Who doesn’t love it when anglers and others take care of their local waters?

Attendees of the fifth annual Owens River Clean Up woke up to a dusting of snowfall in
Bishop, California, on Saturday, Feb. 9. It didn’t however stop thirty-five brave,
hearty souls from meeting at the Pleasant Valley Campground at 8 a.m. for baked goods
and coffee. Event organizer Chris Leonard thanked the volunteers for showing up, and
handed them trash bags to divide and conquer the river for the morning.

The volunteers were about half local folk and half Southern Californians who traveled
north for the event. As usual, an assortment of various waste was removed from the
river. Everything from the usual spent beer cans, worm containers, and fishing line to
broken mirrors and rolls of carpet. The good news is that everyone agreed that the river
looked cleaner this year. In five years of an estimated 250 total people working four hours, that’s 1,000 hours of picking up trash since the inaugural clean up in 2015.

Next year’s event will be Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020 – always the Saturday following
the Super Bowl. People interested in making donations for the raffle – or any inquiries —
can call Chris Leonard at 818.288.3271.

See you on the river, Jim Burns