Outdoor Notes : Mammoth Lakes May Seek to Be Trout Conservancy

The Mammoth Lakes Town Council will be asked later this summer to request that the Department of Fish and Game designate all fishable waters within the Mammoth Lakes city limits a wild trout conservancy, or a state wild trout park.

The Mammoth Lakes Resort Assn. has already endorsed the plan, which would affect 39 lakes and 40 miles of streams flowing inside the city. Backers say that emphasizing catch-and-release fishing as opposed to the present system of “put-and-take” fishing for hatchery-raised trout would within a few years improve anglers’ chances of catching trophy-size wild trout.

The DFG is already required by law to designate one lake and 25 miles of stream each year as wild trout waters, where zero-limits or other restrictions are in effect, to encourage wild trout fishing.

“As far as we know, no community has ever requested total wild trout management,” said Dick Dahlgren, a Mammoth Lakes fly fisherman who drew up the plan. “Mammoth Lakes is potentially a tremendous summer trout fishing area, but it’s never been managed right. Really, the fishing around here stinks, because the whole thing is based on dependence on the state hatchery system. We think the waters around here could support some excellent wild trout fishing if given the chance.”

Eastern Sierra DFG fisheries biologists are also wild-trout management advocates, but they also question how many waters in Mammoth Lakes are fertile enough to support wild trout.

“We have doubts over how many of those waters are productive enough to support wild trout, but we’d certainly take a long look at it if that’s what the community asks for,” Bishop-based biologist Phil Pister said.

Said Chuck Von Geldern, DFG supervisor for California’s Wild Trout Program: “I’m 100% for it personally, but we need to look at those waters and see if they have the type of fertility required to support wild trout. As a management agency, we’re obligated to those people to do what they’d like. But right now I can’t tell you if what they want would work biologically.”

Included in the proposal are all lakes and streams of all drainages inside the city limits, including Lake Mary, Twin Lakes, the streams and lakes of the Duck Pass drainage, Sotcher Lake, George Lake, Horseshoe Lake; and Sherwin, Laurel, Coldwater and Mammoth creeks. In addition, the proposal asks that the Upper Owens River from Big Springs to Crowley Lake be included, even though it lies outside the city.

Dahlgren said: “Put-and-take fishing around here is getting to be a joke. Sometimes you’ll see a dozen cars following a hatchery truck bumper-to-bumper, and casting at trout as soon as they go into the water. Sometimes an entire truckload of hatchery trout has been fished-out at Benton Crossing in four hours. We think with wild trout management, the same thing can happen in Mammoth as happened at Bridgeport--when more fishermen fished the East Walker River after it became a wild trout stream than before it went into wild trout management.”

The Mammoth Lakes Town Council will be asked by the city’s Resort Assn. next month to formally request DFG director Jack Parnell to designate the city a wild trout area.

Said Mammoth Lakes city manager Ray Windsor: “It’s an item of great interest in the city, particularly with 3 of the 5 Town Council seats up for election next Tuesday. I’m a member of the Resort Assn. and I voted to endorse the plan, but it’s too early to say what the Town Council will have to say.”

A wild gray wolf is whelping the American West’s first documented pups in 50 years, according to biologists at Glacier National Park. The den is in a remote western region of the park.

The wolf, nicknamed Phyllis by park biologists, was collared with a radio transmitter in 1984, and biologists have tracked her movements ever since. Phyllis is a member of a pack that roams between Montana and British Columbia.

Said biologist Bob Ream of the University of Montana: “The pups will be underground for 4 to 6 weeks. We probably won’t be able to see them before July.”

Grunion Season II begins Sunday on Southern California beaches, following a two-month hiatus. The first favorable tide for catching the silvery little “beach fish” is at 10:32 p.m., June 9.

Grunion, which spawn on wide, sandy beaches, must be taken by hand, and grunion grabbers must have sportfishing licenses. The last favorable tide for the grunion season is July 26.

Briefly

The application period for Utah big game hunting permits: June 15-July 8. . . . Arizona’s oldest state fishing record was broken when Earl McKay of Yuma, caught a 12-pound, 3-ounce largemouth bass in the lower Colorado River, breaking a mark set in 1950. . . . George Brett of the Kansas City Royals has been named honorary chairman of National Hunting and Fishing Day, Sept. 27. . . . Applications for Colorado limited hunting licenses for antlerless and antlered deer and elk, for all antelope and for muzzle-loading rifle hunters are due by June 10. . . . San Diego’s newest long range luxury sportfishing boat, the 90-foot American Angler, will be launched Saturday, with trips scheduled to begin Wednesday. Skipper: Dan Sansome.