Beaver Tailwater as of now; 1129. 52 Level Power Pool 1121.43 Top Power Pool 1130.0 (Can only take half a foot before opening flood gates) Taneycomo Tailwater as of now; 927. 44 Level Power Pool 917.0 Top Power Pool 931.0 (Can only go up 3 1/2 feet before opening flood gates) White River Tailwater as of now; 692.57 Level Power Pool 659.0 Top Power Pool 695.0 (Can only go up 2 1/2 feet before opening up flood gates) Norfork Tailwater as of now; 570.77 Level Power Pool 553.75 Top Power Pool 580.0 (Can only go up 10 feet before opening up flood gates)

General Fly Fishing Report | Another Year for HIGH Water

General Fly Fishing Report 7-16-2015 /Lake Taneycomo, Norfork & White River I hope everyone is having fun out there in all this high water!! It’s going to be here for awhile my friends. We are almost in the same position we were in 2008. It would literally take one more big rain to change the whole dynamics to our tailwater fisheries. With saying that…you can still find lower flows if you are willing to drive a little farther. Table Rock suffers the most because of the run off and it’s a lake that is in the middle of the chain of commands; as far as, how they release water. It’s all a big science and if you go back and read my previous reports you will have a better understanding. I’ll break it down just a little bit on the way I see it going forward. I like to give honest information and that has always been important to me. People who write and always say “the fishing is great, come on down” is not how I operate at all. I’m always about the people and want your fishing experience to be the best it can be. In the last two months I’ve cancelled several trips due to the fact that fishing high water with rookies isn’t a great combination in my book. Yes, you will catch fish, but it will be few and far between if you struggle fishing with fly rods. I’m not in the business to take your money. I’m in this business to make customers happy and have the very best fly fishing experience possible. I know I can’t control mother nature or generation, but I can control how I want my customers fly fishing experience to be and that is the most important thing, even if I’m losing money. So the ones who are reading this, I want to say again that I appreciate your patience and understanding through this difficult time with heavy generation.

Table Rock – How I see it going forward..

