Pot growers are "living off the land"....

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

http://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2012/0...or-protection/

[rippinstreamers]

this makes me see red, I'm glad that he is going to get the book thrown at him. I mean come on, keeping 17 wild steelhead that were spawning. Thats classy to have them kept in a way where you could actually still tell they were wild and spawning.

[jbird]

What a scum bag! It sucks to think how long he's been dabbling in poaching. And how many other scum bags out there do it too.... Makes you wanna pack heat

[shawn kempkes]

Gotta feed the family. is what all the dirtbag poachers say around here.

The poacher is related to the family that has the farm on the lower Garcia. He has probably been doing it for years and not getting caught.

[Darian]

Good job by law enforcement. As Shawn points out, the Stornettas have owned the land on the north bank of the river long before I started fishing up there in the mid-60's.

They grew beef and ran a dairy there. Also had an operation elsewhere in the area. The dairy products are currently sold in many grocery markets. Anyone who's been up there during the fall has probably seen the Swans using the pasture land for a feeding area.

With all of that success, comes a strange family history. Some time in the 70's there was a murder of a family member committed by another family member. Now, this.... I'll bet if you were a fly on the wall, you could write an interesting soap opera from all of that history.

[Frank Alessio]

Big Dairy Name from the 50's and 60's....

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

http://www.kiene.com/gallery2/main.p...g2_itemId=2488

I know most will say this havesting is why we have 10% of the wild Steelhead and salmon runs in CA but actually dams, logging, developement and ag did the job of killing the steelhead and salmon in Nor Cal.

**Back then there were very fewer people, bad roads and tons of fish so harvest by sportsman had little or no effect on the huge populations on wild salmon and steelhead.

[Charlie S]

Big Dairy Name from the 50's and 60's....

Not the same Stornettas...

[Charlie S]

Bill has it right but the biggest negative issue on the Garcia River has been timber harvesting and gravel mining. I remember beautiful holes and runs on the Garcia in the 50's and early 60's. This all changed when the gravel operation took effect, filling in holes and runs, giving the smolts few places to hide and vastly reducing the amount of cool water where they could survive during the summer. Shame on County Supervisors for allowing such a travesty in the name of money.

[Darian]

I agree that dams and habitat alteration are primary causes of decline in Salmon/Steelhead but there's no denying that when fish populations get smaller in a place like the Garcia River, they become concentrated and easy targets for poachers. When you multiply that by the number of poachers in each small stream/river, the impact is amplified. It's kinda like kicking a guy when he's down.