So, I’ve had this recurring “issue” on my last few trips to Taneycomo when the dam wasn’t generating or was barely generating…
Yesterday’s events were typical of what’s been going on. So I’ll just tell you what happened yesterday. Hopefully, the guides out there who read this will stick it in the backs of their minds and try not to fall into this trap.
My wife and I waded into the water yesterday with no generation. Across the river, there’s a guide I know in a new boat with a father-son pair of clients. He’s yelling at them…“set…set the hook…NOW…stop your cast…stop it…stop it HERE, I said” THE WHOLE TIME. If one of them hooked up, he hooped and hollered to make sure everyone on the river knew his client caught a fish. “Everyone” was pretty much US.
As we entered the stream, another guide up from AR puts his river jon in at the ramp. He’s talking to another guide who is just standing at the ramp doing some ad hoc “advertising.” He says he didn’t even bring a rod/reel, but came up just to “test his new prop” …in the trophy zone wade fishing area on a rare “no generation” day. :shock: Thanks, dude! There’s only like 2 dozen ramps on Taneycomo BELOW the wadable water.
After about 1/2 hour, these chuckleheads clear out except for the motormouth with the built-in bullhorn in the brand new boat. He continues to make a spectacle of himself until he drops his clients off at the ramp at noon. Then he backs the boat back off the ramp and heads right back to the same spot (that you can wade to). We’re talking 15’-20’ jonboats with 5-25hp motors, folks. Now he’s fishing alone…talking on the cell phone, false casting extremely excessively like he’s trying to imitate Brad Pitt’s “shadow casting,” and slapping the water violently with his fly rod several times every few minutes ostensibly to “clear moss” or something. Then he moves his boat right over into the immediate area my wife and I are wade fishing and starts casting right into our drifts. He’s talking to us telling us “how to fish.” This goes on NON-STOP for like an hour. Then his dad shows up at the ramp and he picks him up. They come right back up and camp out on top of us again! More non-stop unsolicited “instruction,” but now in stereo! We got out. Immediately, the dynamic duo head downstream and out of sight. Whew! :?
My wife and I refilled water, ate a snack, and headed for another spot I suspected would be productive given the conditions. We waded in and began fishing. We caught several small trout right away on zebra midges on a shallow shoal that EVERYONE knows is there. We’re talking 6-18" of water for a couple hundred yards in all directions. The channel is like 100 yards from the bank and we’re about 20 yards from the bank. And here they come back upstream. I assumed they’d stay in the channel as they were not fishing. HECK NO! They motor right over to within 10’ of us while we’re fishing and dad says, “They’ve started midging in here, haven’t they?” I said yes and he says, “Yep, I knew they would.” (along with about 1,000 other non-guide fly anglers who fish Taneycomo every now and then) Jr. says to my wife, “Yeah, this is a good spot. We fish here all the time.” And they motor upstream of us. About 50 yards upstream, Jr. looks back at us, points to a spot about 20’ toward the bank from his boat and says, “There’s a 6 lb rainbow right there.” And he motors off. My wife says, “What a jack***.”
We then caught a few more fish after things settled down again. The dam horn sounded four blasts awhile later and we knew we were done. We hiked up the trail to our car where yet another “guide” was hanging out in the parking lot. He asked how we had done. I said, “so-so.” He says, “I’m a guide here on Taneycomo. You want to know what they’re biting?” I said, “Didn’t you hear the horns? They’re turning on 4 generators, dude. Whatever they WERE biting on is irrelevant now. And we’re leaving.” I guess from my tone he realized I had had all of the “guide advertising” I wanted for the day. So he left us alone to secure our gear in peace.
Gang, this isn’t “public relations.” This isn’t appropriate professional conduct. This isn’t “public service.” THIS IS OBNOXIOUS HARASSMENT. And from now on, I’m going to start telling y’all exactly that…and probably loud enough for others to hear it.
And, fyi, you’ve got NO BUSINESS with motorized boats upstream of Pointe Royale on no generation!
