Tackling the Trout : Lake Casitas: Even before a truckload of fish hit the water in the first plant of the season, the fishermen were lined up and ready.

The poor little rainbow trout never had a chance.

More than 13,000 of them were brought by truck all the way from an Idaho trout farm to Lake Casitas in Ojai on Tuesday.

And as soon as the truck reached the lake, a caravan of 10 cars and trucks was on its tail.

Even before the fish hit the water, fishermen were circling in their boats and perched on the beach of the Santa Ana Marina, waiting for a quick catch.

“Look at them lining up out there,” Eugene Croxen of Ventura said. “I’d like to see (the trout) have a chance to swim around out there.”

“It’s not too sporting to catch them as soon as they’re out of the truck,” Angelo Novak of Ojai agreed. “They’re disoriented and confused. Give them a day or two to settle out.”

But Croxen and Novak were in the minority at the first trout plant of the season at Lake Casitas, where the fish were jumping and the fishermen were hungry.

As truck driver Dick Smith readied a blue plastic hose to pump the fish into the lake, a little boy twirled his pole impatiently over his head like a lasso. He would soon join the others with bait and hook.

Smith had driven his truck 18 hours from his Lost River Trout Farm in Mackay, Ida., and then, directed by park rangers, into some very soft asphalt at the water’s edge.

His tires sank into it as if it were sand, anchoring the truck with 5,000 pounds of fish.

Only 2,000 pounds of trout were intended for Lake Casitas. But the only way to free the truck was to empty another 3,000 pounds of trout intended for Buena Vista Lake in Kern County.

As Smith used a backhoe and other heavy equipment to free the truck, local fishermen licked their lips in anticipation.

“A stuck truck is the best thing that can happen to fishermen,” Lake Casitas Ranger Brent Doan joked.

Bystanders whispered excitedly about the chance to catch more and bigger fish--20% of the trout meant for Buena Vista were five to eight pounds each, compared to the one-pounders usually put into the Ojai lake, park services manager Doug Ralph said.

But not everyone was pleased.

The unexpected windfall for fishermen proved to be an expensive proposition for the park management, to the tune of $1.65 a pound. The Casitas Municipal Water District, which manages the park, had intended to spend only $3,300 on 2,000 pounds of trout Tuesday, but had to fork out $8,250 for 5,000 pounds instead.

As a result, one or two of the trout plants scheduled for every other week until Easter will have to be skipped, Ralph said.

The park management at Buena Vista Lake was none too pleased either. Smith’s trout business skipped a delivery last week, when fishermen were having little or no luck getting a bite, and Tuesday’s delivery was supposed to be a double load. Buena Vista now has to wait another week for fish.

“They might as well kiss our trout season goodby because people aren’t going to fish,” park Sgt. Diane Banducci said.

To make matters worse, “we had the worst opening day we’ve ever had,” Banducci said. Two thousand people showed up and caught a total of 10 fish at the Nov. 16 event.

After the truck was emptied at Lake Casitas, the trout were trying to adapt to new surroundings. Some didn’t seem to know shallow from deep water, while others flipped and flopped in an effort to find their freedom.

It wouldn’t last long.

About 50% of the planted trout are usually caught by fisherman each year, while the rest are eaten by birds or larger fish, said Richard H. Hajas, assistant general manager for the Casitas Municipal Water District.

“We spend the money in order to be able to provide the recreation for people,” Doan said.

The district has planted fish in Lake Casitas each year since 1959. For the past 20 years, the state Department of Fish and Game has matched the number of pounds of trout and catfish placed in the lake each year, Ralph said.

This year, as in the last decade, the water district budgeted $40,000 for fish: $10,000 for catfish, $20,000 for trout and $10,000 for sunfish.

But because no sunfish are available this year, Hajas said, the $10,000 will be used for programs aimed at getting the fish of Lake Casitas to breed more on their own.