Because Table Rock gets so much run off and then on top of that it has to deal with Beaver Lake dumping their water into the lake, it calls for a long process to get rid of not only all the water Table Rock has, it has to deal with all the water Beaver Lake has too. If you notice up top in the article on flows and how full the lakes are, you can see that both lakes are almost at max for what the lakes can store without running flood gates. It’s really bad if you think about it. Remember that one inch of rain usually fills the lake up a foot. So three inches of rain in the next week could do some catastrophic damage to us and the people who have places a long the rivers. Just to see that Bull Shoals is almost at flood stage should let you know how much water we have drained out of Table Rock this year alone. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bull Shoal’s starts running flood gates eventually. The only reason why they have not is because of Newport, Arkansas and all the farmers will loose everything they are trying to harvest. It’s really a big deal all the way around. Table Rock will continue to run 3-4 units around the clock until they can get the lake back down closer to 917.00. There has been a little bit of low water at night, but only for a few hours at the most. Like I keep saying, if you are willing to drive a little further you could go fish Beaver. It’s an hour away from Branson, but you will find low water because they can’t dump anymore into Table Rock at this time. They will try to wait and let Table Rock drain a little more before you see higher flows at Beaver. And that’s kind of how this whole thing works. You will find low water at one of our tailwaters even when our lake are full. Beaver isn’t ever going to fish like Taneycomo, but it does have a lot of fish and it’s easy on the fisherman who doesn’t have a boat. I know I wouldn’t drive all the way down here and NOT have a plan “B”. I see a lot of fishing reports that are being wrote and some of it’s true; as far as, the fishing goes, but it depends on how you are fishing and if you do have a motor boat to run back up and burn those fishing spots up that are productive. If you are thinking fly rods and drift boats are the way to fish Taneycomo right now, I would say you aren’t having that good of a trip. Just due to the circumstances of not being able to float enough water to have a good trip. Most the drift boat guides are dealing with a few spots that trout congregate in and give you have more opportunities to catch them because they are holding in eddy’s, or places that have little to no current, but then you have to ask yourself do you want to sit in one spot for several hours just to catch a few trout caught. I would rather not operate this way. The people that are having great success in higher flows are the people with spinning outfits that are either fishing bait or jigs. That’s what catches trout in high water like we have right now. The key to using fly rods I think is to find the lower flows possible and if that means you have to drive further to find them my advice would be to do just that. I talked about Beaver already, but the other place you will find lower flows is the White (probably not for long) or Norfork. Norfork is not generating most of the days until the afternoon so fishing has been HOT here. If I was to gamble with having the best day possible I would fish here in a New York minute! It’s the best fishery we have here in the Ozark’s and I keep saying that. All these brown’s you see in the photos are coming from this river and we aren’t catch one a day, we are catching several along with big rainbows as well. So to sum it up in a nutshell….you can either work your tail off for a few fish at Taneycomo or you hop in a car drive a little ways and then you have the time of your life and maybe the best fishing trip of your life. If you don’t believe me, take a trip with me and if your not satisfied then the trip is on me! White River – Hopper season is right around the corner! It’s been fishing fair, but again I’m not spending my time over here until I feel like the hopper bite is strong. Bull Shoal’s can only take on a little more water and that is coming because of Table Rock draining and the Corp not releasing heavier flows because of they don’t want to hurt the farmers. We all know that is bound to happen, we can just hope the crops are harvested before the big release happens. When we see high flows it can make for an exciting hopper season for sure. Heavier flows equals big fish pushed to the bank. That’s what we need in order to get the two footers. I’m kind of excited to see how this is all going to shape up. Either way I’ll be fishing this river hard in the next couple of months and I will have a detailed report for you. Norfork- Lots of quality trout being caught daily on this river!! Yes my friends…this is where I want to spend my time right now and for the rest of my life if this river keeps shaping up like it is. I’m sure a lot of you know that I’m a fan of this river. I won’t go into what I always say about this river because I’m sure it’s the same thing you keep hearing me say, but this river is truly amazing in all areas, whether you are dry fly fishing, nymphing, swinging soft hackles or streamers….this river has it all. This river is skinnier and shorter than the White and really does store a ton of fish. With that being said, it holds an abundance of 20 inch browns. One thing I will say that I have learned over here from fishing it as much as I do, is it’s hard to catch BIG browns. You can have a hay day on 16-21 inch trout, but the “world class” fish are always being caught on the White. I think some hold on the Norfork, but you just don’t hear the stories of people catching them over here. Occasionally you will hear of one being caught, but it’s always around the dock holes up top and it’s usually on bait. I did see a few hanging in the handicap stretch, but this river is so shallow and gin clear that they are spooky as all get out. I would say night fishing would be a easier method to hooking up with these monsters. Where have you been hiding? Not much updating these days you ask? Man….I just don’t have the time like I did when I was younger and I didn’t have so many responsibilities in my life. I have kids now and they are getting older and this demands more of me. Like they all say, family comes first. With saying that, I do have a lot of things going on in the background that I’m working on. It just boils down to where my time is being spent and how fast I can get these projects done. I’ve been building up my arsenal of tying patterns for the most part. I’m also building kits so those will be on the site shortly. I’ve also been tying more patterns that I can sell on the site. There is so much stuff that I used to fish that I don’t anymore and I would like to bring some of those patterns back because they are staple patterns that work all the time. I guess you can say us fly fisherman go through stages in this sport so there’s a lot of flies that just go to the way side because you are on to the latest and greatest patterns in the sport. It’s always about learning and challenging yourself as a angler to be a better fly fisher. That’s why we do it. I’ve been laying low developing, learning some new things and working on perfecting them and I’m just not ready to leak them yet because no one is doing them. The people who go fishing with me know what I’m saying, but I can’t give it all away, It’s how I make my living if you know. I really appreciate everyone’s support and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I think this year you will see more videos as well. I hope to meet some of you on the river this year!   If you would like to know more about fishing on Lake Taneycomo or Norfork in Arkansas and how they work well during certain times of the year you can send me a email directly to [email protected] if you are interested in booking a guide trip. Feel free to visit us on Facebook, If you really liked this article, +1 above – check us out at +flysandguides (Google+) or send us a tweet with a question or just to say hi. Check out the Fly of the Month!