BRIDGEPORT TROUT

Oct 9 2008

Jim Matthews, Outdoor News Service

With urban trout season about to kick off throughout Southern California, anglers will be seeing more and more trout from Bridgeport: Not Bridgeport, California, in the Eastern Sierra, but Bridgeport, Nebraska.

Chaulk Mound Trout Ranch will be supplying trout to Santa Ana River Lake and Corona Lake this year, according to Doug Elliott, who owns the fishing programs at both waters. They will be planted every other week, alternating with the famous Mt. Lassen Trout Farm rainbows from Red Bluff here in California.

Fish from the Nebraska supplier will also be planted in Hesperia Lake in the High Desert, Dixon, Wohlford, Poway, and Mirimar lakes in San Diego County, along with the private Lake Mission Viejo in Orange County.

What makes these trout different?

They are called “Tailwalkers,” for their penchant for taking to the air and putting up spirited fights when hooked.

Elliott says it’s because of the way the trout are raised and the grub they are fed.

“They have to swim against a heavy current where they are raised,” said Elliott after visiting the Nebraska facility earlier this year. “They really put on some real muscle. They are strong, beautifully pink-meated fish.”

So begins the 2008 trout wars where the managers of these urban waters battle for angler’s hearts by stocking the most unique, the biggest, and the most rainbow trout for anglers to catch from their waters. All for a fee, of course. The Tailwalkers were planted in Hesperia Lake over the past week, and Santa Ana River Lakes and Corona Lake will get their first plants of these fish late on Tuesday, Oct. 21, in time for the Oct. 22 kick off of their trout seasons.