Get Off This "Non-Native" Crap!

[Tony Buzolich]

On the previous thread about spearfishing, it always comes up about striped bass being "non native". How long does something or some one have to be in a location to be called "native". "Invasive" that's another word that has gotten blown out of proportion.

Unless YOU are an American Indian, we're ALL invasive non-natives. As for fish, unless you're talking about salmon or rainbow trout, just about every fish we have here is "non-native". How about shad? How about black bass? Just about every type of catfish, carp, or bluegill is all non-native. Here's an attachment to scroll through and enjoy.

http://calfish.ucdavis.edu/Non-Native_Fish_Species/

Killing these big hen stripers is disgraceful and only justified by false accusations. As for eating salmon smolt, take a look at the "NATIVE" predators like squawfish and merganser ducks. Pardon the error,,,,Sacramento Pike Minnow . How many smolt do you think these native unregulated predators eat?
Tony

[TahoeJoe]

Land Shark is non-native? I can't believe it!

http://calfish.ucdavis.edu/Non-Native_Fish_Species/?uid=46&ds=241

--Joe

[Rossflyguy]

Stripers are invasive regardless of your feelings, since you’re gonna create a thread on what I said. If you wanna have a sit down and bring in biological facts on each point we can do that PRIVATELY. 100-130 yrs doesn’t make a species native. And as for native Americans reference, its a horrible example since they originated from eastern Russia and crossed the ice “bridge”. Humans aren’t genetically seperate from each other and each race doesn’t have different special abilities. Culture isn’t an ability. There are MANY guides who would disagree with you about stripers. “Unregulated” native predators aren’t unregulated. Stripers eat squawfish. Salmon smolt have to be barged down river or trucked down to bypass “kill zones”. Yes we have many non natives and I don’t disagree with that. Stripers fall into the invasive species because they have a big impact on native fish. Those are just the facts. I enjoy striper fishing but I’m not naive in the impact they do.

As far as someone spearfishing females, it isn’t a disgrace and it’s LEGAL. I don’t spearfish and I sure as hell wouldn’t tell someone how to catch their food if it falls under LEGAL guidelines. If you wanna chat you can PM me like a professional since your business is based on fishing and should be “educating” people you feel aren’t fed correct information. My mind is always open to learn but so does yours if you want to have a conversation about it.

[cmcdhuibh]

Is the Land Shark (LS) best on a nymph rig or dry fly?

Lighten up guys.....

[TahoeJoe]

I think that an SNL dry fly pattern would work best. I'd tie a Curtin or Radner variant for starters.

[Ed Wahl]

Stripers are invasive regardless of your feelings, since you’re gonna create a thread on what I said. If you wanna have a sit down and bring in biological facts on each point we can do that PRIVATELY. 100-130 yrs doesn’t make a species native. And as for native Americans reference, its a horrible example since they originated from eastern Russia and crossed the ice “bridge”. Humans aren’t genetically seperate from each other and each race doesn’t have different special abilities. Culture isn’t an ability. There are MANY guides who would disagree with you about stripers. “Unregulated” native predators aren’t unregulated. Stripers eat squawfish. Salmon smolt have to be barged down river or trucked down to bypass “kill zones”. Yes we have many non natives and I don’t disagree with that. Stripers fall into the invasive species because they have a big impact on native fish. Those are just the facts. I enjoy striper fishing but I’m not naive in the impact they do.

As far as someone spearfishing females, it isn’t a disgrace and it’s LEGAL. I don’t spearfish and I sure as hell wouldn’t tell someone how to catch their food if it falls under LEGAL guidelines. If you wanna chat you can PM me like a professional since your business is based on fishing and should be “educating” people you feel aren’t fed correct information. My mind is always open to learn but so does yours if you want to have a conversation about it.


While definitely not native, you just can't change that, I don't think the word "invasive" fits. Introduced seems more accurate. These fish, along with many others were introduced 150 years ago by and with the blessings of the local governments at the time. Invasive seems to imply that they were brought in for some other reason, like farming or pets, and either escaped or were dumped into the local waterways. Let's also not forget just how well both salmon and stripers did for 150 years, until the powers that be ramped up the pumping to the San Joaquin Valley and So. Cal.

