LUNKER LAND A GUIDE TO TROPHY TROUT SITES.

Byline: Randy van Vliet Special to the Daily News

There is a change in the air, days are shorter, still a hint of Indian summer. Nights are cool, if not cold, with the first snows soon to be on the way.

Mother Nature is getting ready to have her way with all the flora and fauna, first at the higher elevations, where the orange and golden leaves have withered and fallen away. Farther down in elevation, leaves are just starting to turn yellow gold in the aspen stands. The browns of October are restless, hungry and aggressive.

This is what I was thinking on my way to meet biologist Russ Wickwire of the California Department of Fish and Game in Fresno. I would be helping with sampling the lakes and reservoirs in the Western Sierra Nevada for trophy brown trout.

We were headed east up highway 168 to Shaver and Huntington Lake. What I wanted to do was get in a little fly-fishing before the fishing season ended on the streams of the Western Sierras. That would be after finishing up with the statistical portion of taking of kokanee salmon and trout, both put and take rainbows, and wild browns.

Russ Wickwire, a biologist for the California Department of fish and Game, had asked me to leave my fly rod at home and bring the rod on which I had already caught an 11-pound, 11 ounce hook-jaw brown, along with a couple of 10-pounders. He advised me that there would be a lot of kokanee salmon in shallows, in various shades of silver, pink, and maybe a few big red humpbacked males, all in their flashy spawning colors.

Kind of like ZZ Tops lyrics, ``The ladies go crazy for a sharp dressed man.''

Edison, Huntington, Shaver, Wishon and Courtright have all produced monster browns in the past. We were going to see about the health of the browns in Huntington and Shaver, along with kokanee.

The Department of Fish and Game had been stocking Shaver and Huntington with 50,000 fingerling kokanee each year. These were surplus from the Colorado Division of Wildlife and were a big strain.

Yet the fish were only reaching an average length of 9.5 inches, with large heads and skinny bodies up at Huntington Lake. This was a sign of a lack of food or overpopulation.

The large number of samples in our netting confirmed an overpopulation of kokanee. Big brown trout loved eating them, along with planted rainbow trout, and they were not putting a dent in the population.

It would be easy to match the size and color of the rainbow trout up at Huntington Lake with a generic trout, but the kokanee's color was another question. I had never seen kokanee in spawning colors, so how could I match them? A custom-painted Rapala 18 cm. floater was the solution to that problem.

Another issue had been the draining of Huntington in the winter of 1993, to work on the lower portion of the face of the dam. Many had said that the fish die-off had been immense.

Wickwire was pretty certain that the big fish were still there. It is just a lot harder to fool a wily old hook-jawed brown, he assured me. I surely hadn't noticed that in the spring of '97 or '98. In fact, my browns were biting my lures with custom paint jobs. The difference was, this was not spring but late September.

The sampling of Shaver Lake went smoothly. We measured the lengths of the kokanee, then checked the weights of several fish in each year class. All morning long, the weather was looking threatening, with a slow-moving storm front coming in out of the northwest.

The Weather Channel said it would hit on Oct. 28 in the morning. Here it was the 29th, a day late and looking like it was stalling. We finished up at Shaver and put the 22-foot boat back on the trailer and headed up Highway 168 the rest of the way to Huntington Lake.

The weather was worse up at 7,000 feet. We had work to do when it started snowing. We got the gear out just before the wind picked up as the brunt of the front hit us. It was snowing hard as we started trolling along the banks in 15 feet of water, jigging our Rapalas. Russ kept on catching 10- to 12-inch rainbows and releasing them after measurement.

As we trolled back at an idle, I felt a mild surge from the rod. We were doing maybe two miles per hour, and I knew there was an outcropping of rocks nearby. We backed up in the dark and my lure came free from the snag.

Part of this game is trolling near such structure, and you try to learn where the obstacles are during the daytime so you can avoid them at dawn and at dusk. A GPS along with a sonar go a long way to helping you out in this area.

I sent my line and lure out two hundred feet. I had just flipped my bail when the water exploded behind me and I heard a huge splash, barely making out the fish against the reflected light on the water. I shouted at Russ to reel in his line, fast.

With all the scrambling over, Russ got everything under control while I worked the fish. There was a lot of weight to this fish. I got her alongside the boat and asked Russ to get the net.

What net? The net was in the back of the truck. All the equipment we had put out had taken up all the space in the boat, and there had been no room for the net.

This fish still had plenty of fight left when she shot away from the gunwale, taking me around the boat three times. I was doing laps around the boat trying to keep her clear of the motor, the prop, the anchor on the bow, the navigation light sticking up, you name it.

As she lay on her side on the surface, I lifted the rod, bringing her head a couple of inches out of the water. Quickly, I slipped my hand underneath her jaw bone lifted her into the boat. We taped her 28 1/2 inches long, with a girth of 17.3 inches.

Leave it to the biologist to have a measuring stick with tenths of an inch. The digital scale said 10.90 pounds, or a little over 10 pounds, 14 ounces.

It was a fun ride back to the docks after that little adventure. For me, it answered the question of whether or not Huntington Lake and its trophy brown trout could be caught in the fall.

Butch Wiggs, the proprietor from Vermilion Valley Resort at Edison Lake, was picking up his mail as we went in to use the post office scale.

