Outdoor Notes : Inyo County Will Get a Jump on Trout Season
Fishermen eagerly awaiting the eastern Sierra trout opener on the last Saturday in April could get a jump on the action as some waters are scheduled to open in less than a month.
Independence Creek, Symmes Creek, Lone Pine Creek, lower Cottonwood Creek, Georges Creek and other waters in southwestern Inyo County can be fished legally beginning March 5, according to the Department of Fish and Game.
Licensed fishermen will be able to take five fish daily until the traditional April 30 opener, when a 10-fish limit goes into effect.
Southwestern Inyo County trout waters will include: Diaz Lake and a section of the Owens River that extends south from Pleasant Valley Reservoir--both are open all year.
Except for a section of the Owens River between Pleasant Valley Reservoir and Five Bridges, where the limit is two fish, the daily bag limit is five fish on the river as well.
The early season will close along with the general trout season on Oct. 31.
Add trout opener: Those hoping to avoid the long boat inspection lines at Crowley Lake can participate in a pre-registration and inspection program March 12-13 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Los Angeles Swim Stadium.
“It can get very congested at the lake on the first days,” said Dave Griffith, Department of Parks and Recreation manager at Crowley. “The inspection itself takes only 15 minutes, but if 1,200 boats show up, it can be an all-day ordeal.”
Last add trout opener: The Los Angeles City Recreation and Parks Dept., which operates Crowley Lake, is holding a lottery March 5 at 9 a.m. at Friendship Auditorium in Los Angeles, in which winners will be able to reserve one of 60 motor-powered boats for half-day sessions.
Morning sessions cost $40; afternoon rentals are $30. Twenty boats without engines cost $25 for an all-day rental.
The week before the official opening will be opened to registered boat owners for early launching.
Wildlife biologists are fearing the worst after finding the remains of seven bighorn sheep in a mountain region of Modoc County where a transplanted band of animals has been flourishing for the last eight years.
A helicopter search Feb. 4 turned up the seven carcasses, but it failed to spot a living bighorn among their known range that last summer supported at least 49 animals.
“I certainly can’t say that all animals are dead, but it doesn’t look good,” said wildlife biologist Doug Thayer.
The animals appeared to have died of an infectious bacterial pneumonia, according to veterinarian Dr. Dave Jessup, who said the fatal ailment was most likely acquired within the last few months and may be linked to some other disease contracted by the mountain sheep.
California bighorn sheep--a state threatened species--number about 330 in five Sierra Nevada locations. In 1971, they numbered 165.
Two bighorns spotted by a Forest Service employee Jan. 25 were the last animals known to be seen alive in the Warner Mountains habitat.
In an attempt to reestablish the animals in an environment they had not occupied for at least 50 years, 14 California bighorn were captured and released in 1980. Last summer, 49 animals were counted there and there could have been as many as 60, according to the DFG.
If most or all of the Warner range bighorn population has died, it would mark the second tragedy in eight years to affect California bighorn in Northern California.
In 1980, disease killed all 33 bighorn inside a special enclosure at the Lava Beds National Monument in Siskiyou County, shortly after four of the animals--and another 10 from Inyo County--were transplanted to the Warners to establish the new Modoc band.
Add bighorn: A special permit to allow the take of one mature Nelson bighorn sheep ram will be on the auction block during a Foundation for for North American Wild Sheep convention in Reno, Feb. 24-27.
The permit will provide for a 30-day hunt beginning in late November, pending approval of the Fish and Game Commission in April.
Money raised during the auction will be used by the DFG in an effort to enhance bighorn sheep and their California habitat.
At last year’s auction, Palm Springs rancher Bob Howard paid $70,000 for the right to hunt the first-ever legal bighorn ram in California.
Howard shot an 11-year old ram in the Old Dad Mountains in San Bernardino County.
Plans are also under way to provide eight additional bighorn sheep permits to hunters in a lottery later in the year.
In a similar hunt in 1987, all nine hunters got their sheep, despite efforts by environmentalists to disrupt the hunt.
Briefly
Montana fly fishing guide John Seaman will speak at the San Gabriel Valley Flyfishers’ Feb. 24 general membership meeting at 7:30 at the Whittier Narrows Visitors Center in El Monte. . . . Showtime: Fred Hall’s Fishing and Boat Show will run from March 2-6 at the Long Beach Convention Center. . . . El Nino, a weather phenomenon associated with water temperature and ocean currents, will be the subject of a talk by oceanographers Dr. Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Dr. Forrest Miller of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. at the University of San Diego. . . . The Long Beach Casting Club will host the 1988 Southwestern Casting Tournament at the LBCC clubhouse Feb. 27-28 at 9 a.m. at Recreation Park in Long Beach.
