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Caples fish rescue to a slow start

By Jerry Neuburger
August 26, 2008 -- Caples Lake CA-- More than forty personnel from DFG, piles of equipment and ten boats were  assembled along the shore line of Caples Lake at 6AM Tuesday morning to begin the efforts to rescue the lake's trophy fishery. By noon, an army of reporters had gathered as well as over twenty volunteers, ready to start the rescue operation. 

With the large number of media people present the press conference ran close to an hour with DFG personnel demonstrating some of the rescue methods they hoped to use in the capture of the lake's fish.

Once the press was taken care of, Stafford Lehr of DFG gathered the volunteer force and, after thanking CSPA and Trout Unlimited for their efforts in coordinating the volunteer effort, gave a briefing, explaining the structure of the rescue operation and safety rules.

Once the briefing was finished, the volunteers headed down to work the various boats, some checking gill nets, some looking in hoop nets, some checking trammel nets and still others working the three electrofishing boats.

The crews worked the lake extensively, but in five hours work, under a hundred fish were captured, the largest a three pound brown trout. While disappointed, crews hoped that the evening efforts would be better rewarded. Due to the small number of fish captured, they were left in the holding pens to be transported in the morning along with the night's catch.

The rescue is off to a slow start. The problem could be that the lake is still fairly large at 8,700 acre feet, in some places over 35 feet deep. Fish graphs showed large numbers of fish in the deep areas but out of the reach of the equipment available. Even at the rate the lake is falling, there will still be areas over 25 feet deep on Friday.

After the night fishing attempt, DFG will have a better idea of the methods that prove the most successful and attempt to modify procedures and techniques increase effectiveness.