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TROUT OPENER PACKAGE I: Bridgeport browns -- matthews-ONS 12april06
Bridgeport region to receive supplemental plants of brown trout
By JIM MATTHEWS
Outdoor News Service
"Brown trout are what made Bridgeport famous," said Skip Baker, program chairman for the fledgling Bridgeport Fish Enhancement Program, a non-profit volunteer effort driven by the local chamber of commerce to privately rear and plant brown trout in the region's popular trout waters. "We are dedicated to browns. We're going to restore blue ribbon trout fishing here."
The reputation of the Eastern Sierra Nevada as a fishing heaven was largely driven by brown trout. Big brown trout. These fish will eat most stocked rainbows as a snack and come back for two or three more to make a full meal.
Since the mid-1980s when the Department of Fish and Game's Mt. Whitney Hatchery was found to be infested with Whirling Disease and all of its fish destroyed, the DFG hasn't had a decent strain of brown trout. When all of Whitney's fish were destroyed, that hatchery's unique strain of brown trout -- fish that were relatively easy to rear but fish that adapted to wild conditions quickly and returned to angler's creels for years as progressively bigger fish -- were completely wiped out.
The DFG tried to revive the strain so it could return to its brown trout stocking program, but the browns trapped from the wild didn't work out. They had adapted to live in the wild didn't behave the same as their original progeny from the hatchery. The DFG tried other browns from other sources. Nothing worked. Oh, the DFG could raise browns, but they were expensive and difficult. Returns on the dollar investment were terrible, especially when compared with rainbow trout or the original Whitney-strain browns.
While the DFG continues to tinker with brown trout here and there, for all practical purposes, the state is out of the brown trout business.
In the Bridgeport basin, perhaps more so here than anywhere else in the region, the loss of the brown trout has been profoundly noticed, especially by the old timers who remember the days when opening weekend of trout season would see the coolers in front of Ken's Sporting Goods in Bridgeport fill up with five- to 15-pound pound browns from waters throughout the area -- Upper and Lower Twin Lake, Bridgeport Reservoir, the East Walker River, Virginia Lakes, Green Creek, even Robinson and Buckeye creeks.
The browns aren't completely gone because they spawn successfully in rivers and streams that feed the lakes where they continue grow big and fat, but because of the demise of the DFG's brown trout stocking program, their numbers are far below what they were just 20 years ago.
The Bridgeport Fish Enhancement Program is a Chamber of Commerce non-profit program to rear browns for Bridgeport Reservoir and the East Walker River initially, and then other popular waters in the region once they gain DFG approval.
Baker, the program chairman, got the ball rolling last year with a custom built and unique "tomato bin" rearing facility at Paradise Shores. Operated on recirculated and filtered well water in a system engineered by Baker, the tomato bins are breaking all the rules of trout rearing. In a test last year, 200 Alpers' rainbow trout averaging a pound each were planted in the tomato bin. In less than three months, many had doubled their weights.
The tomato bin now has over 15,000 fingerling brown trout that Baker said he hopes to rear to a half-pound each before they are tagged and released into Bridgeport Reservoir and the East Walker.
The program goal is to eventually raise 50,000 brown a year for Bridgeport and the East Walker, and three other tomato bin sites are likely to be in place before summer to handle the increased capacity needed as this year's batch of fish grows.
But the bulk of effort relies on donations and entry fees paid by anglers in a pair of fishing tournaments set up for this year on Bridgeport Reservoir. The first event is an open tournament Saturday, June 24, and the second event is a fly-fishing-only event Sunday, Oct. 8. Information on these events and how to make donations to the Bridgeport Fish Enhancement Program is available on the Internet at
www.bridgeportcalifornia.com or by calling the Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce at (760) 932-7500. Anglers can also stop by Paradise Shores opening weekend of trout season (April 29-30) and see the tomato bin rearing facility and even feed the browns.
"If when people come up here and catch a five-fish limit, and one of the fish on the stringer is a brown, we'll have done our job," said Baker.
