shinbob
06-10-2016, 05:44 PM
Took a few days off to go up to Crowley with my boat – first time ever having my own boat up there, and only the third time I’ve ever fished Crowley. Got a slip for my boat – love the convenience of not having to launch and load each day! Was looking forward to some great perch fishing, and was not disappointed, although I can’t really say it was WFO.
The perch are definitely up in the shallows, although I did have trouble finding them at first. I checked all the places people recommended – Crooked Creek, Hilton, McGee, Green Banks, all produced nothing. McGee in particular was mentioned as a hot spot in a report I saw online, and it definitely looked very perchy, but I just wasn’t able to locate a school there. It is a huge area though, and maybe I was just in the wrong places. Finally was able to find them at Leighton Springs, in about 5-10 feet of water. Based on Smitty’s reports, I tried out his 2” sierra slammers in brown/green (not sure what the official color name is), and those were definitely the hot bait in the beginning. Only problem was that the Crowley Lake tackle shop only had one pack remaining, and the perch chewed through them pretty quickly (plus I lost one, with the jighead, on a bad knot).
Switched over to 2” Berkley Power Grubs in white/tan – while they seemed to work just fine as well (as long as I could find where the perch were), the sierra slammers definitely produced the larger perch. It was a noticeable pattern – those little swimbaits produced perch that were upwards of 1.5lbs, while the grubs tended to result in perch on the smaller side of that mark.
http://i.imgur.com/iBbgoN8.jpg
Also tried my luck at the trout – first using midges and nightcrawlers with no luck (but I really get bored with bait-and-wait, so I only tried for 2-3 hours on the first day), then tried trolling. Was able to catch a few cutthroats on the troll – all on Tasmanian Devils in a frog pattern, on leadcore at 4 colors in ~30 FOW. The most consistent area for me was right in front of these guys:
http://i.imgur.com/ncOpU6v.jpg
I always thought those were petrified trees, but Wikipedia tells me they’re some kind of mineral pattern generated from snow melting through volcanic ash. Either way, they’re really cool looking.
By the way, I would never have guessed in a million years how effective those Tasmanians are for trout – they don’t look like they should work, but for some reason the Crowley trout really like them. And the Crowley Lake Tackle Shop must be the world’s #1 retailer for them – they have an entire aisle dedicated to them, literally hundreds of different colors and sizes.
http://i.imgur.com/QaEkHxo.jpg
But just couldn’t resist going back to the perch. Was averaging about 20 per day for the first two days - I tried to release all the obviously pregnant females, and of all the fish I cleaned, only 1 had eggs still in them, so hopefully I didn’t make too much of a dent in the population (which people tell me is down from years past). Then with my fish taco quota met and my freezer full, switched to catch-and-release.
http://i.imgur.com/r61HAYi.jpg
Overall a great trip on a great lake, lots of fun, SO much better having my own boat there, with a real trolling motor, fish finder, and three big group 27 batteries, instead of those tin can rentals I’ve used in the past. Hope to repeat next year, but next time I’ll probably try a little later in June to see if the Perch are more active then.
The perch are definitely up in the shallows, although I did have trouble finding them at first. I checked all the places people recommended – Crooked Creek, Hilton, McGee, Green Banks, all produced nothing. McGee in particular was mentioned as a hot spot in a report I saw online, and it definitely looked very perchy, but I just wasn’t able to locate a school there. It is a huge area though, and maybe I was just in the wrong places. Finally was able to find them at Leighton Springs, in about 5-10 feet of water. Based on Smitty’s reports, I tried out his 2” sierra slammers in brown/green (not sure what the official color name is), and those were definitely the hot bait in the beginning. Only problem was that the Crowley Lake tackle shop only had one pack remaining, and the perch chewed through them pretty quickly (plus I lost one, with the jighead, on a bad knot).
Switched over to 2” Berkley Power Grubs in white/tan – while they seemed to work just fine as well (as long as I could find where the perch were), the sierra slammers definitely produced the larger perch. It was a noticeable pattern – those little swimbaits produced perch that were upwards of 1.5lbs, while the grubs tended to result in perch on the smaller side of that mark.
http://i.imgur.com/iBbgoN8.jpg
Also tried my luck at the trout – first using midges and nightcrawlers with no luck (but I really get bored with bait-and-wait, so I only tried for 2-3 hours on the first day), then tried trolling. Was able to catch a few cutthroats on the troll – all on Tasmanian Devils in a frog pattern, on leadcore at 4 colors in ~30 FOW. The most consistent area for me was right in front of these guys:
http://i.imgur.com/ncOpU6v.jpg
I always thought those were petrified trees, but Wikipedia tells me they’re some kind of mineral pattern generated from snow melting through volcanic ash. Either way, they’re really cool looking.
By the way, I would never have guessed in a million years how effective those Tasmanians are for trout – they don’t look like they should work, but for some reason the Crowley trout really like them. And the Crowley Lake Tackle Shop must be the world’s #1 retailer for them – they have an entire aisle dedicated to them, literally hundreds of different colors and sizes.
http://i.imgur.com/QaEkHxo.jpg
But just couldn’t resist going back to the perch. Was averaging about 20 per day for the first two days - I tried to release all the obviously pregnant females, and of all the fish I cleaned, only 1 had eggs still in them, so hopefully I didn’t make too much of a dent in the population (which people tell me is down from years past). Then with my fish taco quota met and my freezer full, switched to catch-and-release.
http://i.imgur.com/r61HAYi.jpg
Overall a great trip on a great lake, lots of fun, SO much better having my own boat there, with a real trolling motor, fish finder, and three big group 27 batteries, instead of those tin can rentals I’ve used in the past. Hope to repeat next year, but next time I’ll probably try a little later in June to see if the Perch are more active then.