KIRKWOOD, Alpine County – Any angler who has been skunked at Caples Lake would have netted some consolation Tuesday watching dozens of state Fish and Game workers trying to catch the High Sierra trout.
The olive-uniformed fishing crews had all the toys and none of the rules: eight motor boats, sonar fish finders, satellite-based navigation systems, gill nets, trammel nets, hoop nets and electro-shock generators that leave no fish unturned.
By noon, after three hours of casting about, the crew had bagged all of one fish – a 23-inch rainbow. That was when a school of press photographers converged on the lonesome quarry to chronicle the start of an all-out fish rescue.
The lake's owner, the El Dorado Irrigation District, is draining the 600-acre reservoir as fast as it can to repair the outlets of the 85-year-old dam. The district's governing board declared an emergency after discovering that the sliding gates are in danger of failing, which could result in uncontrolled releases or a plugged dam overwhelmed with the inflow of snowmelt.
Fish and Game officials said the sight of thousands of stranded and dying trophy-sized trout flopping about in shallow pools is politically unacceptable.
"This is pretty much motherhood and apple pie to people. They don't want to see fish dying," said Stafford Lehr, a state fish biologist coordinating the effort from a sandbar jutting out from the north shore.
Fish and Game officials were confident their catching success would improve significantly in the hours from early evening through early morning. The department has drafted 75 employees to work day and night nonstop through Sunday.
"After that, it's catch as catch can," Lehr said.
The public is free to continue fishing the lake "as long as they are willing to walk out through the middle of the muddy lake bottom," he said. The Fish and Game Commission might even consider lifting the fishing restrictions.
"No option is being closed at this point," Lehr said.
Captured fish will be transferred by hatchery truck and released seven miles downstream into EID's Silver Lake.
Situated alongside Highway 88 just east of the Kirkwood Mountain ski resort, Caples draws thousands of anglers and picnickers as one in a system of Sierra reservoirs, canals and powerhouses that supply drinking water and electricity downhill to the El Dorado Irrigation District.
EID board president George Osborne said operators of the main dam noticed problems with the gates in 2006, but said the issue didn't merit underwater inspection until earlier this year. Divers discovered major deterioration, causing excessive leakage, a district report said.
"The control mechanisms fell off in their hands as they touched them," Osborne said.
Though the dam itself is safe in containing the reservoir, engineers could not ensure that the structure could be operated safely without replacing the gates, Osborne said. Anglers and hikers downstream on Caples Creek and the Silver Fork of the American River could be endangered by sudden high flows.
The district began drawing down Caples Lake in mid-July. Flows on Caples Creek are expected to remain unseasonably high through mid-September.
More than 80 anglers associated with Trout Unlimited and the California Sportsfishing Protection Alliance have volunteered to help shock and net the trout, including Mackinaw, which are known to live up to 18 years and grow more than 35 inches. The lake is stocked annually with lake trout, rainbows, brooks and browns.
"We know there are thousands in there," Lehr said, "But catching them is like chasing a school of herring."
Call The Bee's Chris Bowman, (916) 321-1069.