And just by the by, the Dark Akroyd is the only way to go for Land Shark.:)

[mogaru]

When we had the largest numbers of stripers, when catching stripers over #30 was not unusual, California had a healthy populations of salmon and steelhead..........now that the striper population declines and it's difficult to catch a double digit fish the salmon and steelhead is in it's worst shape. Invasive fish, non native fish are nothing but vocabulary from the water lords.

[mogaru]

The only non native and invasive specie are the almond trees and the golf courses down south who are sucking the life of salmon and steelhead......

[mogaru]

Dewatering and diverting water (Klamath river comes to mind) from the rivers are the main reason for the decline of salmon and steelhead. Almond growers and not the stripers are some of the responsible of this debacle.

[madsteelhead]

Stripers are invasive regardless of your feelings, since you’re gonna create a thread on what I said. If you wanna have a sit down and bring in biological facts on each point we can do that PRIVATELY. 100-130 yrs doesn’t make a species native. And as for native Americans reference, its a horrible example since they originated from eastern Russia and crossed the ice “bridge”. Humans aren’t genetically seperate from each other and each race doesn’t have different special abilities. Culture isn’t an ability. There are MANY guides who would disagree with you about stripers. “Unregulated” native predators aren’t unregulated. Stripers eat squawfish. Salmon smolt have to be barged down river or trucked down to bypass “kill zones”. Yes we have many non natives and I don’t disagree with that. Stripers fall into the invasive species because they have a big impact on native fish. Those are just the facts. I enjoy striper fishing but I’m not naive in the impact they do.

As far as someone spearfishing females, it isn’t a disgrace and it’s LEGAL. I don’t spearfish and I sure as hell wouldn’t tell someone how to catch their food if it falls under LEGAL guidelines. If you wanna chat you can PM me like a professional since your business is based on fishing and should be “educating” people you feel aren’t fed correct information. My mind is always open to learn but so does yours if you want to have a conversation about it.

Awesome post Rossflyguy! Stripers are the exact definition of invasive. Don't let anyone tell you other wise. They're fun to catch but they do wreak havoc on native fish populations.

[lee s.]

MAN is what wreaks havoc on native fish populations........PERIOD!
.....lee s.

[Bob Loblaw]

MAN is what wreaks havoc on native fish populations........PERIOD!
.....lee s.

Who introduced the Stripers?

We live in a heavily altered environment and its makes little sense to adopt a position of "unless its what it was before man got here it must be opposed"...that mindset would probably lead to a huge loss of "native" fish when the dams and tail waters are all gone. Would there be "native" trout in the Lower Sacramento in August without the cold water from Shasta Dam?

I get particularly irked when people yell "RESTORE THE DELTA"! My question is always, restore it to what? what version of the man made delta is your preferred alternative? Do you want all the levees removed? or just the pumps?

We are in an era of ecosystem management...restoring things to their original state is a nonsense philosophy with 40 million people living here! and people who subscribe to that sort of thinking aren't helping any cause.

[BumpBailey]

Who introduced the Stripers?

We live in a heavily altered environment and its makes little sense to adopt a position of "unless its what it was before man got here it must be opposed"...that mindset would probably lead to a huge loss of "native" fish when the dams and tail waters are all gone. Would there be "native" trout in the Lower Sacramento in August without the cold water from Shasta Dam?

I get particularly irked when people yell "RESTORE THE DELTA"! My question is always, restore it to what? what version of the man made delta is your preferred alternative? Do you want all the levees removed? or just the pumps?

We are in an era of ecosystem management...restoring things to their original state is a nonsense philosophy with 40 million people living here! and people who subscribe to that sort of thinking aren't helping any cause.

Stripers are not the problem. That is what the water grabbers want us to think though! Dams, ocean conditions and lack of spawning habitat are the biggest culprits to the decline of salmon and steelhead. As was said prior, they both co-existed in historic numbers before we started rearranging habitats!

Unfortunately, in life, there is no reset button and going back to the way it was a 100 years ago just isn't very realistic. I have to ask, if the Stripers gotta go is your stance, are you also thinking we should bring back the Grizzlies and the wolves and everything other species we ran out or killed off? Or, are we just going to pick and choose which species we should have in this state? Pretty slippery slope, the latter.

