Taneycomo Report Septemper 17,18,21, & 22 –  2020

Mid-September Taneycomo Report

The last couple of weeks have brought plenty of wadable water along the banks of Lake Taneycomo.

Last week we saw low water with a couple of hours of generation in the afternoons, with that came the slow bite that we often see this time of year.

I was out several times during this water release pattern and noticed that the amount of fish hooked was significantly down, until you could find areas of wind chop and then the bite turned on instantly.

When we could find those areas and Mother Nature was generous enough to blow up and down the river, all the staple midges, worms, and eggs worked well and produced some nice hard fighting rainbows.

We have an article in the article and tips section of the website that goes into detail titled WIND IS YOUR FRIEND and it is a key factor in this time of year.

Jeremy was out for a few days on Taneycomo as well and saw much of the same feeding patterns that I noticed.

This week the generation has picked up a bit; as far as, the hours they are generating and the amount of water they are releasing during these times.  Looking into what is in store for the weekend it looks like they will be decreasing the water release again much like the pattern we saw last week.

This should give everyone some more time to pull on those waders or just wet wade and enjoy some of that 80 degree weather before the temps start dropping off and the fall temps move in.

The higher flows are allowing those spawning browns to move their way up the Missouri Department of Conservation fish ladder at the Shepard of the Hills Fish Hatchery.

So for every wave of big browns moving in, there is just a small window to try and get fly in front of them before they continue their journey up stream and up the ladder.

If any of you have fished with us before we prefer to not anchor in one particular spot and like to keep the boat on a drift when at all possible.

I have been in the raft for a few trips and this tactic has made drifting in the wind, even the slightest gust of wind difficult.

This week the wind has been welcomed and when it picked up and would move the raft up river the anchor went down along with strike indicator after strike indicator!

When drifting and covering water we get the opportunity to see just what all is out there.

Whats out there? Brown trout, BIG brown trout, that have made their journey up river to spawn, that is what is out there!

They didn’t get that big taking every fly that came in front of them, that’s for sure!

These browns are extremely line shy, but when we have those overcast skies the opportunity arises to get the flies down in front of their faces and unfortunately the ones that we have been able to decieve have gotten the best of us.

Healthy Handling

For every trip I go out, I see more and more bigger dead fish along the bottom and this is just the beginning.

Is this something new for this time of year?

Absolutely not, despite the injection of liquid oxygen from the dam the dissolve oxygen level is hard to maintain in this manner.

So we all know, but it’s always worth repeating, when we go out and fight these trout and the added stress we place on them, we need to be mindful and spend just as much time if not more (for the big guys) than it did to land them, before we safely release them back in the lake.

With the low DO levels even the best fish handling techniques can go south.

When we go fishing at night, the browns have their gaurd down and hey that’s why we are out there.

Unforturnately, we are at a disadvantage of knowing if they swam away strong only to struggle trying to regain their strength down river.

We all want those grip and grin photos, and by all means should be taking one if we get a chance, but we all need to be mindful when we do.