Yahoo! It's finally here: The last Saturday in April! More importantly, for many thousands of folks (including Don Q), that last Saturday also means it's the Opening Day of the 2005 California fishing season.
Weather permitting, if you would like to go fishing this coming weekend, here's some information that might prove useful for that Opener:
CREEKS AND RIVERS:
The West Carson River, East Carson River, West Walker River, East Walker River, Little Walker River, Truckee River, Buckeye Creek, Green Creek, Mammoth Creek, Red Creek, Robinson Creek, Rush Creek and Virginia Creek will open, to name just a few moving waters.
However, you can expect high, cold, fast and murky waters in most of those creeks and rivers from the melting snowpacks.
Your best bet will be the East Walker River, downstream from Bridgeport Reservoir to the California/Nevada stateline, because of the controlled waterflow from the reservoir. Be advised that area has fishing restrictions: Minimum size 18 inches, artificial flies and lures with barbless hooks.
However, that section contains large, trophy-sized rainbow and German brown trout.
PONDS, LAKES and RESERVOIRS:
Bridgeport Reservoir, Convict Lake, Crowley Lake, Dynamo Pond, the June Lake Loop (Grant, Gull, June and Silver Lakes), Lundy Lake, the Mammoth Lakes (George, Mamie, Mary and Twin), North Lake, Sabrina Lake, South Lake, Upper and Lower Twin Lakes and the Virginia Lakes area. All of them can normally be reached by a vehicle (weather and road conditions permitting at this time of the year).
Your best bet will be Upper and Lower Twin Lakes. Those two lakes are located approximately 15 miles west of Bridgeport.
They are both noted for large rainbows and huge German browns, including the current California state record brown that weighed more than 25 pounds!
CROWDS:
If the weather is reasonably nice, you can expect to encounter huge crowds of anglers, all along the entire length of the Eastern Sierra Front.
Those crowds will be concentrated at popular destinations such as Crowley Lake, Convict Lake, the June Lake Loop, Upper and Lower Twin Lakes, Bridgeport Reservoir, the West Walker River, the East Walker River, Robinson and Buckeye Creeks.
Note: Many of those very same waters will have also been heavily planted by California Fish and Game and Alper's Hatchery with thousands of rainbow trout, ranging from typical planter size to the huge, 4-8 pound, Alper's Trophy Rainbow Trout.
WALK-IN WATERS:
The opening of the California trout fishing season also means that once the winter snowpack melts and the surface ice melts, hikers can fish at countless walk-in, back-country lakes, such as Burro, East, Fremont, Gilman, Upper and Lower Hoover, Kirman (Carmen), Lane, Nutter, Upper, Lower and Middle Par Value, Poore, Roosevelt, Secret and West, just to name a very few.
However, at this time of the year, you can expect to encounter deep snow drifts and ice-covered lakes just about anywhere above an elevation of about 8,000 feet. That's a given!
Go prepared with cross country skis, snowshoes or a snowmobile (where legal) because you're definitely going to need them.
Your best bet, if they are ice-free (which I doubt!), will be at Roosevelt-Lane Lakes (my personal favorites for Opening Day).
Those two, small, interconnected, high-country lakes are located at an elevation of 7,400 feet in the Hoover Wilderness Area.
They are a 3-mile hike from the U.S. Forest Service Leavitt Meadows Campground on California S.R. 108 (known as the Sonora Pass Highway).
Those two lakes offer a great early-season combination of backpacking or hiking, awesome scenery and fishing for cutthroat and Eastern brook trout.
Remember: The limit at these two lakes is only two trout.
Finally:
If you do fish on the 2005 California fishing season opening day, good luck to you, wherever you go.
• Bet Your Favorite Pigeon
Bet your favorite pigeon he can't tell you the size of the largest trout that I have ever caught at Roosevelt-Lane Lakes.
If he grins and says, "They were a 22-inch cutthroat trout taken from Roosevelt and a 21-inch brookie from Lane," he is one of my fishing companions.
• Don Quilici is the Outdoors editor for the Nevada Appeal.