[cmcdhuibh]

"Grizzlies and the wolves" would be a interesting scenario among the population now, or even the valley ELK. We would never get anywhere on time. Ever been to Yellowstone or even Estes Park Co.?14260

Land shark (LS) could go for the pole dancer.

[BumpBailey]

"Grizzlies and the wolves" would be a interesting scenario among the population now, or even the valley ELK. We would never get anywhere on time. Ever been to Yellowstone or even Estes Park Co.?14260

Land shark (LS) could go for the pole dancer.

I think we all would like the Elk back! Funny you should mention Yellowstone. Haven't been since i was a kid and am heading that way tomorrow! I know we will will see the elk and the bison and the traffic snarls that come with em...... I sure wouldn't mind seeing a few bears...... from a safe distance.

[JCam]

When we had the largest numbers of stripers, when catching stripers over #30 was not unusual, California had a healthy populations of salmon and steelhead..........now that the striper population declines and it's difficult to catch a double digit fish the salmon and steelhead is in it's worst shape. Invasive fish, non native fish are nothing but vocabulary from the water lords.

Correlation does not imply causation. If it did one could easily postulate that stripers gorged themselves on salmon and steelhead which caused negatively affected their abundance, which in return caused a decline in the striper population

[Rossflyguy]

Correlation does not imply causation. If it did one could easily postulate that stripers gorged themselves on salmon and steelhead which caused negatively affected their abundance, which in return caused a decline in the striper population

Which they did back then and they do know. You could say based on striper population the effects of water management, commercial/recreational fishing, and habitat loss for the salmon shows how important the salmon run is to for the striper.

[mogaru]

Correlation does not imply causation. If it did one could easily postulate that stripers gorged themselves on salmon and steelhead which caused negatively affected their abundance, which in return caused a decline in the striper population

In this case correlation does imply causation. FYI, Stripers feed on many other fish other than salmon or steelhead like shad, crayfish suckers etc, so there is no reason to be impacted or decline if they weren't available. Childish and naive assumption on your part.

[mogaru]

Which they did back then and they do know. You could say based on striper population the effects of water management, commercial/recreational fishing, and habitat loss for the salmon shows how important the salmon run is to for the striper.


Don't let your hate for the stripers (it's pretty obvious from your post on this subject) ruin your reasoning. Again stripers feed on many other things (suckers, crayfish, and any other fish in the river). Salmon and steelhead, because of their seasonability are a small part of the striper menu.

[tcorfey]

I really would not worry to much about the Striped Bass population eating lots of Salmon at one time Stripers and Salmon were prolific and living together but, today the Striped Bass population is dismal, and coincides with the severe decline of baitfish such as the Delta Smelt, Longfin Smelt, Threadfin Shad and American Shad. The Stripers spend most of their time eating these baitfish and when the baitfish decline so does the Striper population. Can't deny the numbers.

See this DFG report from 2013
http://calsport.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2013-SepOct-FMWT-Memo.pdf

Note the CA Commercial Salmon fishery started back in the 1850's (168 years ago).
Note Stripers were first introduced to CA in 1879 (139 years ago).

Federal water project conceived in 1933 and CA State Water project started in 1960 in full swing by the 1970's.

Lots of data in these articles if you wish to have a look.
http://downloads.ice.ucdavis.edu/sfestuary/skinner/archive1003.PDF

This one is kind of different it does delve in to feeder streams like Deer, Mill, Big Chico and Butte Creek. https://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvo/OCAP/sep08_docs/OCAP_BA_005_Aug08.pdf

Water legislation timelines 1950-99 and 2000 to present.
https://anderstomlinson.com/locations/watershed-2/california-water-timeline/california-water-timeline-1950-1999/

https://anderstomlinson.com/locations/watershed-2/california-water-timeline/california-water-timeline-2000/

Have fun reading....

Tim C.

[Walter]

Don't let your hate for the stripers (it's pretty obvious from your post on this subject) ruin your reasoning. Again stripers feed on many other things (suckers, crayfish, and any other fish in the river). Salmon and steelhead, because of their seasonability are a small part of the striper menu.

How many striper have you cut open and found salmon smolt in their belly? They puke them up even when caught off the SF beaches.

