LA Times Saturday Eastern Sierra Report
Castaic angler snags prize on balmy day
By Pete Thomas, Times Staff Writer
April 29, 2007
JUNE LAKE, CALIF. — Two things worked in Steve Brown's favor Saturday morning:
1. He was one of the first people onto June Lake — everyone knows the story about the early bird getting the worm.
2. He did not have a clue where his net was — as most fishermen can attest, you are more likely to hook a big fish if you are not prepared to bring it aboard.
So it was, in the dim first light on opening day of the 2007 Eastern Sierra trout season, that the Castaic angler found himself with a giant rainbow alongside his boat.
He carefully played the prize while his friends searched chaotically for the net, finally discovering it beneath their cooler and scooping up a colorful whopper weighing 8 pounds 13 ounces.
"The net was under the beer," said Brown, 47, whose catch was the heaviest throughout the region as of late afternoon. Also to Brown's credit were trout weighing 5-15, 5-2 and 3-12, giving him perhaps the heaviest stringer as well.
As for the day, it was more appropriate for beer drinking than for fishing. Several impressive catches were logged throughout the 100-mile stretch from Bishop to Bridgeport. But most of the fish were reeled in before the sun was long overhead, making it feel more like July and rendering fish and fishermen inactive.
"You know what we say about June Lake: the worse the weather, the better the fishing," said Mickie Frederickson, who runs June Lake Marina.
Along the June Lake Loop, the temperature was in the 60s by 10 a.m. and reached 70 by about noon. In Bridgeport and Bishop, it climbed into the 80s.
The legendary backdrop of glistening white Sierra slopes resembled a dull brown range streaked only lightly with dirty snow.
Sunburned anglers reminisced about previous openers spent bundled in layers and shivering during snowstorms.
Thousand Oaks resident Rich Hain, 43, who has been to 29 openers, could not recall any others being this warm but was refreshed by the recollection of the 1983 opener, when June Lake was entirely iced over.
Few, however, were going to let such a balmy, pleasant morning ruin their day.
This was a quality opener even if the fish weren't active for long.
At Bridgeport Reservoir, Huntington Beach angler Reid Urey used a green spinner to nab a 7-pound 10-ounce brown.
"It was the biggest fish I ever caught," he said.
At Crowley Lake, which lured a crowd of about 7,000, the average rainbow weighed nearly 2 pounds — up by more than half a pound from last year. Crowley has been ice-free for three months, giving the fish more time to plump up before the onslaught of anglers.
The top catch at the sprawling reservoir was a 4-pound 9-ounce Lahontan cutthroat trout by Redondo Beach angler Kenny Wilton. La Habra's Jake Atanay, 14, caught a slightly smaller cutthroat.
Convict Lake's top catch was an 8-5 rainbow by Brad Marcus of San Diego.
At 8,000-plus feet in Bishop Creek Canyon, mini-jig specialist Marlon Meade of Anaheim caught and released dozens of trout, most in the early morning at Intake II, while partner Terry Inns weighed rainbows at 5-1 and 4-0.
There were unconfirmed reports of a much larger rainbow coming from Intake II, but because it had not been weighed, bragging rights still belonged to Brown.
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