Taney Revisited, May 2nd

I was suffering from lack of standing in a stream and they were not scheduled to run water at Taney until early afternoon.  That, coupled with the fact that a fishing buddy fished there the day before and had great success, prompted a quick trip to Branson. He reported that he and two others had nearly 100 trout; all caught on white flies. This was the same fishing buddy that suggested the little white lie when I was on the White river. With that in mind, I quickly tied on a purple and starling,  Actually it wasn't all that quickly, seems like those hook eyes are getting smaller.

Maybe I should have listened, 10 or 15 minutes and not even a take. White fly, not yet, I tried one of my caddis green soft hackles. An hour and a half  and many trout later I finally had to change flies, the one I started with was torn to shreds. Another green caddis and more fine fishing. 

With nature called and answered, I decided to change flies and see if I could still have some luck.  So back to the water and a purple and starling tied on again.  Yes, they still wanted to eat my fly.  Then the dread of Taney struck; the horn blew about 3 hours earlier than it was scheduled.

I headed up to the truck where I talked to the guy who was fishing just down stream.  As well as I did, he was catching almost two fish for each of mind. He was a retired math and phys ed teacher from southern Illinois.  We exchanged fishing tales and he showed me the pattern he was using.  I'll probably tie some and then use my soft hackles anyway. 

Biggest fish about 15 inches; most were football shaped but a few were more like torpedoes. One or two keepers on the short side, but they were still returned to the water. A good morning even though it was windy and cut short.  The fine fishing was followed by a burger at Dannas.

The fish below was caught just as the horn went off.  It was about 13 or 14 inches. Most of the fish were not very colorful.