Our first Lake Taneycomo trip of 2019 took place this past weekend (March 8-10) and as usual was a fun trip. This trip happened to be an Illini trip (Chicago boys and one down state guy). Ron “Berwyn Bear” Fiala, Craig “the pastor” Baldacci, Ken “the Chicago transplant” Bryan, Bob “Bellville” Beckett and Kenny “always a Chicago boy” Klimes took this 3-day trip to the big LT. With this crazy weather this winter, the gang didn’t know if they would freeze, get flooded out or just plain get lucky – well, the latter happened.
Ron, Craig and Ken drove down from Chicago to stay with Kenny on Thursday night. Then on Friday, they met up with Bob and the five headed down to LT. An interesting turn of events happened at LT as they Corp of Engineers had to work on the Table Rock Dam generators and turned them off BUT they opened two flood gates to continue releasing water. This caused a steady flow of around 3500cfs which we figured would be good enough to be able to wade fish LT. And it was! Of course, we couldn’t fish the entire area that we normally fish at Pointe Royale, but we did cover enough water to fish LT all three days.
Friday afternoon the guys ate lunch at Dana’s, hit the Riverrun Outfitters fly shop, checked into the condo and hit the waters. The catching was fair as they tried to find where the trout were hanging out. Ron brought his spey rod and caught several trout by swinging small streamers. The others caught fish with buggers, midges and scuds. Friday was topped off with a great pasta dinner with the Italian sauce coming all the way from Chicago – made by a real Italian (Craig!).
Saturday morning, they hit the water running – the flow was still strong at around 3500cfs and the LT level was at 706 feet. Most fishing was done closer to Andy Williams’ house. Again, midges, buggers, scuds and tiger tails seemed to do the best. Kenny was waiting for the midges to hatch as small foam bubbles were forming in the eddy in front of Andy’s house. If this happens the trout come to the surface and start sipping the midges out of the foam. It didn’t happen but what did happen was the wind. As the wind picked up to 50 mph the casting was close too impossible, and the guys had to retreat to the condo to wait it out. Unfortunately, the Corp started to push more water out of Table Rock Lake and the LT levels rose to 710 feet – too much to be able to fish. The rest of Saturday was shot – no more fishing.
On Sunday, the temperatures turned cold again (did I mention the water temperatures were FREEZING?) but the wind died down and the guys attempted to fish again. Craig and Ken fished for about two hours and had to call it quits and start back for Chicago. Kenny, Ron and Bob continued, and it was a good thing. The trout showed up sipping midges in the foam in the Eddy by Andy’s. Soft hackles went on the line and the catching began again. Finally, after about four hours in the water the three couldn’t feel their legs anymore and it was time to leave.
This was a fun trip. Remember it’s not all about catching fish – fellowship and new friendships! There were lots of funny stories but most of them are the “you had to be there “kind. The weather MUST warm up soon. And when it does let’s all get out there and fish!!!
