first trip up the American

[Fish Guru]

I'm an administrator on NCUH. I can introduce you as someone I've invited to share your knowledge with us. If we don't have these discussions how can we say we're promoting conservation? I can't guarantee people won't be passionate but I can guarantee they will be respectful.

I have noticed the guys on NCUH are much more respectful, maybe this weekend ill jump in the mix over there. Ill shoot ya a pm

[STEELIES/26c3]

Westgate has done an excellent job of spreading their propoganda haven't they?

It's Westlands Water and sadly, Yes they have...

[Frank Alessio]

If all of this is on the level you would be Legal with your Deer Rifle in a Boat on the American river....I do not think it is on the level...

[Mike O]

Above the water, one is subject tot he laws of the municipality or county, in the water one is subject to state law. Pretty sure guns are illegal for open carry in Sac...if it was in the boat, outa sight? Who knows. I can carry one unloaded in my car...

This stream access law is the same one that allows one to float through the private stretch of the Truckee, etc...

And DFG rules DO allow open or Concealed carry while fishing... Don't think that would work on the A though.

[ssy]

This is really getting to me. I know that if I am working an area with fly/conventional gear and 1 or 2 other boats start their drift above me at a safe distance away from me, we can work the same water without spooking the fish. But if the same amount of boats are in the area and a spearo shows up, the fish will be spooked and leave the area or not bite at all for a while. Kinda like running your boat over a hole where all the fish are stacked and just plan shutting down the bite.

Steve

[Mike O]

This is really getting to me. I know that if I am working an area with fly/conventional gear and 1 or 2 other boats start their drift above me at a safe distance away from me, we can work the same water without spooking the fish. But if the same amount of boats are in the area and a spearo shows up, the fish will be spooked and leave the area or not bite at all for a while. Kinda like running your boat over a hole where all the fish are stacked and just plan shutting down the bite.

Steve

Which happens ALL the time with drift boats (guides or no) to bank fishermen on the A, Trinity, Yuba, LSac, etc, etc.

[ssy]

Exactly, but those are FISHERMEN, not SPEAROS, who are not on the same playing field as a fishermen. If your head is above the waterline, your on the fishes playing field. But if you are able to hold you breath or use tanks to stick your head under water and see your prey, its different. I'm a retired ab diver, who went from rock picking to actually sticking my head in the water to see the abs I want to harvest and its a different playing field altogether. I would rather have a boat go over my spot than have someone underwater scaring all my fish I intend to target

[Mike O]

Oh...you made the comparison, i just was agreeing. Personally, I would rather have a boat go over than a flock of mergansers or river otters go through...then the fishing is OVER

[ycflyfisher]

Spear fisherman are the now the latest “threat” that’s going to help push Sacto River Stripers to extirpation? Seriously?

That’s even more bizarre than the various Pike Minnow, Blue Heron, American Shad, and Cormorants conspiracy theories that have been advanced on this forum in the past, wherein said culprits all are having a much greater effect on the abundance of anadromous salmoninds than are the 1 million plus age 3+ piscivorous stripers are.

Or the equally delusional “ American River pinnaped” theory (naturally we all know that said pinnapeds eat exponentially less fish for each mile lower in the system they’re located… seriously??).

Or the king of all kings of the conspiracy theories advanced by your cohorts, the proverbial “The pumps are the REAL PREDATORS”, conspiracy theory. Despite the fact that there’s decades of entrainment data that says otherwise.

I think everyone understands your fecundity argument, and I don’t think anyone would argue that more mature, bigger fish are going to have greater fecundity and as a result, could potentially fuel more recruitment. The blind leap that IMO you seem to be making here (the elevated fecundity of the “Moes” is necessary to build and or maintain population abundance and that initial recruitment is the issue driving abundance) seems to be an assumption on your part and not science fact as you imply. The truth is striped bass can build abundance very rapidly and the larger fish are not in reality, anywhere near as important to the population as a whole as you make them out to be when it comes to building or maintaining abundancein most cases. Might want to read up on the Chesapeake Bay Big Moe strategy that failed and how the numerous moratoria on killing smaller fish restored abundance there. Or consider the initial introduction to the bay of ~130 immature fish in 1879, and a supplemental plant of about the same number a few years later created enough striped bass abundance to support a 50,000+ pound a year commercial fishery within about 8-9 years after the first initial plant was mature enough to spawn. Stripers managed to continue to increase abundance despite the pressure of the commercial fishery which eventually grew to a 1M+ pound a year venture without any “big Moes” in the first decades. To put it as bluntly as possible, there is no legit, rationale reason nor peer reviewed science that seems to support any of your totally speculative conclusions that you offer up in this thread pertaining to the striped bass population crashing without abundant “Big Moes”. Are they more important on a “per fish basis”? I’d definitely agree. Are they necessary to maintain or even build abundance for the population as a whole? I’m failing to see where you’ve successfully supported that position.

