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(Mail Tribune / Jim Craven) Helping out, fish by fish Volunteers stock lake by hand to jump-start trout fishery By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Deanna Edwards swished and sloshed her way through fall's first snows with the angling future of Babyfoot Lake resting squarely on her shoulders. Steadied with ski poles, the 12-year-old Gold Beach girl zig-zagged more than a mile down a Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area trail, where large firs blackened by wildfire jut abruptly from the Siskiyou Mountains, freshly whitened by a storm. At the lake's shore, Edwards peeled off her pack and produced a five-gallon bucket holding 30 infant steelhead, which swam into their new environs once Edwards dipped the bucket into the lake. "They all survive, even though they got bumped around a lot on the trail," Edwards said. "I could have carried more." Edwards' trek was part of a 19th century solution for correcting a 21st century problem at Babyfoot Lake, a tiny glacier-cut pond that represents the public face of one of Oregon's most hardscrabble wilderness areas. Advertisement Edwards and a host of trout-loving volunteers created a human caravan Thursday to hand-stock 1,000 juvenile steelhead to jump-start a traditional trout fishery at the 4-acre lake. Since machines of all sorts are banned in the federally designated wilderness area, state and federal biologists relied on a dozen strong backs to ferry the fish from a stocking tank parked at the trailhead a mile away. The steelhead will grow like trout and generate another reason to introduce visitors to this rugged backcountry. "It's a really special, rugged wilderness area, and this is one of the easiest access points for people to use it," said Ian Reid, a fisheries biologist with the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, which manages the 180,000-acre wilderness area. "This is, hopefully, our way of bringing a cold-water fishery back here," Reid said. "We want people to use it and we want people to enjoy it, but we want people to protect it." The public has a pocked history of protecting Babyfoot Lake, which has been stocked for anglers every other year since the 1940s. In the early 1990s, someone illegally stocked largemouth bass, which overran the lake and killed off the trout. These young steelhead should be large enough to stave off predation by the bass and create a viable fishery for backwoods anglers who enjoy hike-in fishing opportunities. Janos Olah, one of the members of the Middle Rogue Steelhead chapter of Trout Unlimited that provided much of the stocking's muscle, wiped his brow after releasing the fish he carried and marveled at the clear lake beneath thick cedars and a granite edifice. "I've never been here," said Olah, of Grants Pass. "It's definitely worth coming back to." Moreover, these stocked steelhead represent fish genetically similar to those living in the Chetco River drainage downstream of Babyfoot Lake. They were bred from wild winter steelhead captured in the Chetco and spawned at Elk River Hatchery near Port Orford. They are "grade-outs," or infant steelhead either too small or too large for release as steelhead in the Chetco. "There are only a handful of lakes or ponds where we can put these fish," said Todd Confer, district fish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "This is one that we and the Forest Service could agree that we ought to stock it." The ODFW stocks other backwoods lakes in the spring by helicopter. But the grade-out steelhead were not available until October, so the Kalmiopsis' only stocked lake needed a plan that was as low-tech as it was high-energy. Confer scooped the steelhead from an aeration tank, slipping the fish into buckets with four pounds of water and weighing close to 35 pounds. The sealed buckets were placed in framed backpacks that slung over the shoulders of volunteers and ODFW workers then sent down the trail. The Babyfoot Lake Trail winds through a section of the wilderness area intensely scorched during 2002's Biscuit Fire, which burned through a half-million acres. Fresh snow clung to charred snags as the hikers shuffled toward the lake, serenaded by the gurgling headwaters of the upper Chetco River drainage. Volunteer John Blackledge teetered down the trail, the weight of his load swaying his shoulders as he paused for breath. "With all this swishing and swoshing, you'd think these fish would be dizzy by now," John Blackledge said along the trail. "But it doesn't seem to hurt the fish." Mike Beagle, a Trout Unlimited field representative from Oregon, said the effort could only help his children, 7-year-old Steen and 10-year-old Riley, share in the backcountry beauty while contributing to its bounty. "My kids like to catch fish, eat fish and backpack, so it's good for them to experience something like this," Beagle said. "And just look at the place," he said. "It's amazing." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] . Would you like to respond to this story? If so Click Here to visit our forums. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback online casinos news Home Security Systems Online Casino Reviews Men's Clothing GMAT Prep Fundraisers UK Homeowner Loans Discount Hotel Reservations Send Flowers Casinos Canada Texas Electric Choice Compare Electric rates in Texas Windermere Van Vleet Trunks, Footlocker Online poker at AbsolutePoker.com