Operation Crowley : Anglers Should Find More Than Good Fishing at the Popular Lake, Thanks to a Change in Atmosphere Provided by New Management

. . . Tent-covered structures such as might be found at an Alaskan fish camp . . . the look and feel of an upscale camp catering to patrons who travel to the Eastern Sierra for its world - famous fishing opportunities.

--The Sierra Recreation Associates in a 1992 bid to operate Crowley Lake

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The vision expressed in the prose above, Jim McInnes would like to think, is what carried the day.

McInnes is chief operating officer of Sierra Recreation Associates, which last year won the bid from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to take over management of Crowley Lake after 40 years under the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks.

McInnes said: “When we were trying to figure out what this should look like, (it was considered that) a large part of the fishing public has been coming here for 40 years, and those guys remember what the old fish camps in California were like before everything got modern . . . tent cabins, an older style, a more relaxed kind of fish camp atmosphere.”

So now it’s Crowley Lake Fish Camp, a nostalgic touch that SRA co-owners John Frederickson and Arnie Beckman hope will strike a chord with anglers young and old longing for the good old days.

SRA, which manages other campgrounds and marinas in the Eastern Sierra, won the bidding more than a year ago. But until the last month, it held only a five-year interim agreement to manage Crowley and didn’t want to commit to its full $500,000 proposal until it had a long-term lease. By the time a 15-year lease was signed, the winter’s heavy snows had combined to delay all but some basic capital improvements, valued at about $150,000. Work on tent cabins, a 55-site RV park, landscaping and other additions will start later this year.

But those same storms raised the water level so high that longtime resident Randy Witters says, “I don’t think I’ve seen it this high since before the drought.”

With the water content of the snowpack at 176% of normal, according to the DWP, it will only get better until reaching maximum level in midsummer.

SRA didn’t exactly promise that, but the timing was good for the resurrection of what McInnes maintains is the “most prolific still-water fishery in California--and maybe even in the Western United States.”

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Return now to the days of yesteryear, when Crowley was full of water and nearly everyone went home with a trophy trout. The Eastern Sierra season will open Saturday at 5:20 a.m., when the traditional flare goes up, an hour before sunrise.

There could be a few hundred boats on the lake, which was still mostly frozen last weekend but was expected to clear in time. Fish Camp Manager Don Schultz said his 85 rental boats have been reserved since early February and registration for private boats is up 20% from last year. The gate from U.S. 395 will be opened at 6 a.m. Thursday so fishermen with their own boats can launch early and avoid the Saturday morning rush.

SRA introduced that convenience last year. It also increased the hours and lowered boat fees, addressing two longtime sore points. The gate will now be open daily from daylight to dusk throughout the season, instead of cutting back to 8 a.m.-7 p.m. and closing on Tuesdays after July. Boats will be allowed on the lake beyond August, through September and October, and private-boat season permits are now $35 instead of $75. Owners will be issued card keys so they may enter and leave before and after hours.

Witters, president of the Committee to Save Crowley Lake, is delighted that a local private enterprise is delivering the kind of management and capital outlay the L.A.-based bureaucracy was unable to provide.

“They’re a thousand percent improvement over what we had before,” Witters said. “That’s one of the reasons our group got started. We felt that Recreation and Parks was running fishermen away. The fishing was bad enough.

“Now both things have turned around. SRA is people-oriented. They’ve got smiles on their faces.”

Bill Wisehart, another CSCL officer, went along on an electroshocking expedition with the California Department of Fish and Game one night last fall to study the potential quality of fishing.

“Even though the electroshocking can’t stun fish in depths over 10 feet, we still caught many brown trout (larger than) five pounds,” Wisehart said. “We also caught (Sacramento) perch that I know would have broken the state record--many in the four-pound class.”

The state record is 3.1 pounds by Jack Johnson of Carson in 1979. SRA will pay to mount the fish that breaks it. The perch suffered a severe, mysterious die-off four years ago but apparently have come back in size and numbers. After the trout, they are a lesser-known feature of Crowley exploited mainly by the locals. The Fish Camp plans to change that.

“We’re going to have a number of events built around the perch this year,” McInnes said.

The new operators also would like to dispel the idea that Crowley is for opening weekend only. If 28% of the fish are caught on opening weekend, it’s partly because that’s when 14% of the fishing occurs.

“Most people don’t realize what we have to offer here after the opener,” McInnes said. That’s just the beginning of some of the greatest fishing.”

Wisehart also participated in a season-long creel survey of anglers last year.

“Even though the fishing was very good during the opening of the season, it got even better as the season progressed,” he said.

The catch just changed. Most fishermen wouldn’t notice, but Crowley has three strains of rainbows. The Kamloops Junction and Coleman strains tend to be caught early in the season, giving way to the hardy Eagle Lake trout for Crowley’s “second” season that starts in August when the limit drops to two fish, minimum 18 inches.

Fish and Game planted 335,000 undersized fish--from six to 16 to a pound--late last summer, and by now, says Mike Haynie, supervisor of the DFG’s Eastern Sierra hatcheries, those fish have grown to three-quarters of a pound to one pound.

“We still have some concerns about the lack of a management plan from Fish and Game,” Witters said. “And the long-term project of determining the potential (benefits) that could be reaped by managing the grazing practices better. They’ve done some fencing that should keep the cows out of the stream and (prevent them from) beating those riparian areas to death.”

But McInnes says the cows might even improve the fishing.

“The food chain here is going to be astronomical,” he said. “There’ll be more feed in this lake than you can imagine, with all these cow pastures now under water. The fish will look like footballs. Fishing will be excellent. Curtis will still say that.”

Curtis Milliron is a DFG fishery biologist in Bishop. Crowley has been his baby for four years, and unraveling the mysteries of its depths--foremost, where did all the monster fish go?--has not been easy. Jim Edmondson of CalTrout once called Crowley “the black hole of fishery management in the world.”

But through some diligent scientific study, with hands-on assistance from groups such as CalTrout and the Izaak Walton League, some answers are evolving. A management plan is due next year.

Meanwhile, Milliron agrees with McInnes: The catches will run up to a pound, and about 13 inches in length, and nobody should be skunked. The catch rate was better than one an hour per angler last year--”one of the best years I’ve seen,” Milliron said.

“With the lake filling up to a higher level than what we’ve seen in the last several years, there is new vegetation and cover for small fish and nutrient enhancement from the (cattle) manure.”

Milliron added: “It will be a good nursery habitat for the perch and trout. This may lead back to why we haven’t had the great big fish (in recent years). I think they’re still there.”

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Schultz expects be ready for the onslaught. Last week he and a small crew were still digging dismantled docks out of the snowbanks, assembling them in the icy water and towing them into position in Whiskey Cove. Two other men motored boats along the edge of the ice pack to break it up and make room.

Schultz said, “I’m glad we got the winter we got, but we couldn’t do a lot we wanted to do.”

Even so, it will be better than last year, when SRA struggled with equipment left by Recreation and Parks. With ongoing maintenance and repairs, the boats won’t leak and the motors will run. But will the fish bite?

“It really does look good,” Witters said. “I think everyone’s going to be happy.”