The cause of salmon decline is the lack of access to 70% of their historical spawning grounds. If they created and paid for a plan to let salmon spawn in the tribs above Lake Shasta and used smolt traps to get those smolt back below lake shasta, we would see a dramatic increase in salmon despite striper and black bass predation. The delta pumps as we know have contributed to the demise of outmigrating sacramento salmon smolt and the striper young who are both sucked into the pumps. The demise of the delta smelt has removed a tremendously valuable part of the SF Bay foodweb.

I understand the challenges of trying to balance two Native species. Sea Otter and Black Abalone. Native Steelhead and Pinnipeds. I understand the value of Striper to those who pursue it. I personally think there should be a slot limit to striper take, protecting the larger fish so they can breed. However, I also feel we should be allowed to harvest them commercially. The admitted mismanagement of Sacramento water temps during the drought year killed over 90% of the salmon smolt in the Sacramento two different years, the striper didnt do that.

Like anglers, groups of scientists often disagree. Conservation biology and restorative ecology often are in conflict with one another. But its when the two groups fight and stop working together that the fish and the environment lose the most. Thats what the delta tunnel people and Feinstein and Brown achieved in anglers by provoking the striper delisting argument. They destroyed an effictive unified angler interest group.

If people want things to change they need to physically attend meetings and provide written comment to DFW leadership and the Fish and Game Commission. Dont be too busy to contribute.

[Tony Buzolich]

Walter,

You need to post more often. What you've said is an excellent response to a lot of arm chair scientists about a totally different subject than I wanted to respond to, that of killing a breeding population by taking the major spawners out of the population.

Yes, they do eat smolt, but not just salmon smolt. They eat anything they can capture and put in their mouth. The dwindling salmon population is another whole subject.

The thought of killing a large trophy animal and then throwing into a dumpster somewhere is pure waste. Be it a large striped bass or a mule deer, or any trophy, why does anyone have to kill these animals when their populations are on such a decline?

Practice catch and release and share the joy of a trophy with every one.
Tony

[Larry S]

Tony,
You stirred up the proverbial "hornet's nest" with your post. What I like about the Kiene site is
that pro and con posts stay up; over there on the DB forum, many of the comments would have been
deleted and accounts canceled. Agree to disagree; remember how both houses of Congress
used to be that way.? Always enjoy your contributions to the forum.
Best to you,
Larry S
Sun Diego

[mogaru]

How many striper have you cut open and found salmon smolt in their belly? They puke them up even when caught off the SF beaches.

The cause of salmon decline is the lack of access to 70% of their historical spawning grounds. If they created and paid for a plan to let salmon spawn in the tribs above Lake Shasta and used smolt traps to get those smolt back below lake shasta, we would see a dramatic increase in salmon despite striper and black bass predation. The delta pumps as we know have contributed to the demise of outmigrating sacramento salmon smolt and the striper young who are both sucked into the pumps. The demise of the delta smelt has removed a tremendously valuable part of the SF Bay foodweb.

I understand the challenges of trying to balance two Native species. Sea Otter and Black Abalone. Native Steelhead and Pinnipeds. I understand the value of Striper to those who pursue it. I personally think there should be a slot limit to striper take, protecting the larger fish so they can breed. However, I also feel we should be allowed to harvest them commercially. The admitted mismanagement of Sacramento water temps during the drought year killed over 90% of the salmon smolt in the Sacramento two different years, the striper didnt do that.

Like anglers, groups of scientists often disagree. Conservation biology and restorative ecology often are in conflict with one another. But its when the two groups fight and stop working together that the fish and the environment lose the most. Thats what the delta tunnel people and Feinstein and Brown achieved in anglers by provoking the striper delisting argument. They destroyed an effictive unified angler interest group.

If people want things to change they need to physically attend meetings and provide written comment to DFW leadership and the Fish and Game Commission. Dont be too busy to contribute.

To answer your question......I fished the surf for stripers for many years from the SFO zoo to Pacifica, rockway beach and all the way to Monterrey beaches. I caught and ate my share of stripers and mostly their bellies were full of sand crabs, anchovies, smelt etc. Very few with salmon smolts.

[winxp_man]

Here is a read in this thread I started with parts of a document from the past. Read the food chapter of this article to get an idea about some food habits. Unless someone one here can make a claims because they have kept fish and opened the stomach to see the contents, we can’t say stripers are one of the major problems.

http://www.kiene.com/forums/showthread.php?40948-A-real-good-striper-read