Striped Bass & Black Bass Genocide

[Tony Buzolich]

Newsletter August 2016


To: Tony Buzolich
The Water4Fish Newsletter periodically publishes alerts to the fishermen and women of Northern California where our fisheries are seriously threatened. We then ask you to take action by writing letters to political leaders and others protesting the bad action. Tens of thousands of you have responded and we have been successful in getting many policy changes. We now have a major new threat and once again we are asking for your help.


Bag and Size Limit Changes Pose Serious Threats to Stripers and Bass
As you have probably heard, the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta representing the San Joaquin Valley water diverters has petitioned the Calif. Fish and Game Commission to adopt higher bag limits and lower size limits for black bass and stripers. These changes are aimed to essentially eradicate these species from the Delta, Bay and rivers of the Central Valley. The proposal increases the bag limit on stripers from 2 fish to 6 and decreases the size limit from 18 inches to 12. It increases the black bass bag limit from 5 to 10 and decreases the size limit from 12 inches to 8. It would be devastating to these species.

This is a very serious threat to our fishing future and we must defeat it by protecting our fishing rights and fighting back with every action we can muster. The striped bass industry, the black bass industry and the salmon industry have joined together in a strong coalition to fight this bad action. This is potentially the largest coalition ever formed in Northern California to protect our fisheries. We need your help to be sure it gets the changes we need.

We have setup an automated letter that you can send to the commission to go on record as opposing the regulation change and instead supporting a positive survival and enhancement program for all three of these species. It is based on an alternate salmon plan that will reduce predation, will not eradicate anything and will not attempt to reduce the populations of the stripers or black bass. The coalition is submitting a letter to the commission asking that the bag limit and size limit proposal be rejected and the alternate plan be supported. The commission has agreed to review our proposal.

Please help defeat this bad proposal by sending an email to the commission stating your opposition to the bag limit proposal. Please also ask your friends and colleagues to do the same. To support the coalition and send your opposition email to the commission click on www.water4fish.org/savebass and fill out the transmittal form. To see the executive summary of the salmon industry projects that will protect the juvenile salmon and also protect the stripers and black bass click on Salmon Plan Summary. To see the strong statement by the Bass Industry, click on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zCT...F28BSAV40iBPfd

Thanks for your support.
Dick Pool, President, Water4Fish - Action@water4fish.org.
Bobby Barrack, Leader, Black Bass Action Group - Bobby@Bobbybarrack.com
Jim Cox, President. Calif. Striped Bass Association -

[winxp_man]

Lots of uneducated ignorant people out there! Hate to put it like this but people that are from 3 world countries and some that are even more civilized but raised to kill and eat everything they get their hands on. People seem far more unintelligent then animals sad! Met a meat fisherman that was a first generation immigrant here. We got to talking at a walmart about bass and fishing bass. Then I proceeded to tell him about my way of fishing and that I keep very little fish but if I do its fresh salmon or ocean fish to eat here and there. Also that I catch and release 80-90% of my fish and keep very little bass. He looked at me like I'm crazy! Then I told him I dont survive only off fish.

People dont get it. It sucks and one day it will be nice to see some wild life. A hunting buddy of mine roaming through the sierras one deer season came up on a group of "said hunters" that had all kinds of deer hanging up. Does, spikers and even some that looked like 6 month old deer. Yes some see it as they need to kill something at all times.

[STEELIES/26c3]

The greater, underlying problem is not the proposed increased limits and decreased size restrictions on bass... it is that politicians and powerful decision makers are being persuaded by non-scientific, corporate farmers, lawyers, water-brokers and bank-rollers that warm water, predatory game fish are to blame for the demise of salmon and delta smelt.

In reality, the health of the entire delta ecosystem (not just delta smelt or winter run king salmon but all forms of fauna and flora) hinges upon maintaining fresh water in to it and through it.

