

January’s weather held brisk and frigid temperatures for most parts of the month here in the Ozarks. These cold temperatures didn’t stop a hot trout bite here many days on Lake Taneycomo.
Since the beginning of December when Table Rock flipped over, our dissolved oxygen levels have been in the 10 parts per million range. That has made a huge difference in the bite. Take, for example, our first tournament of the year, the private Boswell Tournament. The winning bag weighed almost 16 pounds!
Generation from Table Rock has been fairly consistent from to week to week. Monday through Friday had mostly cold starts in the morning. From 5 or 6 a.m. until 11 a.m. or noon, one to three units were running, then turned off in the afternoon. On colder days, generation would resume for a few hours in the late evening. Most Saturdays we have seen the water off with the exception of the Boswell tournament.
With the higher water quality, the jig bite has certainly picked up many days. With the water running, 1/16- to 3/32-ounce jigs were the ticket in the color combinations of sculpin with an orange head; black and white, tri-olive and sculpin/ginger — both in and out of the trophy area.



Anglers also have been finding success during generation times with jerkbaits in the morning. A good example is the 110+1 French Pearl in Duane Doty’s signature series. We have seen some nice browns caught, again using this method (potentially indicating a comeback for the browns!)
The Missouri Department of Conservation also recently stocked browns, so many small ones have been caught as well. On a cautionary note, if you plan to keep a limit of trout to eat, be on the lookout for those little browns (since anglers may only keep one 20-inch or longer brown trout a day.) They can be hard to differentiate between small rainbows, so look closely before adding to your stringer or live well.
When the water is off, air-injected night crawlers on the bottom have still been a winning combo below Fall Creek, as well as the pink trout worm on a 1/80th or 1/100th head under a float — whatever puts the worm roughly a foot off the bottom.
In the trophy area, if not free jigging, a 1/50-ounce sculpin jig has been one of the best choices. Also, chartreuse or yellow mega worms have been working well. And when in doubt, an orange or yellow Miracle fly with a ruby or black midge underneath a float should do the trick.


