There’s Gold at the End of Their Lines

CROWLEY LAKE, Calif. —  A winter-like storm blew through this region Friday night, and Saturday morning there were rainbows almost everywhere you looked.

Some were more radiant than others. Some were large, others small.

None was as beautiful as the one filling the eyes of Breeanna Cason. Or so the 8-year-old from Canoga Park believed, because she was the one who caught it.

“It weighed 2.08 pounds,” she said, inspecting her prize. “It was really hard to reel it in, so I asked my dad to help me.”

Her dad, with his back to his daughter at the Crowley Lake Fish Camp cleaning station, was getting some help as well, from some other adults in his group of seven. After five hours on the water, they had teamed to land 35 rainbow trout--five-fish limits for all.

“As you can see, we did really well,” Roger Cason said.

By about noon it was as clear as the powder-blue sky that everyone at Crowley had done really well. An estimated 7,000 turned out for opening day of the Eastern Sierra general trout-fishing season, and if any of them got skunked, they must have had one of those invisible dark clouds hanging over their heads.

Anglers stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the cleaning table and when one person finished there was always another to take his place. In every direction, people were walking around with loaded stringers.

Indeed, the Department of Fish and Game biologists who take care of this sprawling fishery just south of Mammoth Lakes and east of U.S. 395, had reason to be pleased.

When the final numbers are tabulated today or Monday, they are expected to reveal that the average opening-day angler at Crowley caught at least four fish, averaging more than a pound apiece, at a rate of about one per hour.

Crowley’s rainbows put on the greatest show--a 5.4-pounder was the biggest by late afternoon--but there were plenty of cutthroats in the mix, indicating that the DFG’s attempt to add some spice to the fishery with an ambitious cutthroat stocking program is working.

As for the opener in general, fishing was good to excellent from Bishop to Bridgeport.

Convict Lake produced the biggest fish, an 8.12-pound rainbow caught on yellow Power Bait by Mike Thomas of Yorba Linda. It also produced the biggest fish story, one with a raccoon swiping a stringer that held a 3.65-pound rainbow and running for the hills.

“Some kids yelled at it and he let go, so I still got my fish,” said Pat Bauer of Long Beach. “But he took it a good 10 feet up the hill.”

The higher lakes such as Convict were highly productive, as they usually are on opening day. But, as she seems to do every opener, Mother Nature was making her presence known and making anglers pay for their success.

At Twin Lakes in Bridgeport, fishermen braved snow, rain and, ultimately sunshine, but they could hardly bask as 30-mph winds were blowing them all over the water. Still, some nice fish were caught throughout the Bridgeport area, the nicest being a 7-pound 6-ounce brown trout caught by Ruben Black of Woodland, Calif., on a sinking Rapala at Lower Twin.

On the June Lake Loop, high winds were less of a factor at all but Silver Lake, but it was windy nonetheless, and bitter cold--so cold that Jordan Bickell, 13, of Cypress, almost cried. “I didn’t cry,” he assured, “but I was in so much pain I thought my toes were going to break off.”

By late afternoon on the Loop, an 8-pound rainbow caught at Gull Lake by Wayne Wallace of Alhambra was holding first place in the big-fish contest there.

Wallace, 53, said he was walking around in waders “just stupid-fishing with yellow Power Bait” when the big fish struck. “He bent me over well,” he said. “Then he ran off on a good run and crossed some other guy’s line, who then started yelling that he had a big fish. I had to tell him that the fish was mine and that all he had was a tangle.”

It takes two to tangle, and tangles come with the territory on opening day for all but the brave--read foolish--few who beat the crowds by starting their fishing before the sun is even close to rising.

Marlon Meade of Anaheim is one such person. Because fishing is legal 24 hours a day in Inyo County (night fishing is illegal in Mono County), Meade has it in his head every opener to be the first to land his five-fish limit.

He not only starts at midnight, but he does so on the upper reaches of Bishop Creek, where the temperature often drops to the point where toes will freeze unless properly covered.

Meade reported watching schools of trout swimming around under the light of a full moon, and that the moon affected the trout in a way that made them not want to eat his mini-jigs in the manner they usually do.

Still, he fooled some nice ones, including two rainbows in the five-pound class. Asked how cold it was, he said it was so cold that the eyes on his fishing rod kept icing up to the point where the line couldn’t pass through, “which also made fishing tough.”

It didn’t get much warmer, but fishing got better a few hours after the sun came up. The rainbows started to show in good numbers after about 10 a.m., the biggest and one of the most radiant a 7-pound 8-ounce Alpers Ranch-raised lunker that struck a Kastmaster being pulled through the creek by Glenn Hittner of the Bay Area.