| western watershed romance |
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I recall somewhere my heroine Kristin Hersh
stating that time spirals (yeah, physicists have, too, but Kristin’s cooler) – she’s right, as usual, but there’s more. It
not only isn’t linear, but its speed isn’t constant, its shape not
static. A minute in intense moments can feel like a lifetime, and a day
in the moody blues can feel like an instant. Time is rhythmic,
reflected in the seasons – winter always returns and always ends,
though of course no winters are identical - and if you stay in
one place, it’s like a sine wave, with crests and troughs ever
changing. But lives, animals especially, don’t stay in one place, they
move, hence the sine wave shifts around the axis of mean
time, and can extend, through blood, across generations,
across continents, across oceans.
I thought
a gap had existed in my annual spiral with lentic Euromerican spotted
trout during spring until just a few weeks ago, when hints suggested
that that segment had been present for years though mistaken as a
winter pattern’s vestige. To verify my mistake, I zipped up to a lovely
little local reservoir on an epitome spring mountain day as an
impending storm’s first breath spread across the sky in high,
sun-softening cirrus clouds – cool morning, calm, warblers arrived,
butterflies and unfurling wildflowers – and found verification in three
thick brown trout on corners and points and not picky about bait type.
With those fish, the spiral achieved continuity, and so the time had
come to write our story.
Of course, like so
many of mine, it starts at Lake Arrowhead, ever Arrowhead. Over 30 years
ago, 18 years old, all my possessions fitting into a big cardboard box – clothes,
blanket and pillow, a small stereo, my precious records and cassettes
and CDs, a few books, a little fishing bag and lone light-power rod. My
friend’s mother graciously, generously allowed me a bed in her little
apartment in the village, so the lake was always near, an easy jaunt
down to Burnt Mill and the trail that wound to Little Bear Creek. Just
after Labor Day, vacationers vanished, an evening golden, a little
autumn breath in the breeze, I was at the point where Paradise Bay
turns sharply south, with the nearly ever-effective tube jig on,
tossing the lure at all the usual sunfish-y haunts: dock pilings, dock
shade intermingling with rock. I trespassed onto one dock – did that a
lot, though never damaged or ganked anyone’s stuff – and walked out
over deeper water to shoot my jig back into shallows corralled by a
stony storm wall buttressed by a concrete slab and shaded by the
adjacent dock. I cast accurately, and then from the shade emerged a
school of toddler red salmon, each fish about three inches long, and
then, behind, the impetus for their emergence: a big ol’ brownie, well
over 18 inches, malevolent-looking, powerful, hungry. My jig was around
there, too, but I’d lost its location – where was it? My line’s
movement answered – the brownie’s mouth. I set, and the fish, as is the
wont of the species, sounded and ran hard and fast, peeling drag, and
he swiped so much line that it rose and dragged the bottom of the dock,
and then…weightlessness. He’d broke off. I stood for a moment, shaking,
punch drunk, and yearning.
So of course I
returned a day later. Light this evening wasn’t gold but pewter,
manifestation of a late monsoon storm. The big brownies, being
low-light lovers, exulted in the lavender-tinged dimness, and together,
a well-drilled squadron, they corralled the little reds on the surface,
their slashing through the school denoted by the leaping little reds,
like a blast of hail slamming the water, but the disturbance deriving
from below. I’d a fish pattern on, a Rapala Countdown, arguably the
most overrated lure ever perpetrated on the masses, and the brownies,
too smart for shitty imitations, shunned it. Becoming desperate, I
began switching lures, trying the more-effective Rebel Jointed Minnow,
a Kastmaster, a SuperDuper, with all failing [I’d not yet accepted that
the tube jig was my best chance, my perception still deceived by the
lure-labeling of the tackle industry by species rather than purpose
(e.g., fish imitation, crawdad imitation), so the tube jig remained
dominantly a crappie and smallmouth lure in my mind]. Despairing, so
desirous of one of those majestic fish, and out of reasonable lures to
throw, I threw seeming logic to the wind and tied on a Teeny Torpedo (a
“bass lure”), and then, astonishingly – connection, a euphoric and
terrifying rise, a king brown arcing out of the water to claim his
right of the pretend little fish.
