For many years the opening of trout season was a big event in the county.
As late as 1965, the Telegram-Tribune devoted a full page to photos about opening day.
However, as the creek environments have degraded over the years, fishing has diminished.
A major change has been the addition of dams.
A lawsuit was recently filed targeting Lopez Dam, asking agencies to release more water to support fish habitat.
Meanwhile, Whale Rock Reservoir near Cayucos has had its own fishing controversy.
In days past, rogue anglers dodged a guard on horseback to pursue the legendary wild trout of Whale Rock.
Fishing is now allowed, only from shore and California fishing regulations apply. Trails are closed when rain makes paths muddy. More details are on the city of San Luis Obispo website.
The following story was by Steven Churm and published Dec. 14, 1978. Fun fact: The following story implies that Whale Rock is a concrete dam, but it is an earth fill with some concrete structures:
Crowd may give outlaws fishin’ blues
With a touch of pride, they call themselves outlaws — the last of a dying breed.
For years they’ve gotten away with something law-abiding folks will have to wait until 1980 to do — fish in Whale Rock Reservoir.
It’s been a come-one, come-all angling club for anyone with a taste for adventure. Membership is more than worth the risk of admission — a trespass warning, or at most, a citation. It’s like a wrist slap for an armed robbery of Fort Knox.
Whale Rock has always been a good, close lake to catch eight to 10 trout in a couple of hours, one outlaw angler bragged. Most fishermen claim run-ins with the law at the reservoir have been few and far between. Most tangles are with trophy-sized trout, trapped by the 21-year-old dam’s soiled, concrete walls.
Fishing at Whale Rock has been the county’s most well-known secret. It has lured fishermen to the water-filled cleavage in the gently rolling foothills of the Santa Lucia Mountains since the late 1950s. Anglers have always come to fish the reservoir’s forbidden fruit: huge trout.
A recent state Supreme Court decision, upholding an earlier opinion to legalize fishing at the reservoir, will undoubtedly unveil — once and for all — what mysteries remain at the 594-acre fishing hole.
When the gates at Whale Rock are thrown open to every angler this side of Huck Finn about 18 months hence, the fishing outlaw will no longer be an endangered species — he’ll be extinct.
Outlaws must be careful to survive, so the stereotype goes. They shun the spotlight. Any publicity, they say, is bad publicity. Questions should only draw stony stares.
But Whale Rock casting bandits, armed to the gills with their favorite bait and a tackle-box full of rainbow-colored flies and lures, are different.
They don’t run paid advertisements proclaiming they’re lawbreakers, with access ratios second to none.
Asked how and why they’ve fished Whale Rock in violation of 26 restraining orders filed since 1970 to deny anglers access to the reservoir’s shore, the outlaws talked.
They told of being driven to a point near the dam by family or friends. Once on foot, they quickly slip past the reservoir manager’s home to the deserted shoreline to fish away a warm summer evening or brave a chilly fall dawn for a chance to hook a big one.
All the outlaws interviewed claimed the big one rarely got away.
Outlaws traded tales with the reporter; only the names were changed to protect the guilty.
“I’ve fished about 30 times and you’d never see many fishermen,” a sharp-witted Atascadero angler said.
“But you’d know they were there. Word would get around, fishin’s good up at Whale Rock,” he said. “Especially after the third big rain of a season when the streams start running real good, you’d get a flock of fishermen going up there.”
“It’s so super simple. Whenever you see creeks or the reservoir, you just drive up and hit the brush. From there, a few fleet steps and you’re home free.”
Other fishermen confirmed the trespassing scenario.
Under the cover of darkness or the thick chaparral that rings the reservoir, fishermen claim they move easily, ignoring the dozens of posted signs that warn trespassers to keep out.
Outlaws have defied the trespassing laws — maximum penalty $500 and six months in jail — for a chance struggle with a prized trout.
Once the sea-going rainbow trout, more commonly known as steelhead, migrated yearly up Old Creek and its tributaries to spawn and rear their young, before again returning to the sea.
Completion of Whale Rock Dam abruptly altered the steelhead’s cycle. Man had again threatened nature’s way. Trapped in the reservoir’s fresh water, earmarked for domestic use, in the county, the steelhead were forced to adapt to survive.
“Since fishing has never been allowed in Whale Rock, there are some fish that have been in there for 20 years,” Dennis Eimoto, a Department of Fish and Game biologist, said.
“Those fish have genetically adapted,” he said. “We have never stocked that lake. And if we do, it will only be with fish raised from eggs taken from the reservoir.”
“You see, the trout there are wild compared to the ones we raise in hatcheries and stock in many lakes. Whale Rock’s trout have a spirit all their own. It’s a heck of a fish to tangle with. It’s a challenge.”
That “challenge” has spawned an endless stream of headaches for reservoir Manager Bob Mayse and his crew.
Mayse and his boys patrol the shoreline by Jeep and foot to flush out would-be fishermen, when possible. On occasion, Mayse has called out sheriff’s deputies to cite trespassers.
