Pro Shops, to add fish habitat on Table Rock Lake and some of its tributaries, as well as Lake Taneycomo. These entities have donated $5 million to the five-year project. Thousands of cedar trees, hardwood stumps and rock piles already have been placed on Table Rock Lake.

They are conferring with local anglers on how to add structures below Table Rock Dam to enhance the fishery. Over the years, gravel has washed in the lake from unprotected banks, filling in once-deep channels and holes where trout used to rest from the current and anglers. The topography has evolved now to a large, shallow flat area with no structure to hold fish, so anglers move to areas where there are fish, mainly at the hatchery outlets and a few other places where there’s running water created by riffles and rocks. MDC wants to create new areas where fish will hold, spreading out anglers and giving them more choices on where to fish.

Work below the dam may start as soon as this spring.