Spear fisherman are a tiny niche community within the larger angling community and there simply aren’t many of these individuals. If memory serves, the estimate for age 3+ stripers in the S-SJ system is around a million fish. Assume some conservative percentage (say 2-5%, 3-10% whatever) fall into the 30+ inch category. Assume a sane number of spear fisherman fish an average of X number of days over the 130 day spear season. Assume a realistic CPUE for the total days of angler effort on big Moes. Assume a realistic annual recruitment of fish to the big Moe size range and I think you’ll find that what you seem to be implying is going to happen within a few seasons, not only isn’t likely to happen in your lifetime, but isn’t likely to happen within your grandchildren’s childrens lifetimes either. The likelihood that the spear fisherman will kill more Big Moes than the much more numerous H&L anglers who for decades have been killing their limit is simply not remotely on par with what you seem to be stating it to be.

Policy makers are not subject matter experts, but they’re by no means ignorant of the science surrounding the Delta ecosystems either. The chance that they put stock into these comical blame shifting and imperilment conspiracy theories that the flyrod striper community offers up, which in the best cases are based on small sample sizes of purely anecdotal data or in most cases, on one blind leap assumption after another with no data is effectively zero. They’re never going to buy what you guys are collectively attempting to sell. It’s pretty obvious to me that fly anglers that envision themselves to be the megaphones of striped bass conservation are never going to abandon the purely emotional refutations that are never going to gain traction with the policy makers but instead will continue to look for villains (the pumps, the spearfisherman, the pike minnow, the squawfish, the pinnapeds, or simply people like myself advocating that the peer reviewed science and the individuals who produce said science are your best allies) and play the blame game with said villains.

The POD is and has for years been the hotbutton environmental/ecosystem issue on the west coast. Everyone seems to be aware of that except hook and line striper anglers. There’s 61 pages of threads on this forum and the POD has been discussed one time here. That’s sad to say the very least. The stripers are one of the 4 pelagic species being hammered by the drivers synergistically causing the POD, and the reality is that those environmental drivers and invasive stressors are what is limiting the abundance of the said 4 pelagics. Yet, you guys are collectively placing blame on the spearfisherman, pinnapeds and the pumps. Advocating viable solutions requires an understanding of the problem, not the creation of wild conspiracy theories. The hook and line striper community seems to me to be heavily entrenched on the conspiracy theory front, but completely unaware on the understanding and effective advocacy side of the equation.

All that said, I think the addition of spearfisherman to the Sac River angling community is a good thing. They could follow in the footsteps of the hook and line anglers and play it with the “either you’re with us or against us” knee jerk levels of pure emotion. Or some could emerge as advocates that are smart enough to realize that you cannot define the “problem” without making the effort to understand the real issues at hand with the Delta ecosystem and the POD, and that it is unrealistic to expect policy makers to buy into anecdotal conspiracy theories when it comes to driving the policy that governs fisheries and ecosystem management.

[ycflyfisher]

Regardless of how Spearos were able to accomplish the reg change without public notice/hearings, it is clear that spearo's played right into the hands of DFW who really wanted to reduce or eliminate Striped Bass but was unable to accomplish that through normal procedures without major opposition from groups with influence and more numerous member numbers. That's water under the bridge, now.

Darian,

I really don't see how it can be claimed that the waterman somehow flew this under the radar. It was on the email agenda for the reg change meeting and as far as I know they went through the protocols that any other individual or group is subject to in regards to reg change proposals.

Also, the proposed reg change that you seem to be referring to was developed as part of a settlement agreement with the CFASD. This was hardly an independent development of the DFWs fisheries staff. It was something that they were legally obligated to develop in good faith. If they didn't develop it in good faith, the potential to ressurect that legal action was looming in the background.

If the DFW really was trying to reduce striper abundance to gain some predator release of the 4 pelagics of the POD (age 0+ stripers being one of the 4) do you really think the rationalizations of the reg change would have been prefaced by a presentation by the DFW's own legal counsel who revealed under questioning that the driver to the reg change reccomended by staff was a settlement agreement?