LURKING LOWER FOR TROUT OWENS RIVER IS HAUNT OF SIERRA'S `TROUTZILLA'.

Byline: BILL BECHER

``Be the fly,'' says guide Tom Loe to 12-year-old Brad Grant. ``Think like a wounded baitfish.''

I'm with Jim Grant, 43, and his son on a fly-fishing float trip down the Lower Owens River. We're in search of Troutzilla, a 10-pound female rainbow trout I'd met on a previous trip with Loe.

How to be a fishing guide year-round in the Eastern Sierra is a problem Loe has solved by pioneering Owens River drift-boat fishing. While other guides might have to run ski lifts in the winter, Loe, 43, is booked for fishing trips all year: at Crowley Lake in summer and on the Owens in winter.

Loe's drift boat is set up with two side-by-side fishing positions, plus another seat in the back for a passenger. Even at low water, he maneuvers it skillfully down the Owens, a river he's explored for 17 years. His boat provides access to water that otherwise is difficult to fish because of the tule and cattails growing along the banks.

We see plenty of beaver signs: gnawed tree trunks and slides where they enter and exit the water. Loe says he's seen martin, deer, bobcats and bald eagles. Not too many ducks this fall, which was a disappointment as Loe guides ``cast and blast'' trips featuring fishing and hunting.

Catchable-size rainbows are planted in the Lower Owens from March through November, with a break during the hot months of July to September. The Owens also is part of the Department of Fish and Game's Trophy Trout program. Two percent of the fish stocked are grown to 2 pounds before they are released. A metal tag in the gill plate lets fishermen know their big fish comes courtesy of the DFG.

There are other folks salting the Owens fishing mine. The Bishop Chamber of Commerce and Adopt A Creek, a group of local businessmen, fund plantings of Alpers trout from 3 to well over 5 pounds each. The river supports a mix of wild browns in addition to the planted rainbows. Loe says his bread and butter is fishing for larger fish that have moved away from planting points and taken up residence in the more secluded sections of the river.

The Grants have been fishing together since about the time Brad could walk. ``Though the hook didn't always have bait on it,'' says Jim Grant, a geologist with the U.S. Minerals Management Service. The Grants still have Brad's first fish, a tiny bluegill, preserved in their freezer.

Brad took up fly-fishing at age 6 and has fished with his father in the Eastern Sierra, Colorado, Arkansas, Montana, Idaho and Southern California. Today, a cold but bright blue-skied winter day on the Owens, Tom Loe is showing us how to fish streamers.

``The trout don't get into a good feeding pattern on insects when it's cold,'' Loe says. ``But they will be interested in a big hunk of protein.''

Our pseudoprotein chunks are flies that Loe has developed to imitate resident baitfish, including small tui chub and suckers. Feathers on the fly mimic the movement of fins and tail.

Loe calls one of his ``dumb blond'' patterns the ``Kelly Bundy,'' and the fish seem to like her wiggle. We're casting downstream, letting the current stretch out the line, then retrieving through the seams where fast and slow water meet. We need to retrieve faster in slower water to avoid hooking the bottom. If that happens, the unlucky angler is in the ``penalty box'' as Loe waits to retrieve the fly until the other angler has fished the hole so as not to spoil the fishing.

Our guide has coined other phrases, like ``hand grenade'' for the tangled mess of leader when I screw up a cast. A ``Calista Flockhart'' is a skinny but good-looking fish.

The last time I drifted the Lower Owens with Loe, my fishing partner Jimmy Toy and I boated 63 fish. I had been smirking about a 6-pound fish wearing the DFG jewelry I'd caught. After about a dozen casts with less activity than we had elsewhere, Loe said, ``This is great, the lack of smaller fish means she's still here - she chased away the other fish.'' ``She'' was a trout he'd hooked but never landed, ``Troutzilla'' in Loe-speak.

More guide hype, I thought. Toy made a beautiful long cast upriver and was stripping in the fly when his rod tip vibrated, then plunged downward.

``That's her,'' shouted Loe, reaching back to release the anchor to slip downstream in the hole to give Toy a better spot to fight the fish. Toy wasn't convinced until he got a look at the fish. It was huge.

After a 10-minute fight, Toy had the fish next to the boat. Loe slipped his long-handled boat net under the rainbow trout and lifted. Half of the fish was hanging outside the big net. It was a DFG-tagged female, at least 25 inches long and very fat. Loe estimated her weight at 10 pounds before releasing her. It was Toy's biggest trout ever.

Today, I take a peek at Loe's guide log and see that the day before his clients boated 20 fish, and he's had more than 50 fish days this winter. A couple of weeks ago, the junior partner in another father-and-son fishing team landed a 10-pound rainbow. But we won't see those results today, nor do we find Troutzilla, though you wouldn't know it by the grins on the Grants.

I suspect in some cave somewhere there's a prehistoric painting of a caveman and his cave son on a fishing or hunting trip. Psychologists probably have a lot of fancy names for the communication and bonding during a father-and-son fishing trip.

``Fishing with Brad means getting to spend time with him,'' his father says. ``I like to watch him work the river. He really is a good fisherman. One opening day I just sat there for 45 minutes and watched him cast to a seam and catch three or four fish. It was like a TV program.''

Grant coached his older daughter's all-star softball team to a 35-0-1 season last year, so he does spread his quality family time around.

IF YOU FISH

Sierra Drifters Guide Service, [phone], sierradrifters.com. Web site includes links to Owens River flow data, year-round fishing reports updated every seven to 10 days, guide tips, stories and photographs of customers' big fish. Loe supplies all fishing tackle, Sage rods and Lamson reels, flies and tippet. A full day of fishing for two anglers is $350, including lunch and beverages. You need only supply your own fishing license.

The Wild Trout Section of the Owens River below Pleasant Valley Reservoir provides the easiest access for year-round catch-and-release fishing with barbless artificial lures and flies. For bait and catch-and-keep fishing, there is some limited access to the Owens near the bridges that span the river in the Bishop area and are the DFG planting points. Loe says the river is quite wadable when flows are below 250 cubic feet per second. Remember from November through April the possession limit is five, not ten fish.

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(1 -- 2 -- color) With the White Mountains looming in the background, top, guide Tom Loe watches as Brad and Jim Grant of Camarillo fish the Lower Owens River near Bishop. Above, 12-year-old Brad, who has been fly-fishing since he was 6, unhooks a brown trout.

Bill Becher/Special to the Daily News

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