Spiral 20 years later, me entering middle age, and lure manufacturers
crafting far more imitative and effective and reliable lures – man,
even the Rebels and Cotton Cordells that caught well in my youth nevertheless lost their tune easily, swam rather stiffly, and cast poorly. From the San Bernardino Mountains to the
majestic Sierra Nevada, and now not at a reservoir behaving as a
lake but at a secluded hydropower reservoir, a brown trout bastion: cool,
abundant sunken timber providing shade brownies love to lurk in, and
stable winter flows that don’t blow out their redds. Atmosphere was
nearly identical to that 20 years previous: autumn gold glint in the
light, late summer. I was there at brownie time, dawn, near a mild
point, and better equipped: I’d a small Lucky Craft Pointer tied on, a
reasonable imitation of both the mosquitofish close to shore and the
larger toddler salmonids out in the open water. Unlike the Rapala of
that long-gone day, the Pointer succeeded – three fat brownies chomped
the lure and met me on the bank during blue dawn's 30 minutes. Once
the sun alighted on the water, stillness ensued, and that was fine –
three fish were enough.
Two years later,
over the divide to the east side, at a bigger, different waterway: a
water-supply reservoir. Again late summer, white light newly gilded,
air freshly chilled, blue dawn. The water surface was still and silent
other than the splash and spreading rings from the Pointer’s entrance.
I worked the water effectively down-reservoir for 15 minutes, along
decently attractive shoreline (moderate slope, fairly shallow, mild
undulations), but with no touches, unlike the two years previous – my
anxiety grumbled as dawn winnowed. Then the mild undulations gave way
to a slash of a sharp point into the water, forming a very well-defined
corner – a good corral. Brown-town time was nearly extinguished for the
sun’s light had fallen on the far shore of the reservoir and was racing
towards me. But at that corner, my anxiety morphed to anticipation, and
just as I hit the Pointer after a several-second pause, the rod stopped
dead – log or rock or…fish. As is so frequent with green bass and
brownies, who nearly always eat on the pause, a few moments had to
elapse for the line to move to signal that the stop wasn’t a snag. Then
the dance began, and unlike rainbows, who also eat plugs when hunting
fish, the dance wasn’t a ballet but rather a sunken, swirling,
dark-club sweaty punk rock slam dance. I’d to be sensitive swaying the
fish into shore to not break the line – and I succeeded, landing a big,
beautiful brownie queen, so magnificent it’d’ve been a crime to not
paint her portrait with the camera…besides, the sun had now stolen my
shade. She was the only brownie I caught that day, but she, as an echo
of two and 20 years ago, was enough.
As in
Arrowhead, so on the west and east sides of the Sierra, in reservoirs
of power and supply: late summer, dim light, relatively shallow, near
points, and there the Euromerican spotted trout a hunter of smaller
fish: toddler salmonids, mosquitofish, toddler Tahoe suckers, Lahontan
redsides.
But they can’t stay in the still
water forever – come autumn, they gotta spawn, and they gotta enter a
stream for the holy act. Once water temperature begins to fall
consistently along with daylight’s length, they gravitate to the inlets
(or, in rarer cases, the outlets), but they don’t then immediately run
into the streams once the water cools to spawning range (typically the
high 40s°F; Moyle 2002) – few species do without a bump in flow that
eases stream entry. They wait for that rise, and the longer they have
to wait, the more of ‘em accumulate at the inlet waiting, and waiting,
and waiting, and while waiting – they get hungry.
The fishiest pre-spawn times, then, are those autumn droughts, and 2008
was one. Many northern California waterways were still virgins to me,
and only in one of the several I’d fished had I caught a brownie, a
small mid-elevation water-supply reservoir. Yeah, just a lone fish, and
she among a mass of rainbows, but sometimes long shots come in. I’d
reasoned out the accumulation scenario described above, and I dutifully
eyed the weather forecast through October, November, and then into
December, and while a few spats of water fell here and there, nothing
near enough to saturate the soils and swell the streams. And then,
finally, big storm threatened on the horizon, and I finagled my
schedule to where I could be at that reservoir the evening before the
deluge.
It was a glorious, late-autumn
afternoon, nearly sultry, ironic given the dying eminence in the
yellowed leaves of the dozing hardwoods. And engulfing, with that
unique autumn sensation of so much released spirit from senescence in
the air. The signal of the nearing storm had emerged, a skein of smooth
cloud shielding the sun: evening’d come early, meaning brownies would
eat early because even though desperate for food to fuel the throes of
the impending frenzied lovemaking, they still shun bright light. I’d a
pleasant walk down a gentle logging road, reaching the reservoir about
two hours before dusk, skirted the river-right side, then cocked my
head to attain a glare-less look through the water, and what I saw
astonished.
