A Classic Fall With Thrills and Chills

Ever try to tie a small lure to ultralight line in a blizzard, with your fingers numb from the cold?

It’s about as easy as pitching that lure into a promising pool beneath the overhanging trees on the opposite side of the bank without getting it snagged on branches.

Yes, fall has arrived in the Eastern Sierra. It came in wintry fashion in the mountains above this bustling cattle town alongside U.S. 395, with a late-September snowstorm that lasted all of last Saturday, dusting the high country with a few inches of powder before giving way to a spectacular, sunny Sunday that melted most of what fell.

Such is the nature of the season. With autumn comes chills as well as thrills for fishermen and hikers who prefer this time of year for a variety of reasons, notable among them smaller crowds, bigger fish and scenery that is out of this world, with lush greens giving way to brilliant hues of yellow and red.

Gary Olson, owner of Bishop Creek Lodge and Parcher’s Resort on the South Fork of Bishop Creek, acknowledged beneath a threatening sky that “the windows of opportunity start narrowing” for outdoor enthusiasts as fall gets closer to winter.

But he assured that “usually this time of year is bright and sunny,” thanks to seasonal high pressure that often produces the so-called Indian summer.

Olson should know. A former avocado grower in San Diego, he moved here 13 years ago to make a living on a main course rather than a side dish.

Wild and wary brown trout inhabit the stream that flows past his rustic home on the South Fork, beneath towering and stunningly sheer canyon walls, and they become particularly active with the cooler weather fall brings.

These fish are small game, averaging five to eight inches, but they’re a challenging quarry nonetheless in that they’re not easily fooled but put up a spirited fight for those able to dupe them. Most fishermen release the browns out of respect.

Living among the browns are Department of Fish and Game hatchery-raised planters: pan-sized rainbows that are none too bright but delectable enough fresh off the barbecue, seasoned with a little butter and onion or garlic, and perhaps a splash of lemon juice.

Dwarfing these are the trophy-sized rainbows thrown in from time to time for good measure by Tim Alpers, who grows them to 10 pounds-plus on the family ranch up the highway near June Lake and sells them to concessionaires throughout Mono and Inyo counties.

Nobody expects to land such heavyweights in such a narrow and shallow body of water. When someone does, he or she usually lets everyone know about it.

“Look what I caught!” exclaimed a bundled-up Victor Rocha, 47, a San Luis Obispo resident who was unable to contain himself after reeling in a five-pound Alpers rainbow that snatched up his green Roostertail from a deep pool on a lower section of the South Fork. “When my mom see this, she’s going to trip.”

A few miles up the road, which runs alongside the seven-mile stretch of the South Fork, is South Lake, which Olson is trying to transform into one of the premier fisheries in the Eastern Sierra.

The 170-acre lake, a scenic body of water situated at nearly 10,000 feet, gets a steady supply of DFG rainbows and hosts a small population of brook trout and a long-established population of large browns that are rarely caught, although a 17-pounder was landed earlier this season.

Olson, who also has the concession at South Lake, is supplementing this fishery with fingerling browns he buys from a hatchery in Susanville, Calif., raises in pens at the lake and releases periodically. The program is working so well--an eight-pounder was caught last week--that the concessionaire at nearby Lake Sabrina, which feeds the Middle Fork of the creek, has initiated a similar one.

But what is beginning to set South Lake apart from Sabrina and nearby North Lake are the Eagle Lake-strain rainbows Olson buys from the Susanville hatchery. These trout are nearly as big as the Alpers variety, but they’re a lot wilder and mightier, according to Olson, because they are raised from eggs that are not genetically altered to obtain rapid growth.

This is no knock on Tim Alpers. His rainbows, which are raised from genetically altered eggs, are beautifully shaped and their flesh is similar in color and texture to that of salmon. “But they’re sluggish for their size,” Olson maintains. “We hear it all the time from anglers. . . . ‘It’s big, but it didn’t fight much; it just kind of swam in.’ His trout have lost some of their wildness.”

Perhaps. But Olson is not completely satisfied with the Eagle Lake brand. They’re a little too wild. So wild, in fact, that nobody has landed one and Olson has been releasing 20-30 of them every week for several months.

“They’re hooking them, but on four-pound-test line you’re just not going to land them,” he said. “I had a guy come in the other day and he said, ‘What are you stocking in here?’ He hooked one of the fish and it spooled him; he got three-quarters of his line back and it spooled him again. . . . These things just fight like freight trains. You’ve got to use 10- to 12-pound test and nobody seems to want to use [such heavy line].”

