KFBK Bob Simms Assessment of Striped Bass Population

**OceanSunfish** · 08-10-2007, 11:46 AM

I just listened to last week's "Outdoor Show" with Bob Simms. Bob stated that he doesn't believe there is a shortage of striped bass. In fact, he also has a few choice words about the slot limit, but I won't go there for we all have our opinions and mine isn't necessarily in line with others.

I know Bob calls into Kiene's once in awhile and Bill was also guest host not long ago too.

But, I have a real issue with radio hosts or people in the media that give their assessment of the state of the fishery, for example, striped bass.

According to Bob, last season was the best in the past 25 years. "Best" for who? And, that's not saying much either. Heck, the striped bass population has been on a slide for the past 25 years. That's only going back to the early 80's.

What Bob and others don't realize is that 10% will always catch 90% of the fish. If the "10%" are the only ones reporting, then the fishing reports and populations which these numbers are based, are skewed. As far as I'm concerned, we should never be content with the population of the striped bass fishery or any other for that matter.

If I'm off base with this post, then let me be forwarned, and I'll remove it.

**Mike McKenzie** · 08-10-2007, 07:27 PM

Here's one person that agrees with ya'!
Nothing is worse than radio personalities and "news" reporters that continually prove their ignorance by opening their mouths...

If one looks at the "Catch rates per unit of effort" compiled from data from the party boats for 2005 (2006 data not finished yet) there were about 6400 striped bass caught for about 40,000 angler hours of fishing....Not very impressive numbers....

Mike

**Bill Kiene semi-retired** · 08-10-2007, 07:43 PM

I think the problem is simple:

CA commercial salmon fishing and agriculture comes before sport fishing for Stripers plus Stripers are not an indigenous fish to the west coast and money runs the world and we don't have enough to throw at this.

The CA DF&G will never do anything to help the Striper population because they have no say in it.

The Striper population has been falling off sense WWII.

One of my customers worked for the Feds or CA fisheries? and after some time they complete a long study of why the Stripers had crashed after the drought of the late 1970s. He gave me a copy that was almost the size of the Sacramento phone book. I'm not sure what happened to it but he said it was attributed to about 15 different things.

My personal feelings which can be completely wrong too is that the local fisherman and the CA DF&G probably has no real actuate way to tell how many Stripers are left or how many there were at any time in CA because we have no budgets for that kind of stuff.

Like all politics our job is to be pacified by the higher powers and that about it.

If we had about one billion dollar we might be able to effect this problem.

I've been to those meeting on the American River and nothing ever happens.

That's just my opinion from being around the fishing tackle business in Ca for over 40 years and listening to what is said by many.

Sorry, but I am just tired of seeing good people wasting all there time fighting the fight and seeing nothing ever really happen.

Sad stuff..............

**OceanSunfish** · 08-10-2007, 10:16 PM

I sent Mr. Simms a letter stating my displeasure of his assessment of the striper population and how irresponsible it was for a radio host to make such an assessment.

Furthermore, Mr. Simms also 'painted' a rather erroneous picture of fly fisherman and that fly fisherman have separate agendas that only favor fly fishing in general. That was way off base as well. First and foremost, I am a sport fisherman. I fish by many different means and I can get out there and troll around the West Bank with the best of 'em if I so desire.

Mr. Simms generalization of fly fisherman was off base as was the closed minded perception of fly fisherman from long time CSBA member Barry Canevaro only depicts why there is not one strong coaltion of striped bass anglers. Ignorance and "old habits" inhibit progress and of which fishing is not immune.

Anyway, I think the live bait party boat catch rate data that Mike M. mentions is a very fair indicator. It's been pretty slim picken's for them of late with the exception of 1998 when the population got a temporary boost from the pump salvage operation that released fish in the 1996 time frame.

The mere fact that the live bait party boat fleet is a mere shadow of its former self from the 70's and 80's should speak volumes.

**Tracy Chimenti** · 08-11-2007, 05:59 PM

Bob's an old school guy. I do disagree with him from time to time, this one especially! But I always go back to the biggest dilemma-- that this is an imported exotic from the east coast that, according to water purveyors, need not be protected-- like winter run salmon. Add to that that it's not even commercially fished like salmon, so it won't get much support from the higher-ups. As someone mentioned already, you need a lot of money to buy the polititian's interest. If we could just keep more water up here, we'd be half way home.

I once called Bob and complained that he was giving the go-ahead for anglers to hammer the nursery-- he was promoting the act of targeting the "great big" fall browns in the tributaries above Twin Lakes (Bridgeport). We all know those fish are in the creek to make babies. But who am I? My values are different from those that would do this, as well as those that consider the striper population to be OK.

Tracy

**Bryan Morgan** · 08-11-2007, 07:24 PM

I too love to fish for Striper in the Delta and the American, but I find it hard to believe that we are in a decline of the local population after the last and historic counts from our current Steel head and Salmon runs.
The Striper is an introduced species, just like our beloved Shad. The only difference is that Shad do not feed on the Fry that we introduce into our river system from our man made hatcheries.

**Tracy Chimenti** · 08-11-2007, 08:01 PM

Bryan, not sure what you're getting at. You don't feel the stripers are in decline? Local population--meaining the ones that over-summer in the American River?

**Bryan Morgan** · 08-11-2007, 08:21 PM

I just feel that we do not have the population of our native fish species due to the introduction of fish like the Striper to our waters. I love to fish for Stripers, but with our warm water fisheries that the dam's have created, and the introduction of a non native species like the Striper, our Salmon and Steelhead population would be in decline. It is only a matter of time.

**Tracy Chimenti** · 08-11-2007, 08:30 PM

That's true, and that's what some of the "bought-off" resource manager's are claiming. But don't forget, before we began sending water out of the basin to the farms and cities south of the delta, there were very strong numbers of all three. If saving salmonids at all expenses was the mutal goal of anglers, politicians and resource managers alike, we'd open up the limits on stripers and knock them down to a pathetic number... then the bureaucrats would just cook the salmonids with low, warm fall/winter "minimum" flows.