It was a trout convention, with tens of thick fish easily visible
milling about right downstream of where the inlet entered the still
water. I’d to catch myself from running to water’s edge and splashing
my baits immediately – the water was both very shallow and clear. So I
rigged well up the bank – one sliding-sinker set with a floating
worm, the other with a jerkbait – then slunk towards the shoreline,
slowly, softly, and then an accurate, arcing cast, a light splash with
the bait rig, and then not even time for one cast with the jerkbait
since the worm rig’s spool was already spinning under a fish’s power.
And the scene repeated several times ‘til I’d killed a limit, a few
stout rainbows mixed in with even stouter browns. Some light remained,
and being I’d never experienced such success before – my restraint
still inchoate – I wanted to feel the dance of the rod again and again,
so picked up the plug rod and slung away – and my invitation was
answered. I caught several more, and the last one I still recall with
crystal clarity: a big, bullish buck who smacked the little fish mimic
just off a short, sharp point, just as the sun disappeared over the
western horizon and the remaining blue purpled. I sheathed the rods
after releasing that man.
I returned to that reservoir twice the following autumn, towing along
my accommodating girlfriend, and both times reinforced timing’s
importance. First time was in October, water cooled enough to draw in
some but not all fish – I only caught a lone brownie that evening. Too
early. Nearly two months later, on about the same date as the previous
year, and during a snowstorm, we left without a fish: too late. Several
years later at a hydropower reservoir further north, in rouge dawn
light, I’d regained my timing and had three fish in hand before morning
died, and I didn’t even bother with bait: the jig was enough. I
followed the fishing with a refreshing hike in the afternoon, my
restraint matured.
And then the shift from
autumn to winter while they birth the new generation in the streams,
whether inlet or outlet, and the still water remains green and white
and red with lake trout and rainbows, but gold and yellow are
conspicuous by their absence. I’ve gazed at big spawners in one of
those rare outlet streams, and gazed only, for to wave a lure at ‘em
while they reposed in their love nests would be sacrilege. True to
their temperament, they’re wary, secretive, huddled by big logjams and
sheltering under the shade cast by the trunks, even the queen just
downstream of her redd shrouded by shadow, mimicking the adjacent log –
rainbow hens, in contrast, will often sit right on top of redds even in
naked daylight. But browns remain protective of their beds, reflected
by the buck red salmon, also there for love, who dash upstream but
quick when their cock fights kick ‘em back towards the bigger redd and
the woodpile, woodpiles the reds themselves would occupy but for the
presence of the much larger Euromerican.
The moratorium on waving a lure at ‘em
expires
quickly because, unlike rainbows, as soon as brownies have consummated, most
bomb out of the running water and back into the still (e.g., Dedual et al.
2000). And they’re hungry, needing the energy to recover from
the ardor of amor,
and since the interface between still and flowing water is so often
where most food resides, they pause just on the lentic side of the
creek coves. But the water temperature is near or at its nadir, often
in the 30s, so they’re too languid to chase a fish imitation such as a
jerkbait, unlike pre-spawn. They’re nearly grazers, sifting through the
substrate not only for lentic bugs – midges and dragon/damselflies, for
example – but also lotic bugs flushed into the still water by the same
flows that drew the brownies into the streams for love. With various
easily captured insects, they ain’t that picky, and so the redworm or
nightcrawler resembles enough the midges and stoneflies and
alderflies that find their way into a brownie’s maw.
