Take a History Lesson Before You Go Fishing

This will be the busiest weekend in the Eastern Sierra since opening day of trout season a month ago and, yes, again the lure will be those slippery little rainbows.

But what about the lore?

As you barbecue the fish you pulled out of Deadman Creek, for example, you might want to consider that the peaceful, meandering Mono County waterway once contained the severed head of a prospector who was robbed and murdered by a notorious criminal.

The body was found in a nearby shallow grave. His head was fished from the creek, hence the name. The law never caught up with the crook, a man named Farnsworth.

Convict Lake and Convict Creek, south of Deadman Creek and just down the road from Mammoth Lakes, feature some of the most spectacular scenery in the region, and they’re also home to some pretty spectacular trout.

Towering above the two bodies of water is majestic Mt. Morrison and its often snowy, 12,000-foot peak.

The mountain is named after Robert Morrison, a Wells Fargo agent from Benton near the Nevada border. Morrison was a member of a posse trying to round up 29 convicts that had escaped from Nevada’s state penitentiary in Carson City in 1871.

The posse caught up to six of the escapees hiding along the banks of what is now Convict Creek. There was a gun battle, Morrison was wounded in the side by a man named Moses Black, who then calmly walked over and finished the job by shooting Morrison in the head.

The convicts escaped this battle, but the law caught up with them again the next day at nearby Pine Creek west of Bishop. Three of them were caught and two of those, including Black, were eventually lynched by vigilantes.

These are only two of 101 moments in Eastern Sierra history researched and published recently by Bishop’s Dave Babb in a book of the same name.

It won’t help you catch more fish this weekend, but it might give you a better appreciation of the beautiful country in which you’re casting your cares away.

Babb, a retired range and wildlife specialist for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, has spent years studying the history of the Eastern Sierra. His book--available for $8 at Bishop book stores or through the printer at (760) 873-3049--is an outgrowth of his popular one-minute “A Moment in Owens Valley History” radio spots.

Moment No. 1 sheds some light on whom the first European visitor to the region was. Many historians credit trail blazer Capt. Joseph R. Walker as the first in 1833, but there is evidence, Babb says, suggesting that Jedediah Smith made his way through in the 1820s.

Part of that evidence, Babb says, was the inscription, “J. Smith 1826,” on a rock near Little Lake, “but the rock was unfortunately destroyed by blasting during the construction of the railroad line.”

Moment No. 101 touches on the demise of Owens Lake because of water diversions, drought and, ultimately, the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which turned the lake into a dust bowl.

In between are all sorts of interesting and entertaining morsels. A sampling:

* There was a violent earthquake on the morning of March 26, 1872. Babb calls it the third largest earthquake in the history of the West and says it would have registered about 8.3 on today’s Richter scale.

Its epicenter was Lone Pine, where two dozen people were killed when their adobe homes collapsed, causing adobe to be “removed from the list of favorable building materials.”

“At Georges Creek,” Babb writes, “water burst through the dirt floor of a cabin in such volumes as to give the inhabitants only a few seconds to escape.

“At Fish Springs, a crack swallowed an ox leaving only its tail above ground, while next to it another lay dead with no visible mark of injury, and another stood a short distance away alive and no worse for wear.”

* There was Father John J. Crowley, an Irishman who arrived in the Owens Valley in 1918. He was tireless, holding Mass in Death Valley one day, Bishop and Mammoth the next. Also a devout promoter of the region’s attractions, he once held Mass atop Mt. Whitney and even held a special 3 a.m. Mass for Catholic fishermen.

Crowley was killed in a car accident on March 17, 1940, near Inyokern. Long Valley Reservoir was eventually renamed Crowley Lake in his honor.

* And, yes, there are those trout you’ll be trying to catch this weekend. You might get skunked, but your chances are much better than they would have been in the early settlement days.

The streams of the Mono Basin were completely devoid of fish, and the only native fishes in the Owens River drainage were the Owens pupfish, Owens tui chub, speckled dace and Owens River sucker.

