Anybody commenting proposed trout regulations for CA?

[mogaru]

When fish populations on the rivers were good and it was fairly easy to catch fish and entertain yourself, there were plenty of fishing licenses being sold as well as sell of tackle. The major reason for the decline in selling licenses and subsequent tackle sales is the decline of the fisheries.
Opening for harvest streams like the pit 3 will only deplete the few remaining areas with quality fishing populations...... and the water lords know that. Right now there are plenty of places and rivers where you can harvest your limits. These new regulations are just the final dagger to our declining fishing populations. Increasing the pressure on the fish by extending the season and places were you can harvest will not help the declining fish populations, quite the opposite, it will deplete it even further..........which I think is the goal of these regulations. What a shame !!!!!!

[EricO]

There is one particular place on the list that is a currently a 2 fish limit with beautiful wild rainbow and browns.
And now they want to bump it up to 5 fish? That's ridiculous. Multiply that times number of days
it gets fished and it will be devoid of fish in a couple years. And then people will fish it and get skunked
and say, "gee, it used to be so good here, I wonder what happened?" The DFG happened.

I'm ok with places being harvestable, but if some of the gems aren't protected they'll be a passing memory.

[Jeff F]

We should be encouraging more people into the sport in general since fishing and hunting is a dying breed in CA. Simplifying and extending seasons should help encourage that. I'm all for opening up fisheries to no gear restrictions, after all, most of us started fishing with bait. Alienating groups of fishermen is not the way to get people on your side and fighting for a common cause.

Opening up streams to harvest is not the end of the world either. Fisheries managers have easy ways to estimate populations based on harvest, survival, recruitment, etc. Catch and release is not always the best management action for a fishery. In fact, harvest can sometimes greatly benefit a fishery.

I tend to disagree with this assumption. Yes, most people started fishing with hardware/bait, which is totally fine. I know I did. However, these people are not fishing the Pit or the NFF, or the McCloud, etc. Those are places people graduate to over time as they learn more about fishing, and maybe get into flyfishing. No one is taking their kids with Snoopy poles to the Pit. Most newbies are going to places where there are a plethora of pellet-eaters because they want to go home with a full stringer of fish. They don't care if the fish are tail-less zombies. Most people want no hiking, no wading, easy fishing and easy limits. They do not want to fish places with C&R and gear restrictions. But if you open up more places to restriction-free fishing and 5-fish bags, there is no question they will come and the fisheries will be depleted quickly. There is not a trout on this planet that will refuse a crawler if he sees it. The NFF is a perfect example. It's basically a roadside fishery. You can pull out anywhere and fish it. That river does not have the numbers of trout to support any bag limit. If bait were allowed there, it would be wiped out. Same with the MFA and countless others. What's next? Lifting regs on steelhead? Some places and their fish just need to be protected. Period.

If it were up to me, I'd have zero limits on every stream that isn't planted, with the exception of mountain lakes. However, we (EO and myself) personally witnessed the complete destruction of a great fishery, which happened to be a mountain lake. If you must know, it was Upper Rock Lake in the Grouse Ridge area. That place used to be freaking epic. But we watched it get destroyed in a single year by greed and people who don't care about fisheries. What EO said above is true. "Man, this place used to be really good". Then they go find somewhere else to f#ck up.

[Jeff F]

I wholeheartedly agree with Fishtopher that indeed there are fisheries that would definitely benefit from some whacking. However these are mostly backcountry brookie lakes. Of all the great CA trout streams, its probably rare that anyone would say there's too many wild fish in this river.

Anyway, hey Jeff! Can we get some freaking shad reports? ��

[Fishtopher]

Catch and release helps an already depleted fishery and protect areas of rivers with a decent number of fish. Harvest of a depleted fishery will deplete it even more. There is not one river which is overpopulated which might benefit from harvesting. I think the water lords have a lot to do with these type of policies which will contribute to the final debacle of the fisheries.

What fisheries are 'depleted' according to you? Depleted has a specific meaning in fisheries management and I would not consider most of the trout rivers in northern CA anything close to 'depleted'. Harvest is an effective management tool even in 'depleted' fisheries. Trout populations are mostly stable in northern CA except for a few rivers, and those aren't caused by fishing mortality. Pit 3 has so many damn fish in it, it would take a ton of people to make even a dent in the population there. We've had harvest on Pit 4 and 5 for a decade now and the fish numbers are just as good as ever. Again, there are simple models that are run to determine how fishing regulations will affect a population. This is fishery management 101 in any college course.

[JasonB]

I am all for kids, young and old, being able to fish with bait or lures on whatever brand of tackle they might scrounge up! I’m fine with them keeping a couple trout for dinner too. In no way does that make it appropriate, or acceptable on all waters! Nor should anyone be keeping limits of 5 trout for a meal either....

