Spearing Now On the Feather

[Tony Buzolich]

All the noise about spearfishing striped bass in the American River seems to have quieted down, but tonight I just got word about guys spearing striped bass on the Feather River near Live Oak. Apparently guys are putting jet skis in at the Live Oak boat ramp and traveling downstream to the rock dam. Here, mostly out of sight, they're continuing to POACH these large trophy fish.

One of our club members was there and saw an 18 pounder get speared. When he asked the diver why he does that the answer came back "because it's fun".

In the currant F&G regulations concerning spear fishing, page 14 section 2.30 the entire Feather River BELOW the Oroville dam is closed to ALL spear fishing.

The legal season elsewhere is from May 1 to Sept.15. BUT, the Feather River BELOW Oroville dam is closed at ALL times to spearfishing.
Tony

[SeanO]

CalTIP would be good for that...

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/enforcement/caltip.aspx

[Darian]

Given the general attitude towards Stripers around here, seems like spearfishing in rivers is going to become the norm for the foreseeable future. I've seen some videos and a recent spot on TV about guided Spearfishing in the Sacramento River around Los Molinos. The fish were located in an eddy and divers were able to almost put the point of the spear up to the side of the fish before shooting. All we seem to be able to do is join them or watch while larger stripers are taken out of rivers/Delta leaving lots of smallish fish. The upside to it is that sooner or later Spearo's will take/reduce the number of larger Stripers to a point where it won't be interesting to them and spearfishing will cease until a new crop of large fish become available.

That doesn't excuse illegal spearfishing, tho. Seems like CalTip isn't as effective as it should be but that's probably a product of lack of warden staff to respond to every instance of poaching. Maybe it would be OK to take a photo of the fisherman/gear/fish, make some mental notes about the location, date/time and, if possible, get the license number of any vehicle the violators are driving. Be careful not to be confrontational, not always easily done.