Ernie Gulley - Professional Stillwater Fly Fishing Guide

Breakdown of the weekend at Crowley! Saturday my guide trip cancelled so I was able to go out and fish for myself! Big Hilton and Sandy Point have been setting the pace for most anglers, however I wanted to get away from the crowds and decided to fish Six Bays. Since I didn't have a trip I didn't get onto the lake until after 8am! Once I set up on the deep drop off, anchored in 15 feet fishing downhill into 20+ feet of water, I was immediately hooked up with a beautiful leaping 22" rainbow! These rainbows are super hot at Crowley and will show off there leaping ability every chance the get! Not long after his release I was onto a nice chunky 20" brown and the bite continued to be steady for the next few hours, with all fish in the 19" to 22" range! I ended up with six beautiful fish and after almost an hour without take down, I decided to move back into the North Arm and North Landing/Green banks area! I had not fished this area the entire beginning of the season because Hilton and Sandy were producing well for me! Once I moved back into this area I anchored up in 17.5 feet of water. There were only three other boats fishing, including another guide boat fishing with friends on his day off! I set my depth for 12" off the bottom and made my first cast! Within 90 seconds I was greeted with a beautiful 21" rainbow doing cartwheels out of the water, wow I said to myself, that's a great start! The other guide boat next to me had a double hookup and I knew this had the looks of being special! I landed on more small 15" fish, both on the top fly, then proceeded to miss 6 take downs in a row! After missing that many takes I knew one thing from the past, I needed to move my bottom fly up higher in the water column so the fish could more easily eat the bottom fly and not the top fly. The leader was not allowing the fish to take the fly into its mouth for me to get a good hook set! I moved the indicator so the bottom fly was three feet of the bottom now and hooked a nice 17" fish in less than two minutes time! I went on a solid run of takes, going at about a 50/50 hookup to miss ratio and then the bite died! Not a grab for over 45 minutes and the weather turned nasty and all boats around me pulled anchors and left! I was just thinking about doing the same thing when my indicator disappeared and I was on again, a leaping 19" brown, who said Browns don't jump at Crowley! The bite stayed steady for another 30 minutes and the wind shifted, started to rain and I decided to head in for a meatball sandwich! After my lunch break I went back out and explored about six different areas on the lake, including a 2 hour nap in the north arm and finished up the afternoon with 7 more grabs and no fish to the net! The storm front shut down the bite but I was looking forward to my next days guide trip and the weather looking good for Sunday. 

Just a small report on what to expect on this coming week leading into the Memorial Day Weekend at Crowley.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day and was initiated to honor the soldiers for the Union and Confederate armies who died during the American Civil War.

Celebrations honoring Civil War heroes started the year after the war ended. The establishment of a public holiday was meant to unify the celebration as a national day of remembrance instead of a holiday celebrated separately by the Union and Confederate states. By the late 19th century, the holiday became known as Memorial Day and was expanded to include the deceased veterans of all the wars fought by American forces. In 1971, Memorial Day became a federal holiday.

Just back from Crowley this last weekend! The lake is looking fantastic, a little tiny green color in the water but still fantastic visability. Bottom temps are still in the 54 to 56 range, not bad almost perfect for the trout! My brand new Hardy Zephrus Rods 10ft 5wt and Hardy Ultralight 5000 CA DD have been spanking the fish for me and my clients, if you want to try one out, book a trip with me or just shot me an email and if you are in the area, I wll let you try out one of these beautiul setups. The midge hatches have been very, very good. The midges were hatching so thick you could almost breath them in, the other factor is the midges are monsters. I feel a lot of the midges are in the size 12 catagory, this is the way it always works the midges are at there very largest in the beginning of the season and then progressly become smaller and smaller into the season.

Well friends, Crowley Lake opened with a little weather again this year with rain, snow, sleet, wind and it was very, very cold! Because I had guided trips to prepare for I was out in the middle of all of the weather systems with hundreds of other anglers and braved the elements.

Spring time is here, most of our lakes have thawed out and the fish are very hungry. Its always a great time to fish stillwaters since the fish are close to the shoreline edges of the lakes that have had ice on them for months. These fish are now looking to start putting on the feed bags and fatten up as much as they can. Midges, which in most stillwaters are around 85% of a trouts diet in the spring, are the main food source until other food items start to appear later on in the season. This is a great time for anglers now to sharpen up on your chrionomid fishing skills and have some fun in the process.