Browns and ‘bows often commingle during early winter at the inlets,
both attracted by the creek food, and they’ll both eat the
worm confidently but differently. Rainbows seem more tolerant of the
bitter cold, reflected in how you can catch ‘em and how they eat, a
lesson I often forget since I’ve caught far, far more ‘bows. The
slip-float rig nearly always performs better than the set rig for the
red-band one, and just a few years ago, at a little powre reservoir in
January, I erred by really focusing on the drifting float rather than
the sedentary rig. I knew better: at both a more-northerly power
reservoir and a water-supply one, both sited in a similar lower montane
in years previous, I only caught browns on set rigs, at the typical
dawn time, and I’d to wait forever before I hit ‘em because they ate
the baits even slower than rainbows. Now, present at the right time –
dawn – and, better, at the vanguard of a soft rainstorm (storm leading
edges rile up browns; e.g., Schulz and Berg 1992), I drifted my
slip-float rig deftly, numerous smooth sweeps, and not even a breath on
my baits. This continued through dawn into morning – but for the
growing storm, I’d’ve lost all hope. I persisted, focused on the
slip-float rig but still flinging out the set rig and largely ignoring
it until, from the corner of my eye, the set rig’s line seemed to
straighten. I hoofed over to the rod, my focus now on the correct one,
unsure whether the movement was from a wisp of current or the whisper
of a fish. I wasn’t answered quickly – I’d to stand there, staring, for
several moments until the line began to lazily wander out and out of
time with the mild current. Once tight, I lifted and hit, and was hit
back for I’d connected with a fish, and I knew the species given the
sunken shimmy: brownie. That fish alerted me to my waywardness, and
thereafter the set-rig rod was the main attraction, not the slip float,
and in a short period, I’d all the brownies I wanted (four) in my bag,
all just lazy grazers that nipped the worm and continued lazing along,
taking eternity to chew down the worm for the hook point to find
sufficient holding flesh.
As winter ages
and shifts to spring, so, too, do brownies shift both locations
and feeding style. It took until that last jaunt that I opened this
piece with to fully resolve it, however, despite numerous intimations
winding back 15 years. Donner, as she has done so much, first taught
the lesson, though obviously I was asleep in class ‘til just those few
weeks ago. Lake trout were my quarry in those far-gone days, so I’d the
medium rod, equipment too large for the average brownie though not
excessive for royals of the species. One snotty, sleety day in late
March, ideal laker weather, I suffered the gusts and bone-chill water
in neoprene waders, launching jigs to the sides of a point at the main
inlet. I’d connected with two lakers already, lovely jade fish that ate
like typical lakers – mush. I desperately wanted that third laker, so I
sharpened, tuned even more into my presentations because the difference
between a laker bite and a snag is miniscule, and when they eat, they
will dump after a few seconds. So I was shocked when, nearing the
shoreline drop-off, my jig didn’t just seem to grow heavier – the laker
bite – but received a hard pop, unmistakably a fish. I struck, the hook
stuck, and then movements unlike the usual laker sludgy death roll –
the swings were sharper, the runs stronger. When I
finally finagled her up onto the flat I was wading on, the answer to my
perplexity was revealed in 22 inches of gold – a big brownie.
I considered that fish nothing special, just a very late post-spawner
still lingering around the inlet, but a few weeks later, again
under a clouded sky, two more fat brownies interrupted a very good
laker bite on jigs, and neither were at an inlet – instead, they were
close to shore on corners with copious cover (plants, rock). Over 10
years later, and the pattern recurred though I was targeting rainbows
with a slip-floated worm: another big brown, spring, shallow, on a
rocky corner, a grey sky. I inexplicably considered that another
post-spawn fish despite absence of a nearby stream (yep, sometimes I am
a stubborn dumbass). Took several years more ‘til this one for me to
reassess those fish’s commonalities in preparation for an upcoming date
with brownies at a different waterway, as determined by an incoming
storm. Should that unique springtime pattern exist, I’d need only
target the points and corners with some junk on ‘em during low light,
and I could fish ‘em faster with the jig rather than having to sludge
through with the post-spawn-requisite worm. And on a point during dawn,
not a breath of inflow, I passed my test with three good browns in the
bag on the jig and worm, then repeated the experience at the waterway I
first mentioned in this piece. Pattern revealed.
Most fishes most of the time ain’t picky about what they eat, but
nearly all fishes at some point in the year are, and still-water
brownies are no exception. In spring, the one critter that can become
so abundant so brown trout specialize is that most wonderful,
and most frustrating and irritating, ubiquitous insect: the midge, Chironomus.
I ambled up one day in 2013 to a little, secluded power reservoir who’d
already gifted me myriad summertime brownies – I’d never fished
her in spring – planning on fishing the same way despite the different
season. When I reached water’s edge at dawn, my soul exulted yet ailed:
many spreading rings from rising trout, and…eh…many adult midges
already flitting through the calm atmosphere. Still, the little
bugs weren’t thick enough to narrow the trout’s eating, and on the
first cast I caught a good fish on the jerkbait, but the lure sliced
peacefully through the water several casts after as the air
thickened with ever-more midges, and ever-more rises. They scared me
because midge imitations, either nymphs on the spinning rod (nearly
always rising trout are eating pupae, not adults) or small redworms
(which are close enough in size, shape, movement, and color to larvae),
are more temperamental to cast and retrieve, and with the nymphs, when
trout take, they usually only hold ‘em for a lone second. But if I
wanted more fish – and I did – I’d to face my fear and switch the rods
to bug imitations. I did and did, employing the nymph first.
