The difference was apparently night and day.
State Fish and Game crews racing to transplant all the trout they can net from fast-draining Caples Lake dramatically improved their catch in the dark Wednesday from midnight to 4 a.m., officials said.
The graveyard shift hauled 3,000 fish by tanker truck to nearby Silver and Red lakes in the tiny High Sierra county of Alpine. The day crew, by comparison, nabbed fewer than 100 on Tuesday, the start of a nonstop 72-hour fish rescue.
Fish and Game workers with no shortage of volunteers hope to capture thousands more trout today and Friday as the El Dorado Irrigation District drains Caples for repair of the dam gates this fall.
Officials are not surprised by their nighttime success. In daylight, especially on cloudless hot days, larger fish hang in the protective shadows of big boulders and tree stumps on the cool lake bottom. Come nightfall, when the surface waters darken and cool, the trophy-size trout start working the shores for insects.
That's where Fish and Game's "shock boats" are dispersing electric currents of 1,000 to 1,500 volts to stun fish for easy netting.
"We scoop them up as soon as they roll," said Harry Morse, a spokesman for the agency, which regularly stocks the lake with rainbows, brooks, browns and Mackinaws.
The three shock boats far outdid the five vessels trolling with gill nets.
"As soon as we saw what was happening, we called in four more electro-shock boats to really get hot and heavy at it tonight," Morse said Wednesday.
Few fish have died in captivity, he said. One of them happened to be a 33-inch-long, 18.5-pound brown snagged in a gill net, the largest fish yet caught.
Biologists necropsied it to determine its age. Morse wished he'd photographed it as proof to anglers that Caples truly does harbor lunkers.
Call The Bee's Chris Bowman, (916) 321-1069.
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "report abuse" button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "report abuse" button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.