I have issues with several of the proposed changes, most having been already addressed. I live very close to several sections of the upper American basin that would be impacted negatively by these changes. The MFA has been mentioned already, but I’m even more concerned about the south fork (much more easy access). Of course the current regulations haven’t exactly been very protective of those streams either; people have been fishing with bait year round already on those streams due to zero enforcement ��

I agree that the risk of seeing some good fisheries collapse due to carelessness and greed is real. At one time people thought there was no way we could ever run out of salmon or steelhead, no matter how many were kept or how much habitat was destroyed... they were mistaken.
JB

[Jeff F]

What fisheries are 'depleted' according to you? Depleted has a specific meaning in fisheries management and I would not consider most of the trout rivers in northern CA anything close to 'depleted'. Harvest is an effective management tool even in 'depleted' fisheries. Trout populations are mostly stable in northern CA except for a few rivers, and those aren't caused by fishing mortality. Pit 3 has so many damn fish in it, it would take a ton of people to make even a dent in the population there. We've had harvest on Pit 4 and 5 for a decade now and the fish numbers are just as good as ever. Again, there are simple models that are run to determine how fishing regulations will affect a population. This is fishery management 101 in any college course.

"What fisheries ate depleted?"4 Look at a map of CA. With the excepton of the Lower Sac trout fishery and few special "never tell" places that we all have, id say most of CA's prime trout streams are not what they could and should be with a direct connection to regs or a lack there of.

You ever have an epic day on the Pit and wish you caught fewer fish?

[mogaru]

What fisheries are 'depleted' according to you? Depleted has a specific meaning in fisheries management and I would not consider most of the trout rivers in northern CA anything close to 'depleted'. Harvest is an effective management tool even in 'depleted' fisheries. Trout populations are mostly stable in northern CA except for a few rivers, and those aren't caused by fishing mortality. Pit 3 has so many damn fish in it, it would take a ton of people to make even a dent in the population there. We've had harvest on Pit 4 and 5 for a decade now and the fish numbers are just as good as ever. Again, there are simple models that are run to determine how fishing regulations will affect a population. This is fishery management 101 in any college course.

Which fisheries? With very few honorable rivers, all are depleted. Are you telling us that fish populations are the same like 20,30 or 40 years ago?. I've been fishing for over 50 years and every year is getting worst and worst. I don't need any fishery management to tell me what all of us have been experiencing. I recommend you to watch "Rivers of the lost coast" and that would give you an idea of what it was vs what it is. Extending the fishing season, increasing fish bags and opening certain healthy rivers to bait certainly won't help our fisheries nor will increase the number of licenses being sold.

[tcorfey]

I think I can agree with Lew Riffle, this will probably go down the same way the MLPA process went down. They allow public comment, hold public meetings, gather scientific data and then through it all out and just do what they want. Must have to do with who holds the purse strings because it certainly is not pointed towards how can we best improve/manage the fisheries. I can see some logic in allowing year round access as many people hang up there rods when the weather turns cold but then again this opens the door for less experienced fisher persons to trample redds for all trout types. I do not see the logic in dropping gear restrictions and in some cases raising bag limits those do not sit well with me. I think Fall River will be fine as a year round fishery as there is not anybody wading and there is a zero bag limit. On Hat Creek they want to go year round I think that wading is an issue for that piece of water and I also do not understand having a 2 trout bag limit on that piece of water it should be zero just like the Fall River and Putah Creek.

[Fishtopher]

Which fisheries? With very few honorable rivers, all are depleted. Are you telling us that fish populations are the same like 20,30 or 40 years ago?. I've been fishing for over 50 years and every year is getting worst and worst. I don't need any fishery management to tell me what all of us have been experiencing. I recommend you to watch "Rivers of the lost coast" and that would give you an idea of what it was vs what it is. Extending the fishing season, increasing fish bags and opening certain healthy rivers to bait certainly won't help our fisheries nor will increase the number of licenses being sold.

Our resident trout populations aren't depleted, that is such a ridiculous statement. They certainly aren't depleted due to overfishing either. We have plenty of healthy fisheries in California. I know the Pit is better now than ever. The upper Sac is largely recovered after the spill. The McCloud is still what it has been. Fishing isn't getting worse and worse, its cyclical. Some streams are definitely aren't what they were 10 or 20 years ago, some are better now than they were 10 or 20 years ago. There's tons of factors that affect a fishery and fishing mortality is way down the list.

Rivers of a Lost Coast is a good example of what happens to salmon and steelhead when you log the crap out of an area and build dams and roads at will. Harvest was the least of the issues facing those fish. Salmon and steelhead are managed fundamentally different than trout populations.

You should try listening to fishery scientists, they know what they're talking about. They use actual statistics and science rather than feelings.