POD or Pelagic organism decline (the general demise of fish utilizing the San Francisco Estuarine System) has been scientifically correlated with steep increases of water exports as happened in the 1970's and again in the early 1990's.

https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/20/is-californias-water-system-really-broken/

Proponents of the tunnels argue that they do not want to take more water but simply want to take it from a different position upriver from the current delta pumps (directly from the the Sacramento River in the rural town of Hood, CA.)

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/a...er-8414743.phpe

As I mentioned in an earlier thread on the conservation and/or striped bass forum... there is an opportunity for us to voice our opposition to these proposed changes regarding allowable harvest of striped bass and largemouth bass. I hope many of you on this board will join me at the meeting:

We need everyone...guides, charter captains and all recreational anglers to pack the Fish & Game Commission Meeting Aug. 24-25 at the Lake Natoma Inn & Conference Center, located at 702 Gold Lake Road in Folsom.

[winxp_man]

The greater, underlying problem is not the proposed increased limits and decreased size restrictions on bass... it is that politicians and powerful decision makers are being persuaded by non-scientific, corporate farmers, lawyers, water-brokers and bank-rollers that warm water, predatory game fish are to blame for the demise of salmon and delta smelt.

In reality, the health of the entire delta ecosystem (not just delta smelt or winter run king salmon but all forms of fauna and flora) hinges upon maintaining fresh water in to it and through it.

POD or Pelagic organism decline (the general demise of fish utilizing the San Francisco Estuarine System) has been scientifically correlated with steep increases of water exports as happened in the 1970's and again in the early 1990's.

https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/20/is-californias-water-system-really-broken/

Proponents of the tunnels argue that they do not want to take more water but simply want to take it from a different position upriver from the current delta pumps (directly from the the Sacramento River in the rural town of Hood, CA.)

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/a...er-8414743.phpe

As I mentioned in an earlier thread on the conservation and/or striped bass forum... there is an opportunity for us to voice our opposition to these proposed changes regarding allowable harvest of striped bass and largemouth bass. I hope many of you on this board will join me at the meeting:

We need everyone...guides, charter captains and all recreational anglers to pack the Fish & Game Commission Meeting Aug. 24-25 at the Lake Natoma Inn & Conference Center, located at 702 Gold Lake Road in Folsom.

You are right on steelie on the bold part. And all this because of dams. Yes they are needed but now that they are in place and not going anywhere and with fishing spawning in say 25-30% of the rivers because of the dams water flow is a must. So much politics at play its hard to tell whats going on any longer. Money hungry people will destroy this planet one day.

I'm stating this because long before dams the water did its thing and I can imagine that the ca rivers where very small in the summer. But with dams again migration in the winter is stopped. Our systems are all backwards now. So its why I agree we need water stored in the lakes to feed these rivers.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

It is all about the water......$$$$$$$$


Large Mouth Black Bass is the biggest part of the United States sport fishing industry.

More is written about them, more money is spent on fishing for them.

Wait till these guys hear about this........

[STEELIES/26c3]

Money hungry people will destroy this planet one day.

I'd say that's been happening since time began but much accelerated when the Americas were conquered...

Large Mouth Black Bass is the biggest part of the United States sport fishing industry.

Yes, Bill.... this broadened attack (adding black bass to the villain pool...) will be what saves our stripers~

Very few people know or care about striped bass on the west coast... stripers have a smaller distribution and since their life cycle is dependent upon saltwater, they have a smaller distribution thus a much smaller following state and nation wide. As a sport fish, they are far less celebrated, and since tournaments for stripers are easily outnumbered by bass tourneys (over 10,000 to 1) there is no money in them and thus less support for them...

On the other fin, there is a veritable shit ton o' interest AND MONEY in the black bass culture and it reaches far and wide.

This is a BIG mis-step by 'big ag' and supporters of the tunnels.

Because the opposition grows from nobodies like me and you (no offense to either of us...) to household names like Jimmy Houston, Bill Dance, Roland Martin, Kevin Van Dam etc...

I don't care how much money MWD has... it 'aint enough to combat the black bass industry on this issue.

I will still be there at Natoma Inn on the 24th/25th~