Can quaggas be quarantined?

Folks headed to Crowley Lake for Saturday's opening of the Eastern Sierra trout-fishing season have received an earful about quagga mussels and the importance of keeping them out of the reservoir.

They've been ordered to remove wetness and debris from vessels and trailers, or risk being turned away.

They've been mandated to complete a survey explaining where they've been.

The dragnet has been spread as far south as Bishop -- where the Vons/Kmart parking lot serves as an inspection station -- for an alien mollusk that may be more feared than Moses Black and Leander Morton.

The two were the 1870s outlaws who broke prison in Nevada and became involved in a Wild West shootout just north of Crowley, at what is now Convict Lake.

Quaggas, recent arrivals to the West, have infested the lower Colorado River and aqueduct. Their fecundity would make rabbits jealous. They clog pipes and cement themselves to dams and, yes, boat hulls.

Thus the brow-furrowing concern among executives with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which owns and governs Crowley.

But another alien mollusk, which has already established itself in Crowley, is playing an indirect role in making this one of the promising opening weekends in recent history.

"It could be an epic, all-time opener," says Lane Garrett, manager of Crowley Lake Fish Camp.

"It's supposed to be 70-degree weather on Saturday and fishing should be fantastic."

New Zealand mud snails, also invasive though not as problematic, were found first in the Upper Owens, then Crowley, and last year were detected in Hot Creek Hatchery, a Department of Fish and Game broodstock production facility.

This forced DFG officials to modify stocking operations and distribute Hot Creek trout only to snail-positive waters, with Crowley as primary recipient.

Crowley last fall received a total of 521,166 rainbow and cutthroat trout.

That's nearly 100,000 more than normal, and those bonus trout, unlike the smaller fingerlings, were half-pound fish that may now weigh two-plus pounds.

Also included were 1,289 broodstock rainbows averaging three pounds apiece. They may weigh 5-6 pounds.

And this supplements millions of trout, including wild browns, already inhabiting the region's largest and most popular fishery.

Says Garrett, "I'm already seeing a lot of those big fish swirling around Whiskey Bay, where my rental boats are."

Add trout plants

Fish and Game hatcheries supervisor Dennis Redfern says that by the end of today 40,000 pounds of catchable rainbow trout, from two other hatcheries, will have been planted in Inyo and Mono counties.

"I'd say we'll be doing at least as good, if not better, than last year," Redfern says.