ED ZIERALSKI / Union-Tribune
City officials have been told July 4 is the drop-dead, shut-down date for all recreation – fishing, water-skiing and wakeboarding – at San Vicente. The 220-foot dam will be raised some 54 feet to give the region an emergency water supply.
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It was 1984 and the invasive species at San Vicente wasn't hydrilla weed or quagga mussels. It was alligators, pet alligators that likely grew too big and were released into this giant reservoir that dams the San Diego River northeast of Lakeside.
The first one was reported by San Diego police officer Sandy Angotti, who returned to the dock and said a “log was winking at her.”
Former San Diego fisheries biologist Larry Bottroff, then working for the Department of Fish and Game, went out and captured the alligator, which weighed 13 pounds back at the dock and measured 40 inches.
It turned out that Bottroff also had heard that a poacher found and captured an alligator of the same size a couple of days before the lake opened.
It all was traced to an anonymous call to the DFG office in San Diego. The caller said an acquaintance had released three alligators into San Vicente.
The alligator tale is just one of many that will be told here between now and July 4 of next year. That's when city officials have been told is the drop-dead, shut-down date for all recreation – fishing, water-skiing and wakeboarding – at San Vicente. The 220-foot dam will be raised some 54 feet – with the possibility of stretching to more than 60 feet – to give the region an emergency water supply during severe shortages.
The timetable given by the San Diego County Water Authority shows construction of the new dam to go from mid-2008 to 2013. The Authority projects that boating will resume as soon as the water level reaches the new boat launch, between 2014 and 2017. Refilling San Vicente, the Authority predicts, could take two to five years, depending on rainfall and water demand and supply.
Built in 1940, San Vicente's dam was constructed in a deep, steep-sided canyon to fill the area's war-time demand for water. When full, the reservoir has 1,069 surface acres, a maximum water depth of 190 feet and 14 shoreline miles.
Aqueduct Arm, a popular fishing spot that hikers and boaters race to when the lake is open to fishing, is where the Colorado Aqueduct pours water into the lake.
For years, the lake was the most consistent bass fishing lake in the county. Rainbow trout stocked by the DFG served as a meals-on-wheels program for the lake's big bass. How it never turned out a 20-pounder is a mystery, unless it did to a poacher who never claimed it as a record.
At 64.4 percent full now, the reservoir is a long way from spilling. It last came close to spilling in 1995 when spring rains nearly filled the reservoir. Water lapped just 6 feet below the dam's spillway.
The high water led to improved fishing conditions and offered water-skiers and wakeboarders a great place for adrenaline rushes.
Fishermen once dominated the lake's use, but water sports quickly became the big money maker here.
San Vicente is still a favorite place for fishermen, and it will be missed.
“You may as well say this is it in terms of good fishing in East County,” said Todd Curry after a recent Saturday morning of fishing. “We're going to really struggle when this is shut down.”
San Vee's most memorable fishing moment came on March 12, 2000, when Roger Rohrbouck, baiting a shiner on 10-pound test line, hooked and landed a 101-pound blue catfish.
The fish made its way to the Fred Hall Fishing Tackle and Boat Show at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, where promoter Bart Hall put it on display in the Hawg Trough with bass, crappie and bluegill. Hall estimated it increased attendance by about 20 percent.
On Monday, the day after the show closed, the big blue was transported back to San Vicente, where Rohrbouck released it.
Slowly, it swam off and disappeared into the depths, truly the only catfish that went from Lakeside to the Del Mar beach and back and lived to tell about it.
Ed Zieralski: (619) 293-1225; ed.zieralski@uniontrib.com
