It Could Be Father of All Openers

If you’re among the thousands of fishermen who will be making the pilgrimage to Crowley Lake in time for the Eastern Sierra trout opener April 26, you’ll probably want to buy another jar of Power Bait.

Fishing, for the second year in a row, is expected to be fantastic.

Not that the fishing matters to most opener anglers. To many, the preparation, anticipation and just getting the heck out of civilization

and becoming part of the celebration are what the opener is all about.

It’s a festive tradition dating to the days of Father John Crowley, the Owens Valley’s first resident priest, who effectively preached not only the gospel but the economic importance of recreation in the region, notably that generated by transplanted trout.

After the Mt. Whitney hatchery was built outside Independence in 1917, Crowley hired a publicist and held a series of promotional events geared toward popularizing the slippery little game fish. By the late 1930s, nearly a million tourists were flocking to the valley every year, many of them to take part in the “opener” established by Crowley on May 1.

Schools were closed and the turnout was more than modest for Crowley’s early-morning Mass, when he would bless the anglers’ equipment and take up the collection in his creel.

Crowley died at 49 after his car hit a cow and veered into the path of a lumber truck while he was returning home from San Francisco one morning in March 1940. A year later, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Long Valley project was completed and the newly created reservoir between Mammoth Lakes and Bishop was named in honor of Crowley.

Crowley Lake eventually developed into a trout fishery Crowley would have been proud of, one of the finest in the country, and today remains far and away the most popular destination come the last Saturday of April, the date of present-day openers.

“It’s a long-term family generational tradition type of thing,” says John Fredrickson, president of Crowley Lake Fish Camp. “What else can you say? You have grandpas, great-grandpas and all the grandchildren turning out, and that’s just what the opener is all about. It’s just a special day.”

Of course, it helps when the fish are biting.

And for those who care only about the fishing, yes, they figure to be biting early and often this year. Spring came two months early. The ice melted more than a month ago. The water has warmed to the point where insects are hatching and fish are rising to snatch them. Some are even leaving the lake and spawning in the creeks, or the Owens River.

Crowley had an early thaw last year as well. The result? The first five-fish limit was hauled up from the docks at 7 a.m. and the cleaning station was a bustling slaughterhouse by 10 a.m., as anglers elbowed their way to the sinks to gut and bag their fish. By noon most of the opening-day crowd of more than 5,000 had limited out.

And unless Old Man Winter has been saving his strength for one last late-April tantrum, hundreds of thousands of Crowley Lake trout won’t know what hit them again.

“It’s been a pretty good monument to him,” the DWP’s Dave Babb said of Father Crowley. “Which is good because he did so much to promote the area.”

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The mild winter will probably result in a productive and pleasant opener throughout all but the highest reaches of the Eastern Sierra.

At Convict Lake, one of the most scenic lakes in the region, the dirt path around its shores is already snow-free, which is almost unheard of on opening day. Despite water temperatures still in the mid-40s, trout are beginning to stir and it won’t surprise anyone if a lunker brown is landed on opening day.

In the Mammoth Lakes basin, the road is already open to Twin Lakes and the ice is beginning to break up. This didn’t happen until late May last year.

Ice fishermen will have to snow-shoe or snowmobile up to Lake Mary or Lake George if they want to risk their lives merely to pull fish through holes. In the Bishop area, they can drive up the road to Sabrina or hike to South--at 10,000 feet both figure to be covered with ice on opening day.

Fly fishermen might find Hot Creek the best bet. Recent high flows have flushed the river a bit and kept it devoid of weeds, but it might also have moved the fish around.

In the northern part of the region, the situation is much the same. The four sparkling lakes along the scenic June Loop are ice-free and heavily stocked. Rush Creek is running fast, however, and fishing figures to be tough.

In the Bridgeport area, anglers will be concentrating mostly on five waters, all of them ice-free:

--Kirman Lake. Fishermen must hike 2 3/4 miles, can use only lures and flies, and may keep only two fish 16 inches or longer. But where else can one catch brook trout averaging two-six pounds?

--Bridgeport Reservoir. Boaters will have the advantage, but even shore fishermen will be landing rainbows and browns averaging about four pounds.

--The East Walker River. Opening-day success on one of the most popular of all Eastern Sierra fisheries--because of healthy populations of trophy-sized browns and rainbows--will depend on the whim of the water master, who controls the rate of flow into Nevada. Last year he kept the flow down for fishermen on opening day, but the ranchers who own the water weren’t happy about it, so don’t count on it this year.

--Twin Lakes. These adjoining lakes tucked beneath the towering snow-packed peaks regularly yield some of the largest trout on opening day--honors last year went to Lower Twin after a 7 1/2-pound brown was caught, weighed and released--and a few years ago the twins produced a state-record 26-pound 8-ounce brown.

But because the big browns are generally more active in cooler springs or in the fall--last fall an 18-pound 10-ounce brown was caught--getting your hooks into one may be difficult. That big fish tugging on your line will most likely be one of the pen-reared or Alpers Ranch-raised rainbows stocked before the opener.

--Robinson Creek. Light-tackle creek fishermen love hiking this meandering stream because of the scenery around and within its shores. Robinson has a few trophy-sized browns, particularly immediately beneath Twin, but it is teeming with pan-sized rainbows, which also cook up nicely on campground barbecues.

One popular river in the Bridgeport area that will not be fished on opening day is the West Walker. A 13-mile section of U.S. 395 north of Bridgeport remains closed and Mono County engineers are still working to rebuild the river, whose course was altered by a violent flood that raged through Walker Canyon in early January.

The washed-out road is expected to reopen sometime in June, when the river will be stocked with trout.

“The stream will be different,” says Rick Rockel, regional manager for California Trout. “The meander will be different, but they’re using habitat as a guiding element in rebuilding the river, so it will probably come out way ahead as a fishery.”

AROUND THE SOUTHLAND

It’s only a hole in the ground now, but when the Eastside Reservoir Project near Hemet in Riverside County is completed and filled sometime around the turn of the century, Southern California anglers will have a sprawling new fishery in which to wet their lines.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is building the new reservoir--at a cost of $1.9 billion--primarily “to help ensure adequate water supplies well into the next century,” but it hopes to capitalize on the public’s thirst for recreation as well.

Southern California’s largest freshwater lake, with 25 miles of shoreline, holding 260 billion gallons of water covering 4,500 surface acres, will feature other such activities as boating, sailing, camping, hiking, equestrian trails, golf and duck hunting. It is expected to attract 2 million visitors a year.

To help ensure a productive fishery, the Department of Fish and Game has begun planning modifications to the shoreline and lake bed that could improve habitat, and is “seeking the fishing community’s advice on the species of game fish that they would like to see introduced into the lake and recommendations on habitat improvements that will increase fish populations and angling opportunities.”

To this end, lake and DFG officials are holding an open house April 19-20 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Written comments can be mailed to DFG biologist Mike Giusti at the California Department of Fish and Game, P.O. Box 550, Winchester Road, Calif. 92596. Giusti can be reached by telephone at (909) 765-5706.

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Boats will be allowed back on Silverwood Lake on Saturday for the first time since last October, when the San Bernardino County reservoir was drawn down for repairs on the outflow towers. The lake is still down about 30 feet and only the main ramp will be open. The ramps at Cleghorn Canyon and the marina store are expected to open in about a month.

CATCH OF THE WEEK

The biggest wahoo of the year, a 130-pounder, was landed off Cabo San Lucas by Acapulco’s Fernando Padilla aboard the Gaviota boat Marea. “Just a fine trophy and well over 100 dinners, based on 10-ounce servings,” said Larry Edwards, spokesman for the fleet.