I laugh and shake my head in derision when I read about the
fly-and-bubble method by other writers. The rig and method they
describe are nothing more than sliding-sinker rigs with a bubble for
the sinker and a nymph for the hook that you just sling out and reel
in. Clearly, these writers are mainly fishing for put-and-take trout
(who have neither caution nor knowledge of wild foods), and the writers
probably have little fishing experience because such rigs twist and
tangle most casts unless the fly either is heavily weighted or is a
big, burly streamer that has some inertia and so prohibits the leader
from spinning around the mainline. As I increasingly fished wild trout,
whether goldies or ‘bows or brooks or browns, the ineffectiveness of
such a rig and method quickly emerged – most bugs don’t zip through
water like a Mepps spinner, and when trout do strike, you nearly always
miss ‘em because the hook-set has to unravel the leader-mainline twist
before exerting force on the hook. Consequently, I had to tinker with
leader type as well as casting style, finally landing on an
aggressively tapered nymph leader coupled with a smooth casting arc
(much like the typical fly-fishing stroke) to turn the rig over
cleanly. A big advantage of the spinning rod over the fly rod is that
you need less open space behind you to cast the rig; a disadvantage is
that fly line disturbs the water and scares the fish considerably less
than the heavy float splashing down.
At
least that’s what I thought once I’d my nymph rig on and readied for my
first cast, in which accuracy and precision seemingly needed to be
finer: gotta get the bug close enough to the trout while not scaring
‘em. Too, an increasing feathering of the spool as the float nears the
water to soften the splash. Aiming to err on the side of being too far
rather than too close to the risers, I succeeded quite well at first,
either missing completely or getting close but not directly on top of
the spreading rings. I’d then slowly reel in, kind of like a gear-guy’s
version of the Leisenring lift, but I’d not a single take. Frustration
growing and needing to breathe deeply and reassess, I paused my
retrieve for several moments, the nymph just dangling beneath the
float, and then – a bite. A clue. Not a lick of current from stream or
wind stirred the water, so the midge pupae were rising vertically, not
slanted like my reeled-in presentation, and the dangling nymph better
matched the orientation of the real bugs. So I fished the nymph after
like a redworm, basically still-fishing it, and in the few cases where
my cast was in the perimeter of the fish’s feeding circle, a few good
browns answered affirmatively. The success loosening me a little too
much, I fired off the rig a bit too on target of a rise, the float
splashing down on the bull’s-eye, and I cursed myself for scaring the
fish, soul sinking a little. But to my astonishment, just a few seconds
later, a take – the trout was unbothered by the clear float, bolstered
thereafter by myriad fish that bit when I bombed the float right on
‘em. They’d taught me two things.
And they
gave me time to repeat the lesson, for a dense midge hatch, should it
extend into or occur during late morning through afternoon, is one of
the few occasions when browns will continue eating with a high, naked
sun, so long as big fish-eating birds (eagles and Ospreys) ain’t
flapping around above. Should I whiff on browns in any other situation
through dawn and the sky ain’t grey, I forget about ‘em once sun lights
the water. But a fat midge hatch can save, which occurred just last
year at a higher-elevation power reservoir closer to my home. I’d a
take nearly instantly on my first cast at dawn’s break, but then
all through dawn, not a breath on my redworms, whether rising up from a
set rig or dangling down and drifting gently under the slip float.
Despair began rising with the sun, but they were accompanied by a
promise: skittering midge numbers had started also to rise. Nearly
instant with the sun illuminating my water, the typical end time of
brown trout catching, the opposite occurred when the line on the set
rig zipped out, and I caught my first. Then another…and another…and
another, yet there the sun was nearly at its zenith, and then the final
fish, the limit fish, when the slip float tipped and swirled then sunk.
A springtime saving complement to the more-frequent pinch-point
crepuscular feeding windows.