``Did you just get back from Edison?'' he asked, with a look of hope in his eyes. ``Wow, that's a nice 13-pounder,'' he said, as I carried it in to the post office. The scale there said 12 1/4. Butch has seen more than a few big fish come out of Edison since he took over up here in 1994.

There have been some changes in the DFG's management of Huntington Lake since then. Wickwire loves both kokanee and trophy brown trout, so several lakes in Fresno are managed accordingly. The natural reproduction of kokanee is more than sufficient at Huntington, so they haven't planted salmon since 1997.

Talking to Wickwire recently, he said that the kokanee salmon is an underutilized fishery at Shaver and Huntington Lakes, which is a shame. Brined in solution of salt and brown sugar for four hours, and smoked for a few hours, it is out of this world.

If you want to try kokanee salmon fishing, contact Captain Jack's Guide Service at [phone]. It's a great way to start a kid fishing. For more information on kokanee fishing, visit www.kokanee page.

The first week of August this year, I was up at Edison Lake, talking with Wiggs. In the lodge was a picture of a huge brown trout that went 27 1/2 pounds, being held by a game warden. It had been hooked by someone and broken off, sometime in the '70s.

That's a full pound more than the current state record. Evidently, the fish's family is still alive and well.

From what Butch was saying, at the beginning of the month, the guide he's hired, Randy Cohea, was fishing with downriggers at about 60 feet with a client who hooked into something huge. They brought the fish to the boat two times, saw that size but couldn't get the fish close enough to the boat to land. They played the fish for 67 minutes before they lost it.

For trophy browns, the Eastern Sierra is better known to Southland anglers. Twin Lakes, Bridgeport, holds the state record with a 26-pound, 8-ouncer, caught at Upper Twin by Danny Stearman of Bakersfield. Jon Minami of Torrance caught the previous record, just a few years earlier at Lower Twin, going 26 pounds, 6 ounces. This was 13 and 17 years ago, respectively.

A lot of anglers in the know make the seven-hour drive up 395 from L.A., for a shot a a fish of a lifetime. Bridgeport Reservoir has been known in the past to kick up a brown or two over the 15-pound mark.

Grant Lake is a sleeper, but for two years running, it has given up a 12-or 13-pound fish. Sometimes, South Lake west of highway 168 out of Bishop has an awesome bite for big fish, with a 17-pounder coming out of there in '98.

Further north, if you really want to improve your odds, lies Union Valley Reservoir and Ice House. Both are located east of Placerville on U.S. 50, and have a reputation among Brownbaggers, a trophy brown trout organization, for browns over 10 pounds.

Up by Lake Tahoe near Truckee on I-80 lie Donner, Prosser, and Stampede Reservoir.

It seems the further you get away from the population centers, and the harder it is to reach, the better your odds of getting a trophy. The following lakes are for the hardest core anglers. You will work to get there, so don't make it a short visit. Small aluminum boats are a necessity.

Hell Hole Reservoir is tough to reach, but every year several big fish could be caught out of there. Salt Spring Reservoir on the Mokelumne River has produced browns to 20 pounds recently. DFG biologist Stafford Lehr has confirmed that there are some big fish in there, possibly a state record. It just hasn't been caught yet.

Of all the lakes capable of producing browns over 10 pounds, Blue Lake has produced 12 over a three-year period. The lake is east of 395 in the north end of Lassen County. Located in the Warner Mountains, in Modoc National Forrest, it has been a hot bed for big browns.

Central Oregon is where it's at on the West Coast. I'm talking record- breaking size. Many of the best, the professionals, come here to go fish Paulina Lake or Wickiup Reservoir, both are located just south of Bend. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife manages these two fisheries as trophy brown trout fisheries.

Last year, Wickiup gave up a lake record to Larry Maracek, of Salem, Oregon, that went 26.29 pounds. Guy Carl of Napa, Calif., caught the state record in 1993 at Paulina, going 27 pounds, 3/4 ounces. We are talking regularly getting fish from 18 to 24 pounds out of these lakes in the last three years.

John Hoffered, former owner of Paulina Lake Lodge, caught a 24-pound brown in late October of '98. The lodge can be reached at [phone].

So there you have it, the west coast's best bets for trophy brown in October. Enjoy the sights of autumn, and maybe the fish of a lifetime.

IF YOU GO

Check the current fish regulations. Changes are always being made. Licenses are required for age 15 and over in Oregon and 16 and over in California.

For information on lodging and fishing supplies for the Eastern High Sierra's, check out the Mammoth Web site at www.mammothweb.com

Be prepared for inclement weather. Use the layer system of clothing for warmth. Make sure you have waterproof underwear. Be aware of the symptoms of hypothermia.

For more information on Edison Lake, contact Vermilion Valley Resort at [phone], or [phone]. Web site: www.edisonlake(at)psnw.com.

For more information on kokanee conservation, contact Phil Johnson of Kokanee Power at [phone] or www.fishing.com.tj

For trophy brown trout history, check out www.brownbagger.com.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo: (1 -- color) Russ Wickwire, coldwater fisheries biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game, releases a 26-inch brown trout at Huntington Lake.

(2 -- color) Denise Anderson of Shaver, Calif., holds up a 10.23-pound hook jaw caught by author Randy van Vliet at Huntington Lake.

(3) Randy van Vliet of Thousand Oaks poses with 10.18-pound hook jaw he caught in the high winds and snow of the Sierras.

Photos by Randy van Vliet/Special to the Daily News

Box: IF YOU GO (see text)