Their Cups Runneth Over : After Drought, Recession and Earthquake Fears, Big Bear Lake Is Booming Again

BIG BEAR —  Last June 19, Mark Lawlor of Long Beach caught a 14-pound 1-ounce rainbow trout, the largest taken from Big Bear Lake since Bert Keeler’s record of 14-8 in 1941.

Lawlor’s catch was larger than the 12-3 caught by 15-year-old Jennifer Gereghty in 1991. Nine days later, a 6.6-magnitude earthquake toppled a display of Gereghty’s catch to the floor of Cliff Fowler’s Big Bear Sporting Goods store.

“That was the store’s only significant loss,” Fowler says.

But the worst was yet to come for Southern California’s highest, at 6,743 feet, and largest, at 4.7 square miles, freshwater lake. No, the dam didn’t burst, but tourism fell off to a trickle. It seemed the only visitors were TV and newspaper reporters, whose numbers rivaled those of residents fleeing down the hill. The Bear was bad news, big time.

“The news media really hurt us,” says Betty Turner, co-owner of Holloway’s Marina and RV Park. “Big Bear got a bum rap: ‘It’s just a mudhole.’ We had one sack of flour fall off a shelf here. (But) the TV showed Eminger’s market, which was in the process of being demolished, anyway. People were scared to come.”

Many were scared to stay. Estimates are that 15-20% moved away, at least temporarily. Some with vacation homes still haven’t returned. Too bad. They might be pleasantly surprised.

“The lake is full! The lake is full!” declares a front-page photo caption in the Grizzly, the town’s weekly newspaper--the first such report in a decade.

The drought is over, and the aftershocks--80,000 at Caltech’s last count--are mostly memories. Joe Messineo, a barber, says he used to pause while cutting hair to muse, “That was a three-point-one,” until it hardly seemed of interest anymore.

“We don’t even mention the E-word now,” Fowler said.

The town also was hurt by the recession, but now there is a sense of prosperity and optimism. Big Bear Boulevard has been curbed around flower beds downtown and widened to five lanes all the way from the village to the Stanfield Cutoff at the east end of the lake. Holloway’s and some motels are sold out for the Memorial Day weekend. Non-resident home owners are returning to find their property intact.

“They were afraid their cabins looked like what they saw on TV,” said Vern Thompson, owner of local radio station KTOT.

An upscale RV resort and marina has opened on the north side of the lake, offering--and selling--sites for $49,900 to $199,900.

And then there’s the fishing. The local Fishing Assn. had its 11th annual May Trout Classic last weekend. The results showed nine fish weighing from 9.05 to 6.1 pounds--the heaviest leader board ever. Entries were limited to 400, and some anglers who were shut out caught fish as large as 11 pounds. Those eclipsed the winner by Donald Lake of Las Vegas, who won $1,800.

The fish were bigger partly because the association, betting on Big Bear’s future, spent $10,000 at a private hatchery for 5,000 pounds of fish, including 660 from five pounds to lake-record size of 14 pounds. Many of those, identified by fin clips, showed up at the scales. If the total catch was off, regulars blamed that on an abundance of natural food because of the expanded lake.

“The fish are a little lost,” said Gale Jonasson of Holloway’s. “They aren’t used to this much water.”

The lake is up 15 feet from a year ago. The water the Big Bear Municipal Water District has had to let out of the lake the last two months would have raised the level another four feet if the dam were higher and the folks with lakefront property didn’t mind snorkeling for their mail.

“This valley is on an emotional high,” said Fowler, who also is president of the Big Bear Valley Sportsman’s Club. “Every one of us is looking for an incredible summer.”

But they won’t soon forget the summer of ’92.

“It was a hell of a trauma,” says Messineo, the barber. “A lot of people were going to therapy.”

Messineo was driving down California 38 toward Redlands on that Sunday morning, when Big Bear’s “big one” struck at 8 a.m. The Landers quake six days earlier had measured 7.7, but was centered about 25 miles to the east.

“By the time it reached here, it was rolling and (relatively) gentle,” Messineo said.

Big Bear’s quake was no such thing.

“It was such a sharp jolt that it threw you right up in the air,” Fowler said.

It sent Messineo’s car reeling, knocked some houses off their foundations and caused fish to jump out of the water throughout the lake.

The residents can laugh about that now. Turner said that one of her customers who was fishing that morning first noticed the trees swaying, then the fish jumping.

“Then he thought of the dam,” Turner said. “He pulled up his anchor and got to shore as fast as he could.”

The dam was the first thing on many residents’ minds that day. Now, they shudder to think about what might have been.

The Bear Valley Mutual Water Co. built the dam in 1912, a year before Dad Holloway opened the first marina on the lake. In 1984, the state division of dam safety said the dam wasn’t earthquake-safe and gave Big Bear two choices: fix it by Oct. 31, 1988, or drain the lake. They fixed it--strong enough to withstand an 8.0 shake.

Fowler, who writes a fishing column for the Grizzly, wrote the week after the quake: “How fortunate we are to have a lake left. What if the dam hadn’t been rehabbed?”

It was bad enough. Fowler’s business fell off 20%. Lin Crawford, proprietor of Lin’s Tackle Box, saw business decrease about 22%, Holloway’s, about 40%, and adjacent Pleasure Point Marina, even worse.

“Our business dropped off 75%,” says Preston Pivaroff, a founder of the Trout Classics, whose family runs Pleasure Point. “It was devastating. First we had that long drought, then the economy went bad. The earthquake was the last kick in the teeth.”

But most survived. Fowler said his biggest seller--what kept his business afloat--were T-shirts he commissioned promoting “Earthquake Fishing on Big Bear Lake.” They showed anglers in a boat shooting jumping fish out of the air and catching them in a net.

“We had to laugh at ourselves or go crazy,” he said. “I sold a lot of those.”

Art Rouse found laughing more difficult. The founder of the Good Sam RV organization had a $10-million-plus investment involved in the new, plush Big Bear Shores RV Resort and Yacht Club. The grand opening was last weekend. More than 60 of 170 sites have been sold. Prospects are good.

“Now,” Rouse said. “Last year, it didn’t look so good.”

Now, with the lake full, Rouse’s timing seems excellent. The full lake not only is a psychological boost for the locals--”It gives me a lift, just looking at it,” says Messineo’s wife, Rosie--but is more attractive to tourists, whether they come to fish, snow ski, water ski, camp, sail or whatever.

And it’s expected to stay near full indefinitely. The water district is still obliged to fulfill minimum requirements for farmers in the Redlands area, those who created Big Bear Lake with a smaller dam more than 100 years ago. But Evelyn Beamon, spokeswoman for the district, said, “Releasing water from the lake is our last alternative.

“With San Gorgonio Mountain still holding a good snowpack and the Santa Ana River flowing strong, we don’t anticipate having to release any water to the irrigation district this year.

“Last year the lake was in the worst shape I’d ever seen it. Combined with the low level, the earthquake stirred up a lot of sediment, and the algae was as bad as it’s ever been. The lake was brown.”

Now it’s blue and clear. The fresh, cold water will restrict algae growth, and the high level has left the weed beds--long an annoyance--below the 12-foot depth where they can grow. Big Bear isn’t used for drinking water, but it is cleaner than some reservoirs that are.

“It’s been flushed and refilled,” Beamon said. “We have a new Big Bear Lake.”