Fire Ravages Lower Owens River Area

The last time I was on the lower Owens River I felt totally removed from civilization. I was on a drift boat with guide Tom Loe and one of his fly-fishing clients.

We were surrounded throughout the trip by willows, cottonwoods and wild rose, which lined the banks so thickly that we seemed in our own little world.

The only thing visible beyond this world, over the tops of the trees, were the snow-covered peaks of the Eastern Sierra.

Now I’m told, by Loe and others, that I would no longer recognize this marvelous stretch of river.

A fire swept down its banks last Friday, consuming most of the cottonwoods, willows and wild rose from below the Highway 6 bridge downstream to the East Line St. bridge, covering nearly 10 miles of meandering waterway.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation but California Dept. of Forestry Owens Valley Chief Kenneth Toy told the Inyo Register in Bishop this week that “it doesn’t appear to be natural causes.”

Meanwhile, there is speculation among some Bishop locals that the blaze may have been set intentionally to enable access to a portion of river long reserved for those able to handle drift boats--a portion that had served as a sanctuary of sorts for brown and rainbow trout because of its limited access.

There is no evidence to support such speculation, but the fact remains that now, with the terrain resembling a moonscape, anyone with a car is able to drive nearly to water’s edge, get out and cast their wares wherever they please.

This part of the Lower Owens is open year-round to fishing, and it is stocked every other week through a program funded by the Bishop Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. But the fear is that it will be overrun when the multitudes arrive for the April 27 opening of the region’s general trout season.

“It’s a brand new water; it’s bound to be attractive,” says Vance Spitznagel, a clerk at Culver’s Sporting Goods in Bishop. “I just hope they bring some fresh air filters [for their cars] because there’ll still be lots of ash.”

Karen Schmauss, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, expressed concern that so much vehicle traffic will prevent the natural rejuvenation of what had been such a beautiful stretch of river.

The Owens River runs through Los Angeles Department of Water and Power property and the stretch in question is open to public day use. There are no plans to restrict access, DWP spokesman Chris Plakos said.

The only two guide outfits that run drift trips on the Lower Owens--Loe’s Sierra Drifters and Gary Gunsolley’s Brock’s Flyfishing Specialists--are advocates of catch-and-release fishing. There is a deep animosity between them and the catch-and-keep crowd that heretofore has had access through a handful of narrow footpaths.

On my trip with Loe, as he rounded one of many bends in the river, an old man on the river’s edge made sure to show off a stringer of fish, and particularly a lone wild brown. Loe held his tongue, but muttered something about hoping the man choked on the bones.

Now Loe, who has temporarily moved to a section of river below East Line Street, is angry at the DWP for not doing a better job of enforcing after-hours restrictions.

He points to a smaller blaze last November downriver toward Big Pine, believed to have been set by an illegal campfire.

Plakos countered by saying that river patrols, using trucks and a helicopter, have been conducted daily since last Sept. 11, and that appropriate law enforcement agencies are asked to deal with those who don’t heed after-hours requests to vacate.

“We don’t use strong-arm tactics because that’s not our job,” Plakos says. “But the [Inyo County] Sheriff’s Dept. has been extremely cooperative.”

Laws and Order

Bishop leaders breathed a huge sigh of relief when the fire failed to reach, by only a few yards, its preeminent landmark: the Laws Railroad Museum.

More than 450 firefighters from various agencies battled the blaze, which consumed 840 acres. No human lives were lost.

His Dog Spot

Spitznagel says anglers are already beginning to show on the banks of the Lower Owens, but added that 16 inches of ash has been a pretty good deterrent.

“I took my white springer spaniel over there to look around the other day and she came out looking like a black lab,” he said.

Spirit of ’95

If Saturday’s salmon opener is anything like the 1995 opener, “It’ll go ballistic around here,” predicts Andy Manoux, general manager at Sea Landing in Santa Barbara. “Everybody wants to catch salmon.”

Local salmon seasons typically materialize this far south every few years, when king salmon find conditions cool and productive enough to make so long a trip--they typically stay north of Monterey. But seven years have passed since the tasty swimmers have come en masse.

Why all the optimism this year? For starters, anglers on coastal rockfish trips from Oxnard to Santa Barbara have been catching salmon incidentally--releasing them, of course--for more than two weeks. They’ve run anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds.

Plus, conditions are similar to what they were in ‘95, with water temperatures in the low 50s and with bait fish holding close to shore.

The daily bag season is two, with a minimum size of 24 inches.

Baja Blues

Every year at this time, complaints come this way from tourists and residents of the East Cape region of southern Baja California. During Lent, many residents give up meat in favor of fish, and fisherman respond by stepping up their activities to satisfy the increasing demand. East Cape waters are popular because they’re fairly productive and because enforcement of fisheries regulations is notoriously nil.

This year, one of the complaints arrived in an e-mail from an East Cape dive master sickened by what he called the wanton slaughter of mobula rays, commonly mistaken for manta rays.

“There is a fleet of several pangas parked on the beach just south of Palmas de Cortez,” the e-mail read. “They mostly bottom fish at night. They make their own harpoons out of rebar. What I saw was two guys in two pangas. The one driving idles the boat up on a school of mantas on the surface. The other stands on the bow and waits for a good shot. In the past they have just brought in the whole ray. These guys were cutting off the wings and throwing the body back.”

Mobulas and especially giant Pacific mantas are considered valuable tourist attractions by the diving community, but they are not federally protected. Being easier to locate and handle, the smaller mobulas are targeted seasonally throughout southern Baja. Their flesh is stringy and brings less than 50 cents per pound, but a single mobula can yield 25 pounds.

Bucking the Odds

If Jim Betts of Yreka, Calif., were a betting man, not even he would have wagered on this.

When his wife, son and daughter applied for recent north-state deer, elk and antelope tags, the chances of all of them getting drawn were slim enough. Blacktail deer tags were readily available, but Janine Betts’ odds of bagging a deer about 3-1, according to the Department of Fish and Game. Son Ryan’s odds of getting drawn for the Roosevelt elk hunt were 44-1, his chance of success 3-1; and daughter Rechelle’s odds of getting drawn for the pronghorn antelope hunt were 74-1, her chance of success 5-2.

Not only did they each get drawn--they each bagged their critters. Overall, the DFG said, their chances of collective success from start to finish were 240,000-1.

Jim Betts was not drawn for any of the hunts.

Winding Up

Yosemite National Park announced this week that the last half-mile of the popular trail to Half Dome will be closed for repairs July 8 through Sept. 19, Mondays through Thursdays from 7 a.m.-4 p.m.