Anglers Blast California DFG Striped Bass Proposal
Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 12:00AM 
Dan Bacher has all the gory details on the California Department of Fish and Game draft of proposed recreational fishing regulation changes for striped bass on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay. The Department believes reducing the striped bass population will help listed Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead, delta smelt, longfin smelt and tidewater goby by reducing smolt predation by bass. Unfortunately the science is not at all clear that striped bass have had any impact on listed species and reducing the population may in fact be detrimental to fish recovery. It appears the Department is caving in to agricultural interests who want the Delta's water. It will be critical for anglers to get involved to prevent these regulations from taking effect, the basic proposed changes are as follows.
Raising the daily bag limit for striped bass from two to six fish.
Raising the possession limit for striped bass from two to 12 fish.
Lowering the minimum size for striped bass from 18 to 12 inches.
Establishing a hot spot for striped bass fishing at Clifton Court Forebay and specified adjacent waterways at which the daily bag limit will be 20 fish, the possession limit will be 40 fish and there will be no size limit. Anglers fishing at the hot spot would be required to fill out a report card and deposit it in an iron ranger or similar receptacle.
Changes to the sport fishing regulations for the Carmel, Pajaro and Salinas Rivers to allow harvest of striped bass when the fishery would otherwise be closed.
DFG is also recommending an adaptive management plan that will help assess how the new regulations influence the fishery.
The proposal and management plan will be presented to the Fish and Game Commission for consideration at its December meeting.
There will certainly be more on this subject to come including what steps you can take to help. You can start by reading Bacher's overview on this absurd draft proposal.
LINK (Via: YubaNet)
Reader Comments (5)
Anyone who thinks that invasive non-native striped bass in the Sac River have no effect on salmon populations has their head in the sand. Others will say that stripers are beneficial because they are keeping pike minnow (a native fish) populations low... don't mind the fact that they eat more than 40 steelhead smolts a day. These anglers are biased and simply care more about their continued ability to guide for striped bass then the restoration of native steelhead and Chinook salmon in the drainage. I applaud DFG for doing the right thing for the resource even though it will be hugely unpopular with a vocal minority. In my opinion The Chum usually posts quality information pertaining to fisheries science and legislation; I was disappointed to see this trash posted here.
WTF?? I don't live in Kali,but this seems total nut-job time....Perhaps with the downturn of California economy,the Fish and Game has become filled with the left over political hacks and Peter Principal hires....
MarcP has it all right
Another thumbs up for MarcP's comments.
But that aside, science first.
MarcP has got it right - there should be no limit at all on these invasive predators. I've heard that they eat "only" 5-15% of salmon and steelhead smolts. That's significant to me. The pushback on these proposed regs is mostly people who make a living from stripers in the delta.