Trout Opener Lures Anglers With History

This small agricultural town near the Nevada border is rich in history.

It sprang up during the Gold Rush era and became a mining supply depot for Bodie, now a famous ghost town.

Bridgeport’s courthouse, built in 1877, is its most prominent landmark and the second oldest continuously used courthouse in California.

Joseph Walker, the famous pioneer, blazed a trail through this region in 1833 and led a group of immigrants down that same trail a decade later. The Walker river was named in his honor.

But in the days leading up to the opening of the 1998 Eastern Sierra general trout season, some of this town’s 500 permanent residents chose another piece of history in hopes of attracting tourists.

Their slogan--Bridgeport: Home of the State-Record Brown Trout.

It was quite a fish, a 26 1/2-pound whopper pulled from Lower Twin Lake by a Bakersfield angler in 1983. And as a marketing tool it did its job.

Upper and Lower Twin--two beautiful reservoirs at the foot of towering, snow-covered peaks--seemed to attract more big-game fishermen than anywhere else in the Eastern Sierra on Saturday morning.

Of course, anglers had fewer options this year, what with El Nino putting the deep freeze on many other popular fishing holes, and doing its best to keep fishermen at bay throughout the region Saturday with a morning blast of wintry weather that included snow and hail.

This, however, did little to dampen spirits.

Fishermen in boats dragged their lures from one end of a lake to the other and back again, seemingly oblivious to the bone-chilling cold, not so much trying to catch their limits but to get their hooks into the one fish that would make them famous, if only in their own little fishing circles.

“That’s definitely why we come,” said Jason Aguirre, 28, of Sacramento, who drew a sizable crowd when he walked up the ramp at upper Twin clutching a 7-pound 9-ounce German brown trout that struck his rainbow-colored Flatfish.

Aguirre didn’t know it at the time, but as of 4:30 p.m., his was still the largest trout reported to any of the Eastern Sierra landings. It was also the largest trout he had ever caught, although it wasn’t quite what he expected.

“He must have been swimming right at me,” Aguirre said, “because he didn’t put up much of a fight. I thought it was just another small one, until I saw him.”

Meanwhile, on Lower Twin, Charlie Balogh and friends made tracks monotonously across the lake’s rippling surface. It was Balogh, of Escondido, who caught the biggest fish on opening day last year, a 13-pound 10-ounce brown that also hit a Flatfish. A catch that apparently went to his head.

“You’re not going to ask him any more questions about last year’s fish, are you?” one of his friends half-jokingly remarked. “We’re the ones that have to put up with him.”

Not all were out to get their names in the paper, of course. Many had other reasons for coming and, somewhat refreshingly, it was these people who seemed to be experiencing the true essence of what opening day is all about.

Posing with a stringer of pan-sized rainbows for their father were Shanae and Lisa Shoemaker of Gardnerville, Nev., ages 11 and 9, respectively.

Asked what she enjoyed most about opening day, Lisa giggled for a moment, then offered, “I like it because we get to fish . . .”

Then her smiling sister stepped up and interjected, “I like it because it’s . . . really cool!”

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At Crowley Lake, the crowd of 3,000-4,000 was about half of what is on most opening days, but anglers young and old stood elbow to elbow at the cleaning table, methodically cleaning mostly pan-sized rainbow trout. The fishing was surprisingly good, considering that the lake only became ice-free a few days ago, but the fish were on the small side and had yet to perk up. “You kind of just ski them in behind the boat,” says Jim Walker, 47, of Oceanside.