Trout Season Opens With Changes : New Regulations Mean More Catch-and-Release Fishing
Outwardly, things should look pretty much like fishing-as-usual Saturday morning, the same as any other Eastern Sierra trout season opening day.
The usual mob of about 15,000 will assault the waters of Crowley Lake when the opening flare is fired at dawn. And about 30,000 more will fish from boats, shores and streamsides at a hundred or so other lakes, creeks and rivers near Highway 395, between Lone Pine and Bridgeport.
But beneath the springtime veneer of blue waters and snowy granite peaks, profound changes in the way people fish for trout will appear for the first time since early in this century, when loggers and miners first sought Sierra trout.
Last year, the State Fish and Game Commission, acting upon Department of Fish and Game recommendations, enacted two regulation changes that some see as the beginning of an era of catch-and-release trout fishing in the Eastern Sierra.
The first change is a subtle but significant one. The bag limit at Crowley Lake, from Saturday through July 31, has been changed from seven fish per day to five. Significance: The fewer fish killed, biologists say, the more fish will result through natural reproduction.
The second change drastically alters the ground rules for fishing at most of Crowley’s tributaries. Beginning Saturday, fishermen at the Upper Owens River--including popular Benton Crossing--and at Crooked Creek, Convict Creek, McGee Creek, Hilton Creek, Whiskey Creek and Deadman Creek between Crowley and Highway 395 will be limited to the take of two fish, each of which must be at least 18 inches in length, and only artificial lures and flies with single, barbless hooks may be used.
Previously, Convict, Hilton and McGee creeks were closed for the first month of the season, and the limit was 10 at the others.
Practical result: Welcome to catch-and-release trout fishing. Or, say hello to the future.
“This is the most significant fishing step in fisheries management in the history of Crowley Lake,” said DFG biologist Phil Pister.
For years, DFG administrators have been telling the trout fishing public that its trout hatchery system was operating at peak capacity while the sales of fishing licenses continued to grow. And, the DFG has said, given the costs of operating a major trout hatchery--the utility bill alone at some state hatcheries exceeds $100,000 per year--the state would probably never build another trout hatchery.
By tightening up on the trout harvest at Crowley’s tributaries, the DFG hopes to reduce mortality on spawning rainbows and browns and increase natural reproduction in the Crowley/Owens system.
To be sure, these are changing times for trout fishermen in the Eastern Sierra. Folks in Mammoth Lakes, for example, are talking about turning the entire city into a state wild trout park, a sort of “California Yellowstone.”
Under a plan being drawn up by wild trout advocates in Mammoth Lakes, the Fish and Game Commission would be asked to declare all but one yet-to-be-designated body of water as catch-and-release fishing.
“We think Mammoth Lakes’ lakes and streams can grow some pretty big trout, if they were given a chance to grow,” local activist Dick Dahlgren said. “We think a lot of the fly fishermen who go to Yellowstone for their summer fishing vacations might wind up coming here.”
The folks in Bridgeport, about 50 miles up 395, went through this several years ago, with the East Walker River, when the commission designated it for catch-and-release fishing only.
Predictably, locals hollered something awful. But let Rick Rockel, who owns a Bridgeport tackle store, tell the story: “When it came down (catch-and-release status), everyone here, including me, screamed. We figured no one would come around. Well, the East Walker is now one of the state’s blue ribbon trout waters and if you tried to change it back to what it was before, people around here would fight you.”
But for this opener, there will beserious meat fishing. The carnage will continue at Crowley Saturday, despite the reduced limit. Late last summer, convoys of DFG hatchery trucks chugged up the 5,000-foot Sherwin Grade bearing something like 400,000 Crowley-bound sub-catchable rainbow trout.
In Crowley’s nutrient-laden waters, the little five-inchers have by now reached 10 and 12 inches . . . pan-size, as meat fishermen call them.
Incredibly, roughly one-third of those 400,000 fish will be caught and killed by fishermen this weekend.
The number of trout stocked would have been around 500,000, were it not for some skilled, feathered fishermen in the Eastern Sierra.
“We lost about 300,000 trout to blue herons, black-crowned herons and sea gulls at the Fish Springs Hatchery (near Big Pine) alone,” said Bill Rowan, Eastern Sierra DFG hatchery supervisor.
“We also have serious bird predation problems at our Hot Creek and Black Rock hatcheries. It’s the same old story--to correct the problem means covering the raceways (the long, open-air ponds where juvenile trout are raised) and that would cost money the state doesn’t have.”
While most of the attention Saturday will be focused on Crowley, many will await reports from a lake roughly 1% of Crowley’s size, tiny Gull Lake, in the June Lake Loop. On the last two opening days, more big trout came out of Gull than at Crowley or practically any other Eastern Sierra lake.
One Eastern Sierran who isn’t looking forward to Saturday’s opener is Capt. Ken Brown, the DFG’s law enforcement supervisor for the region. He envisions thousands of Southern California fishermen loading up their RVs with salmon eggs or treble-hooked, barbed lures and expecting to fish as usual at places like Benton Crossing and Convict Creek.
“I’m never thrilled at the thought of a bunch of new regs coming in at once, but this will be a tough weekend for all of us,” he said. “We’re sure a lot of people just haven’t gotten the word. But there are signs posted and a lot of flyers will be passed out. We’ll have about two dozen officers on patrol, plus some reserve personnel.”
Conditions seem to favor the fishermen, not the fish. It was a weak winter in the Eastern Sierra. Streams are running low, and roads are open to most high lakes.
Weather has been good all week. But as many have learned in the past here, Eastern Sierra weather forecasts aren’t worth the time invested reading them. And this week, that seems almost as bad an investment as going into the salmon egg business.