Mayse refused to comment on how troublesome the outlaws are, saying only; “We’ve got things under control now, but you go out and write about these people and it will all come down on us.”
Most county authorities say effective enforcement at the reservoir, owned jointly by the state and city of San Luis Obispo, is nearly impossible.
“We don’t regularly patrol there,” Sheriff’s Capt. Antony Wood said.
“Sure we go out on occasion, but it’s minimal enforcement,” he said. “And it’s only when we get called out. The problem is there’s no clear answer as to what is legal and what isn’t up there.”
Ironically, fishing during the trout season, which runs from the last Saturday in April to Nov. 15, is legal at Whale Rock, according to one fish and game official.
“What’s illegal is trespassing,” Lt. DeWayne Johnston of Paso Robles said.
“When an agent from our office catches a fisherman, we check his fishing license and then run him out,” he said. “But really that’s all we can do. We can’t hide it – people fish there.”
Authorities admit there’s no way of knowing how many outlaws fish the reservoir’s sparkling waters.
But they agree on one thing: the reservoir is being fished, regularly.
By 1974, the number of anglers dotting the jagged shoreline reached a new high. Public pressure finally forced the Whale Rock Commission, charged with managing the reservoir’s 40,660 acre feet of water, to take action.
They hired a guard on horseback to patrol the lake shortly after dawn and near dusk to nab trespassers during the summer of 1974 and for the next two years.
Fishing has never been legal at the reservoir, built to provide a source of drinking water for San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly, the California Men’s Colony and Camp San Luis. It was fenced from public access to protect the safety of the water supply.
Said A. L. Ellsworth, sanitary engineer for the state health agency, in 1975:
“We believe that the entrance of the public to the reservoir without adequate control could endanger the safety of the water supply.”
Superior Court Judge Richard C. Kirkpatrick ruled in 1975 that fishermen have a right to fish at Whale Rock Reservoir.
The San Luis Obispo Sportsmen’s Association challenged closure of the lake in 1969 by staging a “fish-in.”
The California Supreme Court upheld Kirkpatrick’s decision in October – a victory for the sportsmen’s association.
Kirkpatrick’s decision was previously upheld by the Second Appellate Court in Los Angeles, but was appealed to the state’s highest court last year.
The Supreme Court opinion, written by Justice Wiley Manuel, noted:
“We believe that the reservoir impounds the water course known as Old Creek and its tributaries, the water of which were frequented by migratory fish.”
Officials believe most anglers may have to wait until the 1980 trout season to cast their lines into the now-restricted waters. Time-consuming hearings, required to develop a plan to open the reservoir, will delay the opening up to 18 months, one official said.
However, the state Supreme Court ruling settles a decade-old controversy about the reservoir near Cayucos.
It is also the beginning of the end for the outlaws.
“It’s hard to imagine, but I suppose it had to come,” one Morro Bay angler, grudgingly admitted.
“To think, all those years we used to go up and fish with lots of elbow room may be over,” he said.
Another outlaw reminisced about the good old days.
“When it was good, really good, we’d go up there maybe three nights a week. Hell, we’d pull out eight to 10 fish each, weighing in at about six to 10 pounds, on a good night,” he said.
Most fishermen said they used some type of lure — a 4-X Flourescent Flat Fish, Phoebes, Super Duper or Hot Shots — to hook the two-to-four-pound trout. Some said they use live bait, such as golden china fish. Others, use so called trash bait — bacon, cheese, fish eggs.
“Never use more than a six-pound test line,” one Cayucos fisherman warned. “Not unless you’re fishing the creeks and want to yank those babies out real quick.”
Most trout caught range from 12 to 24 inches in length and weigh-in, on the average, at one-to-four pounds, fishermen said.
“Hell, there were some guys that would fish the creeks with gill nets during the spawning season,” another outlaw recounted. “Those guys would pull out 100 fish at a time, mostly looking for the big breeders. They’d cut out the roe (fish eggs) and turn around and sell a three-gallon bucket of roe for $25.”
Such fishing practices may ultimately prove costly, according to one fish and game enforcement officer.
“A lot of trash fish — suckers and carp — have been introduced to the reservoir. Coupled with the poachers’ take, they compete for space and food in the lake, hurting the trout population,” Lt. Johnston said.
“You see, the outlaws bring the live bait in, use it, and when they leave they cast the leftovers into the reservoir. What they don’t realize is, it really hurts the trout.”
“They’re screwing up their own fishing,” he said.
One fish and game biologist said the outlaws’ impact on the reservoir has been minimal.
“They’re screwing things up,” he said.
One fish and game biologist said the impact on the reservoir has been minimal.
“There’s still a healthy population of trout there,” Eimoto said.
“We monitor lakes all over the state with a much higher usage,” he said. “Whale Rock is in good shape. Really good shape.”
Maybe that’s why the outlaws are still fishing at Whale Rock.
