Eagle Lake in Nor Cal is good already......

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Had several good reports from Eagle Lake last week.

Terry Thomas and Sam Dasher are up there today.

Normally November is the big month up there but some brave souls like December too.

You might stay away from the full moon if you go?

[Troutstalker55B]

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i424/moto55b/a88.jpg

Eagle Lake, Fly Fishing, and Trout Dogs Forever!

[catch&release]

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i424/moto55b/a88.jpg

Eagle Lake, Fly Fishing, and Trout Dogs Forever!

Going up to Eagle for Three days this coming weekend, hear its fishing off the hook. Looking forward to hammering some fatties and finaly fishing alittle for myself!

Let you know how it was.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Report tonight from iPad by Terry Thomas at Eagle Lake today:

"Had a good afternoon on Eagle today. Fished Jay Fair's flies with his synthetic material for the first time. Very impressed! Landed 9 Rainbows and broke one off in ~2 hours. Fished the burnt orange, rust, and olive. All three patterns seemed to work well."

[catch&release]

Going up to Eagle for Three days this coming weekend, hear its fishing off the hook. Looking forward to hammering some fatties and finaly fishing alittle for myself!

Let you know how it was.

Weather is miserable but fishing is very, very good. 59 fish in two days. Punk Perch patterns are killing them.

[Troutstalker55B]

Wow Ernie! Those are big numbers for Eagle but you do have some serious stillwater skills. Not surprised the Punk Perch pattern knocked em dead, those Eagle Lake rainbows are an angry trout and if you can just get your fly in front of them this time of year they will hammer it. Those 12 hours behind the wheel were worth it :p I'll be up there soon enough when I get my ducks in a row. Thanks for the report!

[catch&release]

Wow Ernie! Those are big numbers for Eagle but you do have some serious stillwater skills. Not surprised the Punk Perch pattern knocked em dead, those Eagle Lake rainbows are an angry trout and if you can just get your fly in front of them this time of year they will hammer it. Those 12 hours behind the wheel were worth it :p I'll be up there soon enough when I get my ducks in a row. Thanks for the report!

Just got back, unloaded the truck and sitting down to relax. Made great time comming back. Left at 11:30 and just barley made it over the pass on the A1 road into Susanville. If I would have waited until dark like I was going to it would have been a very bad situation.

In the water this morning at 7:45am and fished to 11am. Ended up with 26 trout, all on the punk perch pattern. Fished the whole morning sitting on a rock pile point in 6 feet of water fishing down hill into 7 to 8 feet of water and crushed them on the double punk perch pattern I fish at Crowley and an indicator. Sorry Jon, had to fish with my specialty the last few hours I had at Eagle and landed again 26 fish and lost at least a dozen more. They Love the PUNK PERCH PATTERN. I was looking at the griebs (birds) and almost every time they went down by my tube they came up with a tui-chub in there mouth. These big fish are feeding heavily on the bait balls running in along the shallows and you can catch these fish anyway you want to fish for them.

I caught fish from shore fishing a slow sinking line called SLOW GLASS made by Airflow, this is an older line but I love to fish it in 5 feet or less because the sink rate is 0.5 to 1.5 per second and is perfect for shallow water applications when you have alot of wind to deal with, it doesnt get pushed around like a floating line will.

I fish from my tube in 6 feet of water casting down the shore line and stripping and also casting right into the shore line in 3 feet of water and caught a good percentage of fish in 4 feet of water. I am convinced you could use a ladder there just like at Pyramid to get out alittle farther and cast into 5 feet of water along the beaches with the slow inclines and do very well. The next time I go up I will bring my ladder and modify the bottom so it wont sink down into the mud.

Stripping out of your tube of course worked great, you could follow the podes of fish around and do well. Takes were very soft, most of my stripping out of the tube were long cast into shallow water and a pretty violent strip and they seemed to like the faster retrieve even though the water was colder.

Finally, sorry Jon my specialty, setting up in the fish lane and indicator fishing in the path the fish were running along the shore line. This was by far the best way to fish for big numbers but I did like to fish the other styles too. It is truely hard to fish a better way than the indicator when you find the path of the fish. We all know how to tell when we get strikes, the indicator is not for that reason but to KEEP THE FLY IN THE ZONE way longer than any other method of presenting the fly to the fish.

Dont mean to offend, just solid logical reasoning but I know its not for everyone. Ended up with a total of 80 fish in less than 2 1/2 days. If you are going to go to Eagle, NOW IS THE TIME.

I fished many flies but the punk perch was by far the best fly I used.

Hope this helps.

[Troutstalker55B]

You're a nutcase Ernie, you've got the disease they call a catchaholic! Don't be sorry for hammering fish on an indicator. I preach that as a stillwater angler we should have a variety of skills that we can pull from at anytime, just like tools in a carpenter's belt that we can pull and apply. Now you can understand why conventional anglers who wind drift the shallows with a bubble and a white jig do so well when the baitballs are active and the trout are on them. Good stuff and thanks again for the report.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

One of my customers years ago would spin fish Eagle Lake from shore with a big bobber and a long white marabou jig with great success in the winter. He said the wave action was the trick......

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

What does a Punk Perch pattern look like?

__________________________________________________ ____________________

From SteveO:

http://stevenojai.tripod.com/punkperch.htm

[catch&release]

What does a Punk Perch pattern look like?

__________________________________________________ ____________________

From SteveO:

http://stevenojai.tripod.com/punkperch.htm

Bill, I have posted a picture of both colors of the punk perch pattern and pictures of my trip on my web site at www.erniegulleyflyfishingguideservice.com under the blog header.

I will try to also post it on this site if I can.

Thanks for the interest

[catch&release]

One of my customers years ago would spin fish Eagle Lake from shore with a big bobber and a long white marabou jig with great success in the winter. He said the wave action was the trick......

Bill there were a dozen guys who showed up fishing spinning rods with the large indicators so they could throw it out a mile. The problem was when i talked to them they said last week the fish would just rip down the indicator but they werent having very much success this week. I told them that the strikes i was getting from the fish even when i was stripping were very, very soft. I thought they were getting bite but could just not tell because the indicator they were using was very large. My indicator was the size of a dime and sometimes they wouldnt even pull it under, just move it sideways or shorten it up meaning pulling it down about a half inch so the indicator looks like it has water in it and rides lower in the water and I hung allot of fish on just that type of strike on my indicator.

Just a thought.

[catch&release]

5839
Bill, I have posted a picture of both colors of the punk perch pattern and pictures of my trip on my web site at www.erniegulleyflyfishingguideservice.com under the blog header.

I will try to also post it on this site if I can.

Thanks for the interest


Here is the picture I use in my Crowley Lake Fishing Tactics power point presentation. The other flies are the Loe-Berg, didnt have any luck on them at Eagle but was great fly this year at Crowley Lake.