The time will come, however, when fishermen clue in and start landing these “headline grabbers,” and Olson will have put in place the final piece of the puzzle he needs to create the “niche” he says concessionaires throughout the region must have to attract discriminating anglers.

But even he realizes that time is running out on a season that ends Oct. 31. After all, the fish may be biting this fall, but throughout the South Fork of Bishop Creek, and especially where the lake sits at 10,000 feet, so is the weather.

HOT BITES

* Local fishing: You know winter is coming when sculpin and rockfish start appearing in the local counts. Best bets remain the bigeye and yellowfin tuna bite south of San Diego, the striped marlin bite at Catalina and the albacore bite off Central and Northern California. Top catch, a blue shark measuring 9 feet 2 and weighing 298 pounds (after it was gutted), caught by Jim Pate of El Segundo about 11 miles southwest of Marina del Rey. Other notables, a 64-pound bigeye by Tony Avila, La Habra, aboard the Red Rooster III out of San Diego, and a 53-pound albacore by Larry Kong, Santa Barbara, aboard the Princess out of Virg’s in Morro Bay.

* Cabo San Lucas: The tournament season--and peak fishing season--is close at hand and there remains a mixed bag of billfish in the area, but as yet no large blue marlin to excite the big-game hunters. Lots of tuna and dorado for the meat hunters, though. The catch rates will improve as the crowds grow throughout the month.

* East Cape/La Paz: Reports vary from good to lousy, with tuna, striped marlin and dorado the primary targets. Phoenix angler John Lowther caught a blue marlin estimated at 225 pounds on a fly rod with a 20-pound tippet after only 55 minutes while fishing with Gary Graham of Baja on the Fly. His friend, Jay South, later hooked a larger blue on conventional light-tackle gear and was not so fortunate. The big blue made a sizzling run, then turned around and charged the boat, leaping and crashing down only a few feet away before breaking the line during another high-speed dash. “The blue then headed toward the horizon and was last seen tail-walking with Jay’s jig in its mouth,” Graham said. A 147-pound tuna was landed by an Arkansas angler fishing out of Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort.

HARD TIMES FOR HUNTERS

It was reported last week that former California state Assemblyman Gerald Felando was among a group of dove hunters in hot water for the slaughter of the popular little game birds near Yuma, Ariz.

Now comes word out of Nevada that dove hunters as well as doves have been taking it on the chin. A few examples:

* A 39-year-old suffered serious face and head injuries when mud lodged in the muzzle of his shotgun caused the barrel to explode.

* A 13-year-old was accidentally shot and seriously injured by others in his hunting party who swung to shoot a passing dove and filled the youngster full of steel in the process.

* A 57-year-old died after a rifle discharged in his vehicle. “It is unknown if the man was hunting or simply intended to target shoot,” the Nevada Division of Wildlife said in a news release, adding that the gun had a broken trigger guard and the safety was not engaged when he reached behind the seat to grab it.

HARD TIMES II

A Colorado bow hunter is fortunate to be alive after being chased up a tree by an angry black bear that stole the elk he had killed in the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness Area.

The man shot the elk a day earlier and had returned to skin the animal and pack it out. Instead, he found himself face to face with a 250-pound bear that chased him high up a nearby tree, where the man remained for two hours until a warden arrived and ultimately decided that the best course of action was to shoot and kill the bruin.

CALENDAR

* The annual swap meet at Fishermen’s Spot in Burbank will be held Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Spaces will be available to vendors on a first-come, first-served basis. The event is geared toward those with equipment and tackle they have acquired over the years and no longer want. Commercial dealers are not allowed.

* Dennis Bitton, author and expert fly-fisherman who has gathered slides from his extensive travels, will be the featured guest at the Pasadena Casting Club’s meeting Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Masonic Temple in Pasadena. The public is invited. Details: (323) 874-7848.

* Adventure Outfitters in Long Beach is offering a free slide show/presentation by renowned nature photographer Linda Joseph on Thursday from 7-8:30 p.m. Details: (800) 430-2544.

* The annual California RV Show, featuring daily seminars as well as more than 1,300 towable and motorized recreational vehicles, will run Oct. 16-25 at Fairplex in Pomona. Cost is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and free for children 12 and under. Details: (714) 532-4985.