After my initial, emotional, reaction to the change in the regs on this, I've adopted the approach that I've had on other issues of this nature. If it's legal, I'm not going to say to much about it. We all had our say in what we thought the outcome of spearfishing for Stripers would be and the regs were changed anyway. Striper Mike (McKenzie) is working with a group of fishers/spearos to reach some type of agreement for a proposal to modify the change. Not much else we can do for now.

Not sure that spears/spearguns are banned by the section cited. Seems like there's room to interpret the code to apply to wildlife, not fish, and the weapons listed don't specifically identify spearguns. Could "....air guns, spring guns...." be seen as spears/spearguns?? They wouldn't normally be used to kill wildlife. Looks to me like the weapons listed are those that are commonly used on land not under water but since the section is obviously aimed at public safety maybe it does cover spears/spearguns. Probably a good idea to call the Sac County Parks Department for clarification before heading to the river.

I agree with the sentiment of Mike O that most, if not all, of the spearo's will be ethical and most everyone will follow legal requirements. We have to hope that everyone realizes the impact of killing large Stripers has on their population and dangers to health of consumming large amounts of mercury laden fish. Hopefully, they won't take/kill Stripers exclusively for photo ops; then toss 'em. Some may not but that's not much different than those fisherman who do the same, each year.

Time to move on.