The first trout in the Owens drainage were cutthroats that found their way into Mill Creek after a water-diversion project in 1867 from Virginia Creek in the Virginia Creek drainage. Some of these were later planted in Rush and Lee Vining creeks to the south.

The first trout in Owens Valley waters were 24 rainbows transplanted from the Kings River to a private reservoir at Fish Springs in 1872.

Stocking area streams really began in 1873 when a local resident put about 60 rainbows in Independence Creek. So excited were townsfolk about the prospect of a trout fishery that the Inyo Independent announced: “It is hoped that for the next two years, any individual disturbing them [the trout] will be immediately reduced to bait for the benefit of the fish remaining.”

This weekend the level of disturbance figures to register, oh, about 8.3 on the pressure scale.

HOT RAILS

* What do you get when you have 75 boats fishing little Santa Barbara Island? Very little. When word spread of a phenomenal bite on the white seabass Saturday, a flotilla of private boaters crossed the channel and effectively shut things down Sunday. “It was like bombs dropping with all those anchors,” said Don Ashley, owner of Pierpoint Sportfishing in Long Beach.

However, the pressure has been off most of the week and the fish haven’t been skittish at all. As for quality of the seabass, one aboard Pierpoint’s Toronado weighed in at 64 pounds and 22nd Street’s Islander checked in with eight seabass weighing 50 pounds or more Monday.

* Albacore galore? Not yet, but signs of an impending local bite out of San Diego are very good. The Legend out of Seaforth Sportfishing and Vagabond out of Fisherman’s Landing, on exploratory trips last weekend, teamed to catch 136 albacore, some as close as 170 miles south of Point Loma, so the fish seem to be moving north. At one point, anglers on both vessels, fishing 40 miles apart, were hooked up at the same time, indicating a large body of fish. More exploratory excursions are in progress.

* Cabo San Lucas anglers can’t complain about the lack of marlin. Their gripe is that while the billfish are being seen in good numbers, few are being caught. Of note is the fast-paced offshore tuna bite, with fish weighing to 80 pounds, and the inshore roosterfish bite, with fish also to 80 pounds.

* Mazatlan skippers finally found a way to get the sailfish to bite: They used nets to catch the baitfish the scrappy billfish had been feeding on. “I don’t even know what kind of fish they are,” Geronimo Cevallos of the Aries Fleet said, “but they look like baby pompano. . . . The boats took cast nets and caught many of the baitfish . . . and the results were incredible.” The fleet logged 86 sails in a week’s time.

WHALE TALES

Most of the gray whales have migrated north by now, but majestic blue whales, playful humpbacks and tiny minkes have moved into the Santa Barbara Channel, where they are putting on quite a show.

The mammals are concentrated in an area rich with planktonic krill. There are even some grays “taking a break from their migration because this area is too good to pass up,” says Fred Benko, owner of the Condor, which is renowned for its success on these excursions. Benko charges $65 for adults and $35 for children. Details: (805) 882-0088.

ON TAP

* Forget the Dodgers! Take the kids to tonight’s San Bernardino Stampede- Rancho Cucamonga Quake minor-league game and they’re likely to get something better than a souvenir ball. Shimano is giving away 1,000 spinning rods as part of a summer promotion. First-come, first-served. Game time is 7.

* Robyn Benincasa ad Ian Adamson, winners of the 1998 Raid Gauloises adventure race in Ecuador, will host a screening and adventure-racing clinic Saturday at 11 a.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at REI in Manhattan Beach. The event is free.

* Raahauge’s Shooting Sports Fair, featuring hands-on firearms demos, a varmint-calling competition, game-calling seminars, a chance to shoot a Gatling gun and exhibitors’ booths, is June 4-6 at Raahauge’s in Norco. Cost is $10 for adults or free if you join the NRA before entering. Children 14 and under are admitted free.

Details: (909) 735-7981.

WINDING UP

If history is any indication, about 50 people will die nationwide this weekend in boating accidents. Memorial Day weekend is one of the busiest of the year. Alcohol helps make it one of the deadliest as well.

If you plan on going boating, you can reduce your chances of becoming a statistic by using a sober skipper, wearing life jackets, paying attention to the weather and keeping a sharp lookout for other boats.