We had flood gates open at Table Rock Dam last week and through the weekend… but there’s no flooding. The Corp is working on the intake screens on the lake side of the dam. Divers have to go down and pull off dead catfish and other nasty things that have piled up over the past few years on these grates. Of course, for that to happen, the turbines have to be offline, but because of the lake levels on Beaver and Table Rock, the Corps need to move some water so over the spill gates it came… bringing all kinds of fish with it including threadfin shad.

Trout fishing was incredible over the weekend because of this flow, and the trout are still looking for shad now that the gates are close and turbines running, but it has slowed down.

They’re running anywhere from 1 to 3 units, and with rain in the forecast, it’s not going to slow down any time soon.

So fishing in the trophy area has been pretty good, throwing white jigs, spoons, small stick baits and shad flies. And these lures are still working well all the way to the Branson Landing because the shad drifted down that far.

We’ve been seeing a bunch of big trout caught (and released), mostly browns but some rainbows too.  These beauties were caught by Chuck Gries’s clients right in the middle of the shad run.

We’ve been catching most of the bigger trout up close to the dam on white jigs, shad flies and spoons.

And there’s been a fair number of bass caught, although not as many as other flood gate events in the past.

The best catching has been from Monkey Island down through the Landing. MDC stocked quite a few rainbows late last week and it’s been pretty crazy.

Best thing to drift with is pink or orange PowerWorms in the bottom, or if the water isn’t running too hard, under a float 5-7 feet deep.