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Yesterday, common sense prevailed as the CA Fish & Game Commission rejected a proposal to close the American River due to low flows. They will, however, look into adopting low flow regulations in 2009.
Thanks to all of you who let your voices be heard!
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock lately, you know that Chinook salmon stocks in Northern California (and much of the West Coast) have dramatically collapsed in just a couple short seasons.
It has just been reported that in California’s Central Valley (the Sacramento, Feather, American, Yuba, Mokelumne, San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Stanislaus & Merced rivers and various tributaries), Chinook runs in 2007 totaled 90,000 fish — down from 270,000 in 2006, which was regarded as the worst season in recent memory. As recently as 2002, over 800,000 kings ascended Valley streams to spawn.
In addition, Central Valley jack counts were down around 2,000 fish last fall — an all-time low and well below the average of 40,000 per year.
With such an incredible drop-off in the fishery, the question begs: will we ever again see fish runs like the “Good ol’ Days” of just a few seasons ago when limits like the ones in the photo above were the norm?
As you know, I was involved with the spawning gravel restoration work California’s Stanislaus River tis past fall. The Cliff’s Notes version is we rehabilitated a mile and a half stretch of river with 118,000 tons of gravel and close to 200 boulders to provide wild Chinook a place to spawn. We got the work done just in time for the fall run to begin and eagerly awaited the return of our fish to see how the liked their new diggs.
Well, California’s Chinook runs completely tanked this year and only 408 kings were counted at the weir on the lower Stanislaus (compared to 3,500 the season before). We saw a few fish in our stretch of river and some dug redds like the one in the photo above. Overall, however, there just weren’t enough kings in the system to get any solid feedback on our designs. A total bummer!! And the future doesn’t look a whole lot better at this point…
You can see all the before and after photos from the project here: Stanislaus River Restoration
Looking for an awesome do-it-yourself Alaskan fishing trip this summer? Look no further than Cordova and it’s sick, off-the-charts coho fishing — most of which can be easily accessed by car! Trusty side-kick Reilly and I explored the Cordova road system thoroughly last fall and found 60-plus fish days without much trouble at all…on chrome, snowbelly silvers. Read the full report in the January issue of FISH ALASKA Magazine.
I just caught wind of this one, but Dave Ford and the Northern California Council Federation of Fly Fishers is asking the California Fish & Game Commission to close the American River to fishing if the flows fall below the current 1,100 cfs to protect spawning steelhead from poachers.
Unfortunately, I find Mr. Ford’s stance arrogant and mis-informed. Aren’t fishing groups supposed to fight for fishing, not seek to ban it? So, I get it, let’s punish the thousands of law-abiding anglers who fish the American so that we can keep a handful of loser poachers from doing what they’re going to do anyway! If you want to attack somebody, try the Bureau of Reclamation for the mis-management of the water! How about getting on the Gov. for deciding not to allow the hire of new Game Wardens??
Closing the entire river is an asinine solution. Let me explain: