Crowley Lake

Crowley Lake in the Long Valley of the Eastern Sierra is California's most celebrated stillwater fly fishing destination — a 5,000-acre high-desert reservoir at 6,781 feet elevation that produces some of the largest rainbow and brown trout in the state, sustains an extraordinary chironomid population, and draws fly fishers from across California for its legendary opening day fishing every last Saturday in April. The opening day tradition at Crowley is one of California fly fishing's great events — as the lake thaws and chironomids begin their first mass emergences of the season, thousands of trout that have been undisturbed through winter concentrate in the shallows and feed aggressively on suspended pupae. Float tube anglers who position themselves over productive weed beds and work large chironomid suspenders at the correct depth can experience some of the fastest stillwater fishing in California. Crowley's fish are extraordinary — rainbow trout averaging 2–5 pounds with exceptional specimens over 8 pounds are caught each season, and the brown trout that inhabit the deeper sections average even larger. The California Department of Fish & Wildlife stocks the lake with both rainbow trout and Eagle Lake rainbow (a distinct strain that grows exceptionally large in stillwater environments), supplementing the wild fish population. The Eastern Sierra setting — the Long Valley caldera, the volcanic landscape of Hot Creek, and the Sierra Nevada's eastern escarpment towering above — gives Crowley a unique high-desert stillwater character that the more famous western-slope California lakes cannot match.