This Expert Admits He Doesn’t Know It All

First, a long winter delayed preparations for last month’s opening of the Eastern Sierra trout season, then 119-m.p.h. winds blew away much of the work that was done, so Crowley Lake Fish Camp is still trying to get on its feet for what is expected to be a bountiful year.

The signs are there: a water temperature of 52 degrees and an increasing number of catches coming into the cleaning racks.

On opening day a month ago, the ice was barely gone and the water was 41 degrees, leading Jay Fair to predict, accurately, “You’re not going to find the fish caught today that you found last year (for the opener). When the water gets around 40 or 42, they don’t bite the way they do when it’s 50. Fish are governed by the temperature. When the water’s 41, they’re 41. Do you feel like eating when you’re cold?”

Fair makes his living as a fishing guide at Eagle Lake in northern California and by selling his trademark trolling flies. Crowley has been stocked heavily with the hardy Eagle Lake rainbows, so Fair dropped in for the opener and offered the wisdom of his 40 years of guiding, including the pressure a guide feels.

“When you’re guiding every day, you have to catch fish,” he said. “You can’t afford to use anything that won’t catch ‘em.”

On that day, Fair used a cinnamon leach and a cinnamon woolly bugger, trolling them slowly 30 feet deep. He picked his spots carefully.

“Fish’ll go where the food is,” Fair said. “They’re just like people. You want to catch people? Go to a restaurant at lunch time.”

Finding the fish’s restaurant is the problem.

“Ten percent of the lake holds 90% of the fish,” Fair said. “They follow the feed fish around. But when you start catching little fish, the big fish are gone. They’re territorial. They won’t let the little fish in there.”

Fair’s logic makes fishing sound easy: the right bait or lures in the right place. But it was a slow day for everybody.

“This is embarrassing, guys,” Fair finally said. “I’ve been skunked 12 times in the last 13 years.”

That was not the 13th. Fair’s students did manage a couple of modest catches.

“I’ve been fishing a long time,” he said near the end of the day, “but the one problem I have is that I won’t live long enough to learn everything.”

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An excellent barracuda bite began last weekend at Catalina Island and was still in progress Tuesday, with boats reporting daily counts in the hundreds. Anglers aboard L.A. Harbor Sportfishing’s Sport King on Tuesday boated 315 barracuda averaging six to eight pounds.

Yellowtail have been somewhat cooperative at Santa Barbara Island. Boats have been returning from overnight trips with 20 to 60 fish, most in the 20-pound class. The bite slowed some Tuesday.

Briefly

CONSERVATION--The California Department of Fish and Game has tagged 12,000 fish, including sharks, halibut, white seabass, sand bass and giant seabass, and offers modest rewards to anglers who return tags with pertinent information on the location and conditions. They have their choice of a baseball cap or $5 for all of the species except sharks, which are worth $20 and a cap. Details: (310) 590-5188. . . . The Pasadena Casting Club has voted former CalTrout director Richard May its Troebner Award for conservation.

MEXICAN FISHING--Cabo San Lucas: The weather, the fish and the availability of live bait have been off and on the last week. Yellowfin tuna to 66 pounds returned and Cortez Yacht Charters reported 29 striped marlin--16 released--for 31 boat days. John Olson, Los Angeles, caught four in one day, releasing all but one that died in the fight. East Cape: Striped marlin catches abundant out of Hotels Palmas de Cortez, Punta Colorada and Playa del Sol. Some dorado.

FISHING INSTRUCTION--”Baja Saturday” is scheduled this weekend, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., at the Precision Boating lot, 1271 Scott St. on San Diego’s Shelter Island. The free seminar, sponsored by the “Let’s Talk Hookup” fishing-talk shows and Precision Boating, will offer a wide range of information about fishing south of the border, including hauling your boat. Details: (619) 941-FISH. . . . Song writer and fly-fishing author Eric Leiser will tell the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers why “Some Flies Work” at Thursday night’s dinner meeting at the Encino Glen. Dinner reservations: (818) 785-7306. Non-dinner guests free.

Ronnie Kovach’s Fishing Expeditions and Eagle Claw fishing schools have a 2 1/2-day trip to San Martin Island leaving Friday, 6 p.m. Food and tackle provided. Cost: $299. Details: (714) 840-6555. . . . Saltwater fly-fishing pioneer Nick Curcione and Orvis field representatives will conduct a five-hour clinic May 30, 3-8 p.m., at the Fishermen’s Spot! in Van Nuys. Fee: $90. Details: (818) 785-7306.

SHOOTING--Quail Unlimited and the National Rifle Assn.’s fifth annual Celebrity Sporting Clays Fun Shoot is scheduled Saturday, 8:30 a.m. at Raahauge’s Shooting Enterprises in Norco. Details: (909) 736-0570. . . . Raahauge’s is the only Southern California site listed in the spring-summer edition of Esquire Sportsman magazine as one of the top 25 (out of 585) sporting clays sites in the country.

SPECIAL EVENTS--The Golden State Bassmasters and Beach City Bassmasters will play host to 60 cancer patients from the Children’s Hospital of Orange County on “CHOC Fishing Day” at Irvine Lake Saturday, 8 a.m.-2 p.m.