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TROUT SEASON OPENER -- jim matthews column -- 25apr07
Eastern Sierra trout seasonopener a vestige of the past
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service
MAMMOTH LAKES -- Its not the same, but nothing ever is.
Once upon a time, trout season closed statewide in California. From the end of October through most of April, you couldnt fish for trout here, there, or anywhere. So the spring season opener was a big deal everywhere in the state. My dad and older brother would leave the house at dawn and drive up to fish the headwaters of the Santa Ana River when the season opened in the late 1950s. That was back before Highway 38 went all the way through to Big Bear, and South Fork Campground was called End Camp back then because it was at the end of the road. Some years they fished up through the historic cabins on the South Fork for brown trout and other years down through the beaver meadows on the main Santa Ana for the planted rainbows. It was the opener.
An old family friend used to tell tales about driving up Highway 395 in 1930s-vintage automobiles to float fish the upper Owens River opening weekend. It was before the runoff started, most years, and it was before Lake Crowley was created. He would float through the upper meadows and then down through the Owens River gorge catching big brown trout on big, wiggling wads of nightcrawlers or bass plugs. Chick Reed also used another bait. He was the first person to describe to me the intricacies of using field mice for bait for those big old browns. They would float them into back eddies and undercut banks on pieces of bark or sticks and then pull the mouse off into the water and hold on as it swam for shore. Six and eight pound browns were common.
Fishing on the opener was always an adventure, if not an actual expedition, and everyone went. You really couldnt call yourself a trout angler if you skipped opening day.
Regulations, rightly, began to change to allow year around fishing on low elevation lakes and streams in temperate climates. Urban lake managers in warm regions found they could plant trout in the winter when the water was cold and provide excellent trout fishing in what historically was the "closed" season. Increasingly, closed seasons were opened. -- except in the high country.
Since the mid-1970s I've been coming to the Eastern Sierra Nevada for the trout season opener. For a long time it was like a great hitting streak, and I came every year to rub shoulders with family, friends and strangers on Hot Creek, the upper Owens River, and Lake Crowley. Then I missed a year. Then another. There was spring baseball with the boys and way leads on to way. We'd go when it fit into the schedule, which wasnt very often. I haven't been here for nearly a decade.
When I first starting coming to the Sierra for the trout opener, it was estimated that something on the order of 20,000 to 25,000 anglers congregated on Lake Crowley, and while the fishing is arguably better today than it has ever been, the estimate has been closer to 8,000 anglers the last couple of years. Most of us think that is pretty generous.
I have photos of Hot Creek with at least 50 anglers standing along its banks in one short stretch. We always figured there would be between 200 and 300 guys on the reach of water from the Hot Creek Ranch down to the hot springs, and another 30 or 40 fly-casting from the Hot Creek Fish Hatchery down to the upper end of the ranch. After a couple of openers, you got to where you knew all of the fly anglers by sight if not actually by name. But back then, it was the only place fly-fishermen congregated, and if you stood on the lip of the canyon and actually watched, you'd realize only about 15 percent of the guys were actually fishing. The rest were standing in clusters talking, laughing, looking at flies and rods, and eating or sipping apricot brandy.
But the trout opener has always been about more than just the fishing. Its a social event steeped in a long outdoor tradition. It's about family. Its about long-term friendships. On any given year, you can wander through one of the crowded campgrounds at Convict Lake or in the June Lake Loop and find a family with four generations of anglers, bundled up to the evening cold, standing together roasting marshmallows around a campfire. There will be groups of fishing buddies who can claim 20 to 50 years of consecutive openers together. And, oh, the fish stories -- the glue that binds it all together.
Our boys are getting to the age where Becky and I don't get to have them both together with us as often as we might like, and the trout opener trip was planned this year as an excuse. Becky's brother R.G. , my longest and best fishing buddy, will be going, too. The opener is not the same as it used to be, but I realize Ive missed what it always has been and always will be.
Eastern Sierra trout seasonopener a vestige of the past
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service
MAMMOTH LAKES -- Its not the same, but nothing ever is.
Once upon a time, trout season closed statewide in California. From the end of October through most of April, you couldnt fish for trout here, there, or anywhere. So the spring season opener was a big deal everywhere in the state. My dad and older brother would leave the house at dawn and drive up to fish the headwaters of the Santa Ana River when the season opened in the late 1950s. That was back before Highway 38 went all the way through to Big Bear, and South Fork Campground was called End Camp back then because it was at the end of the road. Some years they fished up through the historic cabins on the South Fork for brown trout and other years down through the beaver meadows on the main Santa Ana for the planted rainbows. It was the opener.
An old family friend used to tell tales about driving up Highway 395 in 1930s-vintage automobiles to float fish the upper Owens River opening weekend. It was before the runoff started, most years, and it was before Lake Crowley was created. He would float through the upper meadows and then down through the Owens River gorge catching big brown trout on big, wiggling wads of nightcrawlers or bass plugs. Chick Reed also used another bait. He was the first person to describe to me the intricacies of using field mice for bait for those big old browns. They would float them into back eddies and undercut banks on pieces of bark or sticks and then pull the mouse off into the water and hold on as it swam for shore. Six and eight pound browns were common.
Fishing on the opener was always an adventure, if not an actual expedition, and everyone went. You really couldnt call yourself a trout angler if you skipped opening day.
Regulations, rightly, began to change to allow year around fishing on low elevation lakes and streams in temperate climates. Urban lake managers in warm regions found they could plant trout in the winter when the water was cold and provide excellent trout fishing in what historically was the "closed" season. Increasingly, closed seasons were opened. -- except in the high country.
Since the mid-1970s I've been coming to the Eastern Sierra Nevada for the trout season opener. For a long time it was like a great hitting streak, and I came every year to rub shoulders with family, friends and strangers on Hot Creek, the upper Owens River, and Lake Crowley. Then I missed a year. Then another. There was spring baseball with the boys and way leads on to way. We'd go when it fit into the schedule, which wasnt very often. I haven't been here for nearly a decade.
When I first starting coming to the Sierra for the trout opener, it was estimated that something on the order of 20,000 to 25,000 anglers congregated on Lake Crowley, and while the fishing is arguably better today than it has ever been, the estimate has been closer to 8,000 anglers the last couple of years. Most of us think that is pretty generous.
I have photos of Hot Creek with at least 50 anglers standing along its banks in one short stretch. We always figured there would be between 200 and 300 guys on the reach of water from the Hot Creek Ranch down to the hot springs, and another 30 or 40 fly-casting from the Hot Creek Fish Hatchery down to the upper end of the ranch. After a couple of openers, you got to where you knew all of the fly anglers by sight if not actually by name. But back then, it was the only place fly-fishermen congregated, and if you stood on the lip of the canyon and actually watched, you'd realize only about 15 percent of the guys were actually fishing. The rest were standing in clusters talking, laughing, looking at flies and rods, and eating or sipping apricot brandy.
But the trout opener has always been about more than just the fishing. Its a social event steeped in a long outdoor tradition. It's about family. Its about long-term friendships. On any given year, you can wander through one of the crowded campgrounds at Convict Lake or in the June Lake Loop and find a family with four generations of anglers, bundled up to the evening cold, standing together roasting marshmallows around a campfire. There will be groups of fishing buddies who can claim 20 to 50 years of consecutive openers together. And, oh, the fish stories -- the glue that binds it all together.
Our boys are getting to the age where Becky and I don't get to have them both together with us as often as we might like, and the trout opener trip was planned this year as an excuse. Becky's brother R.G. , my longest and best fishing buddy, will be going, too. The opener is not the same as it used to be, but I realize Ive missed what it always has been and always will be.
