Fishing Trips RARELY Turn Out as Expected!

Last weekend I got to hit Lake Taneycomo with my girlfriend Wendy, her mom and step dad, and a couple of their friends.  We were hoping to catch a few brown trout that are currently running upstream as well as tie into a few rainbows in the 18-19 inch range as well.  I have fished Taneycomo for long enough that I should be able to catch fish there pretty regularly.  The big ones have avoided me, but I feel like I can find and catch fish down there.  My excitement and enthusiasm were pretty high and I was probably guilty of overhyping things if I am being honest.  You probably see where this is going.

To say that this trip did not live up to expectations would be a gross understatement.  The first snag that we ran into was that Fall Creek Marina does not allow you to take boats upstream from Fall Creek.  We had intended to fish the trophy area which is located upstream from Fall Creek so this was a huge problem.  I don't blame Fall Creek Marina at all for this and we should have done our homework better.  We were saved by Lilly's Landing however and got two, 20 foot jon boats for the day and on short notice.  So things started to look up again.

The dam was running one generator so there was a little current and some of the shallow parts of the lake were a little deeper.  I started off by catching a rainbow that was about 6 inches (which made me wonder if it was a wild trout) but it was nice to get a bite.  A little time passed and I hooked into a decent fish.  It put up a heck of a fight and to my surprise, I actually landed it.  I'm always surprised when I boat a nice fish because I have lost so many at the boat before.  This was by far the highlight of the day for me.  

As we drifted through the bottom section of the Trophy Area we saw some really big fish and fished it pretty hard without a single bite.  The browns are definitely moving upstream but weren't interested in hitting what we were throwing.  The blue sky and clear water probably didn't help our efforts much.

After that things got slow.  Really slow.  The only thing that saved us was a great tip from Duane Doty (works at Lilly's and is also a guide).  He told us to fish around Monkey Island for stockers and that's exactly what we did.  Wendy, Sharon, and I all caught 4-6 fish each and the day was saved a little.  We hit the trophy area one more time after that but didn't catch anything noteworthy.

So while the trip was far from a failure (didn't sink a boat, didn't get skunked, and didn't tear up a prop), it was far from what I thought it would be.  But in life, things are rarely what we want or expect so I guess I should have been prepared for that.  It was a lesson learned but one I doubt I remember when planning my next trip.