Bridgeport region to receive supplemental plants of brown trout
By JIM MATTHEWS
Outdoor News Service
"Brown trout are what made Bridgeport famous," said Skip Baker, program chairman for the fledgling Bridgeport Fish Enhancement Program, a non-profit volunteer effort driven by the local chamber of commerce to privately rear and plant brown trout in the region's popular trout waters. "We are dedicated to browns. We're going to restore blue ribbon trout fishing here."
The reputation of the Eastern Sierra Nevada as a fishing heaven was largely driven by brown trout. Big brown trout. These fish will eat most stocked rainbows as a snack and come back for two or three more to make a full meal.
Since the mid-1980s when the Department of Fish and Game's Mt. Whitney Hatchery was found to be infested with Whirling Disease and all of its fish destroyed, the DFG hasn't had a decent strain of brown trout. When all of Whitney's fish were destroyed, that hatchery's unique strain of brown trout -- fish that were relatively easy to rear but fish that adapted to wild conditions quickly and returned to angler's creels for years as progressively bigger fish -- were completely wiped out.
The DFG tried to revive the strain so it could return to its brown trout stocking program, but the browns trapped from the wild didn't work out. They had adapted to live in the wild didn't behave the same as their original progeny from the hatchery. The DFG tried other browns from other sources. Nothing worked. Oh, the DFG could raise browns, but they were expensive and difficult. Returns on the dollar investment were terrible, especially when compared with rainbow trout or the original Whitney-strain browns.
While the DFG continues to tinker with brown trout here and there, for all practical purposes, the state is out of the brown trout business.
In the Bridgeport basin, perhaps more so here than anywhere else in the region, the loss of the brown trout has been profoundly noticed, especially by the old timers who remember the days when opening weekend of trout season would see the coolers in front of Ken's Sporting Goods in Bridgeport fill up with five- to 15-pound pound browns from waters throughout the area -- Upper and Lower Twin Lake, Bridgeport Reservoir, the East Walker River, Virginia Lakes, Green Creek, even Robinson and Buckeye creeks.
The browns aren't completely gone because they spawn successfully in rivers and streams that feed the lakes where they continue grow big and fat, but because of the demise of the DFG's brown trout stocking program, their numbers are far below what they were just 20 years ago.
The Bridgeport Fish Enhancement Program is a Chamber of Commerce non-profit program to rear browns for Bridgeport Reservoir and the East Walker River initially, and then other popular waters in the region once they gain DFG approval.
Baker, the program chairman, got the ball rolling last year with a custom built and unique "tomato bin" rearing facility at Paradise Shores. Operated on recirculated and filtered well water in a system engineered by Baker, the tomato bins are breaking all the rules of trout rearing. In a test last year, 200 Alpers' rainbow trout averaging a pound each were planted in the tomato bin. In less than three months, many had doubled their weights.
The tomato bin now has over 15,000 fingerling brown trout that Baker said he hopes to rear to a half-pound each before they are tagged and released into Bridgeport Reservoir and the East Walker.
The program goal is to eventually raise 50,000 brown a year for Bridgeport and the East Walker, and three other tomato bin sites are likely to be in place before summer to handle the increased capacity needed as this year's batch of fish grows.
But the bulk of effort relies on donations and entry fees paid by anglers in a pair of fishing tournaments set up for this year on Bridgeport Reservoir. The first event is an open tournament Saturday, June 24, and the second event is a fly-fishing-only event Sunday, Oct. 8. Information on these events and how to make donations to the Bridgeport Fish Enhancement Program is available on the Internet at
www.bridgeportcalifornia.com or by calling the Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce at (760) 932-7500. Anglers can also stop by Paradise Shores opening weekend of trout season (April 29-30) and see the tomato bin rearing facility and even feed the browns.
"If when people come up here and catch a five-fish limit, and one of the fish on the stringer is a brown, we'll have done our job," said Baker.
