I arrived at Bayley Sunday morning about 9:30 and was pleased to find only 4-5 other boats on the water. I did not start fishing until 10:00 and by 11:00-11:30, pretty much everyone else had left. The fishing from what they told me that morning was pretty slow, with guys taking a few fish here and there. My first hour on the lake yielded 4 hookups, landing two (both rainbows 10-12") fishing chironomids in about 10-12 feet of water. The sun was out and by noon or so it had warmed considerably and the fishing really picked up from there on out. I continued fishing chironomids as they was a fair hatch of larger midges coming off (grey, size 10-12) as well as some smaller midges that were 18's or 20s. There were tons of pupal shucks in the water, most being 14's or 16's with some 10s and 18s as well. I could not get a read on the exact color of the naturals, but fish today took both black and olive green imitations with green being the most productive color of the two. Sizewise, a 14 was the most productive today for me, but the fish did not seem totally particular to size. I took fish on imitations as large as 10-12 and a number of fish on size 18-20 chironomids. Depth wise, all fish were caught with my strike indicator 6-9 feet above my fly. This approach managed to bring about 20-25 hookups, 15 or so landed in about 3.5 hrs of fishing. I also had a number of takes which I missed setting the hook on, but I am sure a more proficient chironomid angler than myself would have had hookups on these "strikes", which at times were very subtle. The largest fish went about 17-18 inches with most in the 10-13 inch range. In talking with some guys the evening before who fished it on the opener they also indicated that this was the typical size range of fish they had caught on Saturday. All in all, it was a good start to the year.

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