A tiny paradise for feisty trout

Amid a tedious lull it becomes strikingly clear, on this bright morning, that the best fisherman is not on shore, in a boat or in a float tube.

It’s a large osprey that has swooped from the treetops and plucked a 2-pound trout from beneath the glassy surface.

Power Bait is no match for a keen eye and a pair of wings.

But the anglers persist, molding colorful gobs onto their hooks and casting anew, taking solace, at least, that they aren’t going to starve if they get skunked.

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So it goes on a lazy Friday at Laguna Niguel Lake. The stocking of Alpers trout has lured man and beast. And, as always, timing is everything.

“You should have been here last Friday,” says Tony Albertson, 66, a regular from Dana Point. “Between the two of us, we had about 40 fish.”

It was a good time, agrees Carl Probyn, 56, a wallpaper hanger from Orange. The trout bit all morning and all afternoon, and averaged 2 to 4 pounds.

“It was boom, boom, boom,” the fisherman boasts of the kind of outing most people only hear about.

But this little reservoir at the southern end of Laguna Niguel Regional Park is making a big splash in trout-fishing circles. For the last decade, it has brimmed with some of the best-fighting trout in the Southland, if not the biggest.

There were the feisty hooked-jaw rainbows from Pine Creek Trout Ranch in Utah, stocked by concessionaire Rick Mendoza.

And when those trout were found to have whirling disease and could no longer be imported, Mendoza’s former wife and current concessionaire, Bobbie, turned to Tim Alpers.

His homegrown rainbows, from the headwaters of the Owens River, have transformed the Eastern Sierra into an angling paradise.

Now the famous Alpers rainbow -- 2,000 pounds of fish delivered every Tuesday -- makes the leap from God’s country to the heart of Orange County.

“My family has been fishing close to 20 years up at Crowley Lake and stuff, so when I learned they were putting Alpers in here, that’s when I came back,” says Terry Oliver, fumbling to pin a 2-pounder to his stringer.

Most of the stocked fish are 2 to 6 pounds, but specimens to about 10 pounds are included in every load. Although not quite as aggressive as Pine Creek rainbows, Alpers trout are full-bodied and their flesh is salmon-like, firm and pink.

“These fish are a close second to the Utahs,” Probyn says, adding that the Pine Creek specimens bit throughout the day. “With these things, though, from 10 to 2 you can take a nap.”

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It’s just past 10 and anglers on boats and in tubes appear as if in a painting, their only movements an occasional cast or shifting of positions as they float on an emerald surface amid towering trees.

Missing are splashes of fish and bent rods.

On a southern point, Albertson and Probyn are sharing a shoreline picnic table with Tom and Kevin Berg, a father and son from Alpine, near San Diego.

“We came for the Alpers,” Kevin Berg says.

But the lull has Dad grumbling. “Everybody pays quite a bit of money to fish here, so you’d think about 90% would catch at least three or four trout,” Tom Berg says. “We drove 1 1/2 hours and all I’ve caught is one.”

Laguna Niguel Lake, the only Southland reservoir regularly receiving Alpers plants, charges $18 for a five-fish permit, and anglers can purchase more than one permit.

And timing is everything. On the heels of a lengthy cold spell, which lowered the oxygen level, came a brief rain that clouded the water.

The four trout on the stringer were caught on corn-scented Power Bait dipped in corn-flavored Trout Dip, or “yellow on yellow.”

“Some people come with green Power Bait and stay with it all day and get maybe one or two fish,” Probyn says, revealing a giant tackle box that is a bulging endorsement for Berkley products. “You have to use different combinations and different scents and keep doing it.”

For the last hour, however, the hot ticket has been the talons of osprey. Cormorants are also good hunters, Albertson says, and he has seen pelicans dive on those birds and take their heads within their massive beaks and force them to let go of their fish.

If only Power Bait could be so effective.

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Fishing note: The 33rd annual Marina del Rey Halibut Derby, offering trips to Mexico and other prizes for top anglers, is scheduled April 21-22. Cost is $85 and includes the awards banquet. Details: (310) 398-3133.

Rod benders: A 277.8-pound yellowfin tuna by Steve Morse, Oxnard, aboard the long-range Red Rooster III; a 257-pound yellowfin by Louie Marzari, Yorba Linda, aboard Independence; a 53-pound wahoo by Rick Levy, Whittier, aboard Independence; a 21-pound Mt. Lassen rainbow trout by Mario Rosales, Baldwin Park, on yellow Nitro bait at Corona Lake; an 8.14-pound rainbow by Al Prukop, Huntington Beach, on a Roostertail at Irvine Lake.

pete.thomas@latimes.com