And then the
new summer. Yep, the water has certainly warmed, and browns will seek
cooler waters, but they don’t go abyssal deep or far offshore (Nettles
et al. 1987, Dedual et al. 2000, Encina and Rodriguez-Ruiz 2003,
Al-Chokhachy et al. 2009…) – most food is relatively shallow, and the
juiciest morsels in summer’s first half are big bugs, the sizes of the
year’s crop of small fishes at that point typically too small to be
worth chasing. I’ve experienced two bugs brownies will especially key
on: dragon/damselflies (e.g., Cutter 1991, p 91) and the famous Hexagenia,
the big yellow mayfly.
Most dragons and damsels emerge from late
morning through afternoon, their most vulnerable time, and rainbows
will brave the exposure of a big sun to chew the tubby insects (it’s a
popular pattern on Davis Reservoir). While certainly some browns behave
similarly, I ain’t seen one yet – they’ve all been during dim light,
more dusk or morning with an overcast that persisted from the previous
evening than dawn. Seems the warmer water riles the bugs up a little
more in those periods, and the browns have the tenacity to bear that
warmer water and chow down. They’re more possessive with dragon/damsel
imitations than with midge nymphs – hold that which is more valuable
more tightly. On a monsoon-y evening at a little power reservoir in
June 2012, I slinked up to a stretch with luxuriant weedbeds
interspersed with fallen timber. I was casting my famous Teejay-created
marabou jig (they’re coveted by my friends) – a good approximation of
DD nymphs as well as small craws – and on my cast’s drop, I’d a take –
and she didn’t let go. I’d three other takes that evening, all very
forceful, and all stuck – a pretty good ratio. I’d to exhibit a little
gratitude and release the fourth.
The big
yellow mays and their predators in Almanor are even more commonly known
than the damsel Davis ‘bows – they attract many fisherpeople. The Hex
hatch, in contrast to the damsels, is a dusk event, coinciding with the
brownie’s love of low light. And the browns are clearly more at ease
coming toward shore and to the surface in those warmer waters than
rainbows: I’ve caught not a single ‘bow during the Hex
hatch, just big ol’ grimacing brown trout and the errant smallmouth.
Those fish have illustrated a pattern across fishes, one that Tom
McGuane notes, too (1999, p 68, 268): flies tied too specifically often
fail relative to simpler, looser patterns. I’d nearly photo-perfect Hex
nymphs that neither the trout nor smalls would touch (they swam too stiffly, in part), while a glorified woolly bugger with no
eyes, no wingpads, and no hackle but more fluid movement turned the
fish on big time, much like my marabou jig that is close enough
to DD nymphs. And those browns reinforced my experience with springtime
midge-eaters: clear floats don't scare 'em. Frustratingly, they
often attack the float rather than the big, buoyant dun imitation riding
behind.
By the time the hatches of those
big bugs have ceased, typically by July’s end and the shift to late
summer, the little fish that were too small for chasing no longer are,
and the browns know, dashing after the wakasagi in Almanor or redsides
and small Tahoe suckers in Truckee waterways or the little reds of
Arrowhead over 30 years ago when I was still a teenager – back where I
started. And so my relationship spiral with lentic brown trout in
memory completes, through all seasons and my mountain ranges of this
psychotic state of California.
What I still
wonder about is whether that spiral wound before me, through
generations, back into the ancestral home of both brown trout and my
bloodlines, in Ireland and mainland northern Europe. I have to think
yes because the resonance among fishes, conifers, cold waters, and I is
engulfing, a destiny realized. That potential remained dormant in my
parents – father nor mother had even a sliver interest in any fishing,
though both had an affinity for conifers. Traits can often skip a
generation or two, and my Slavic great-grandfather was a fisherman, and
I most resemble my Irish great-grandmother, so I have to conclude that
in sometime in that lost time in the Old World, a likeness of me stood
in the drizzle dim light at the shore of a loch and sought destiny in
the bite of a brown.
REFERENCES
Al-Chokhachy, R. M. Peacock, L. G. Heki, and G. Thiede. 2009. Evaluating the reintroduction potential of Lahontan cutthroat trout in Fallen Leaf Lake, California. North American Jounral of Fisheries Management 29:1296-1313.
Cutter, R. 1991. Sierra trout guide. Hong Kong, Frank Amato Publications.
Dedual, M., I. D. Maxwell, J. W. Hayes, and R. R. Strickland. 2000. Distribution and movements of brown trout (Salmo trutta) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Lake Otamangakau, central North Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 34: 615-627.
Encina, L., and A. Rodriguez-Ruis. 2003. Abundance and distribution of a brown trout (Salmo trutta, L.) population in a remote high mountain lake. Hydrobiologia 493: 35-42.
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