Lake Taneycomo- Chapter 1

This story took place about 12 years ago on Lake Taneycomo with one of my best friends.  I documented the story to share with my oldest son thinking that he might find something in it that would make him laugh or inspire him to have his own adventure.  I will be posting this story in parts because it is a pretty long read.  I've never done anything like this before and would love some feedback on whether I should do this again in the future or make this a one-time event.  Regardless, I hope you find it entertaining and/or interesting but also reminiscent of trips you have had in the past.

Let me preface this story with saying, this was the most prolific fishing trip I had ever been on and might ever have the chance to be a part of, but it was not without its obstacles.  It took place with one of my best friends, “Busch” as most people referred to him.  He was and is a pretty good size guy measuring at 6’4” and around 220 pounds.  He was an excellent high school football player and resembles the Elwood character from the Blues Brothers movies.  He is the type of friend that would back you up in a fight or tell you how much of a dingus you were depending on the situation.  His competitive juices are only matched by his sense of humor.  It is always an interesting dichotomy when Busch and I are competing in something.  There is always the sense of competition in the air, but somehow it gets softened by the laughter that takes place as well. 

Busch and I had met our freshmen year at the University of Central Missouri.  We ended up graduating from college on the same day, and even got engaged to our current wives in the same two week period.  We are more alike than I thought two people could be who are not related.  We renewed the same passion for the outdoors after college that we had missed while involved in college and fraternity life.  More specifically, we have always loved to trout fish together in southern Missouri, and this particular trip took place on Lake Taneycomo.

The thing about Taneycomo is that it is situated between Table Rock Dam and Power Site Dam.  It acts more like a river than a lake due to the fact that both dams control the current and water levels.  Catching fish is rarely an issue, but the problem lies mainly within Table Rock Dam.  When water is being used to generate electricity, water levels rise and current pick up.  At this point, a boat is a must, and we didn’t have one.  When water is not passing through the dam, some of the upper parts of the lake are accessible to wading fly fishermen.  Simply put, it has no schedule for running water through it though.  When the water was running, it makes wading and fly fishing extremely difficult if not impossible.  On this week though, not only did the fish cooperate, but so did our luck with the water generation.

We were about 25 years old and had our feet under us in terms of fly fishing experience.  We believed we would need to draw on this knowledge in order to tackle a new challenge that laid before us.  We had plenty of experience fishing Missouri trout parks but we felt like we had outgrown these spots.  We craved bigger fish and bigger challenges.  It was early summer when we arrived in Branson, Missouri, and had four days of fishing on the horizon.  Our first stop was Lilley’s Landing to pick up some flies that might entice some rainbows and maybe even some browns if we were lucky.  Recommendations included scuds with ice dubbing, zebra midges, and g-bugs.  Zebra midges imitated insects that were traveling up the water column in order to fly off the top of the water.  Scuds are freshwater shrimp that live between the rocks at the bottom of the water column.  G-bugs didn’t look exactly like anything, but looked a little like everything.  With optimism abounding and electricity in the air, we made our way to the trophy area.