Killing Machine!
February 15, 2008
So, stripers present a bit of a conundrum for California fisheries managers. On one hand, you have a non-native apex predator that can put a serious hurting on several threatened indigenous species like steelhead, Delta smelt and winter-run Chinook salmon. For example I counted 17 salmon smolts in the belly of a 7-pound striper last season. When you start doing them math on how many stripers there are out there and how many salmon they can eat each day, the numbers start to get a little mind-boggling.
On the flip side, you’ve got an extremely popular gamefish that generates millions of dollars of revenue for the state.
With salmon populations in free-fall at the moment, things get even more dodgy. Since stripers are known to eat as much as 3% of all out-migrating salmon smolt, do the fish managers declare all-out war on them and remove size and bag limits in an attempt to knock the population down? It could be argued that stripers will have a severe impact on the extremely limited number of smolt headed to the sea this spring.
But you could also cite the fact that there were an awful lot of while stripers in the Delta back in the glory days of 2002, when we had a record 900,000 Chinook return to the rivers of the Central Valley.
So, what are the fishery managers to do? It’s a tough call and kinda a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation…
What do you think?
Glad you brought this up, JD. It’s a very dodgy topic. I can’t see how we could spends tens of millions of dollars restoring freshwater habitat for salmon and steelhead but also manage for a voracious, non-native predator. Environmental documents for proposed projects also must address potential effects to stripers (along with protected species such as salmon and steelhead) because they are deemed a recreationally important species. Predation is only a very small part of the problem, of course, and to place all of the blame on stripers is ludicrous (but exactly what so cal water exporters are trying to do: http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/691079.html). But when populations get down to low levels, every last little outmigrating smolt is precious. I think a first great step would be to try to get a handle on how many salmon and steelhead are being predated upon by stripers - until we know that we don’t even know the scope of the problem. I love catching stripers, but I would choose salmon and steelhead over them every day of the week and twice on Sunday. The problem is that it’s not as simple as choosing one over the other…
Lightsaber duels.
That’s what I think.
But, then again, I think a lightsaber duel is the answer to all problems.
jd,
I have been rolling this over for a couple of days and have mixed emotions. On one hand, I find it criminal to allow 10’s of thousands of stripers to perish unnecessarily due to blatant stupidity on the part of those charged with protecting them (Decker Island). The flip side is that the presence of stripers in the Sacramento river system represents a diminished salmon and steelhead population.
There are parts of our history we can’t undo (importing stripers in the first place), there are decisions we made years ago that can be ameliorated (breaching unproductive dams, restoring spawning grounds, providing adequate flows throughout the year).
I remember when the striper population was some 4 million fish. If they were the only impediment to salmonoid survival, why did we have such bountiful runs in the 50’s and 60’s?
The bottom line is stripers are here for the long haul. I believe that under proper managment, stripers and salmonoids can live and proliferate in harmony.
Wilson
i feel really fortunate to live in an area for 57 years, all my life, where the yuba and the feather rivers are 15 minutes away and the sacramento river is less than 30 minutes away. in the past seasons to hook any where from 20 to 40 shad starting in the early morning till noon was no big deal or hooking 8 to12 steelhead and trout kick in 4or 5 salmon was a common thing on the yuba. limits on salmon with a party of 4 on the feather was common .landing 15 to20 stripers in a days fishing on the sac wasnt out of the ordinary. all one would need is some good friends and conversation,decent tackle and bait ,a little bit of patients and add the secret ingredient a good amount of….WATER…and maybe it could be deja vu again…dan lizardo