Over 250 anglers participated in the NorCal Trout Angler Challenge Tour event at Lake Amador, hosted by Angler’s Press and the Fish Sniffer magazine, on Saturday, March 18.

The lake was in prime shape for trout fishing, with the lake full and going over the spillway and the Mother Lode foothills surrounding the lake displaying verdant green colors resulting from the winter rains. Anglers caught big rainbows from both boat and shore while enjoying the warm and sunny weather.

Lon Garland won first place in the adult division by bagging a 5.95 lb. rainbow. He was fishing in his boat with Ryan Baird and Matt Tomchick, all from Loomis.

"We only landed 3 fish while trolling Rapalas at 25 feet deep," said Garland. "It was the first time that I’ve ever fished Lake Amador. In addition to the three fish we boated, we also lost another trout.

"We thought we were going to get skunked until we hooked our first fish, the big one, after several hours of fishing," he noted.

Adam Papini, a shore angler, won second place with a 5.84 lb. fish that he hooked around 1:30 pm. "I hooked the fish while fishing off the spillway a few minutes ago," he excitedly told me as he brought the still-wriggling trout to the certified scale for Vince Harris of Angler’s Press to weigh.

The third through tenth place winners were (3) Mike Hart, 5.42; (4) Tom Wolfenburger, 4.82; (5) Mark Sepelyak, 4.58; (6) James Townley 4.57; (7) Jesse Trejo Sr., 4.43; (8) David Tabuchi, 4.23; (9) Brandon Wu, 4.19; and (10) Paul Costa, 4.06.

The participants weighed 94 fish in the adult division, with the smallest fish weighing .81 pounds. To qualify for the top 50 adult winners, you had to catch a 1.72 lb. rainbow.

Just a year after the massive Refugio Oil Spill fouled the pristine waters off the Santa Barbara Coast, a leak in an oil pipeline in Hall Canyon in Ventura County was reported at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 23. As many as 700 barrels of crude oil — 29,400 gallons — have been spilled.

The company responsible for the Ventura oil spill, Crimson Pipeline, has a decade-long history of oil spills in California. Spills like this one are becoming increasingly common in a state where Big Oil has captured the regulatory apparatus — and the oil industry is the most powerful corporate lobby.

Fortunately, Ventura County Firefighters halted the oil from flowing towards the ocean, according to Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Mike Lindbery.

“The forward oil flow progress has been stopped,” said Lindbery. “There is no environmental threat to ocean and no evacuations in the area.”

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife Office of Spill Prevention and Response confirmed that no oiled wildlife have been observed or reported — and no oil has reached the ocean or other water from the pipeline spill.

The agency said the oil from the spill has been isolated in Hall Canyon. “There is no oil in the storm drain. Vacuum trucks are collecting the oil,” the CDFW stated.

A multi-agency response has been established to manage cleanup operations in the area impacted by the spill, according to the CDFW in a follow-up statement on June 24. Cleanup crews, including 98 responders and five vacuum trucks, remain on-scene containing and recovering the oil. Air monitoring is being continually conducted to assure safety of responders and residents in the area.

The cause of the spill is currently under investigation. “The unified command response will be independent of that investigation and includes representatives from the...

Trout fishing continues to be the top story at New Melones with the opportunity for a large rainbow in the 3- to 5-pound range. There are signs that the deep trolling action is starting to slow down, and the bait and rainbows appear to be moving higher in the water column after the past two weekends of rain and runoff. The cold 55-degree water remains at 100 feet in depth, but trollers have to be very cautious when working in deep water in the main river channel upriver from the Glory Hole Marina and the Highway 49 Bridge due to submerged trees grabbing gear.

John Liechty of Glory Hole Sports in Angels Camp said that the recent rainfall, shorter days, and cooler weather have brought the lake temperature down to the low 60s, and generally the lake will start to turnover once the surface temperature reaches 56 degrees. He expects this to happen during the middle of November depending on weather conditions. Trolling anglers have been catching some large 3 to 5-pound rainbow trout while trolling over deep water, and as the surface temperature cools, these fish will move up in the water column.

Michael Nelson and Rod Smith caught a very hefty five fish limit. Their largest weighed 3 pounds, 6 ounces, and all five fish combined weight exceeded 15 pounds. Mario Lopez landed a 4-pound, 5-ounce rainbow trout while trolling a shad patterned Apex in 105 feet of water.

Gary Burns of Take It to The Limit Guide Service said that the rainbows are still deep from 98 to 110 feet, but very soon they should start working their way up to the surface as the weather cools. His best action has been in the main lake from the dam to the spillway at 2.4 mph with Cop-Car...

Three hundred people from throughout the Monterey Bay area and beyond participated in the 13th Annual Sand Crab Classic Surf Perch Derby, a benefit for the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project, on Saturday, March 11.

The derby featured both the biggest perch ever taken during the event and the biggest fish of any kind, a striped bass, during the tournament.

"We hold this event every year on the second Saturday in March," said Mike Baxter of the Let’s Go Fishing Radio, the co-organizer of the event with Allen Bushnell, also from the Let’s Go Fishing Radio. "The fishing was overall good during this classic. The weather was also sunny and calm with a high tide in the morning."

Whereas people have come all of the way from as far north as Crescent City and as far south as Ventura to fish the event, Taylorsville, California was the furthest anybody came this time.

Jeremy Peck won the GrandMaster prize with his 3.4 lb. barred perch measuring 16 inches long while fishing shrimp "between Santa Cruz and Monterey." That was the largest perch of any kind taken in the event.

He reported very good fishing during the classic, catching 10 other barred perch - his limit - off the beach as well.

Ron Martin landed this year’s "Most Exotic Catch," a 17.2 lb. striped bass, the biggest fish of any kind ever weighed in during the event’s history. Martin is a longtime Sand Crab Classic supporter.

He was fishing for perch off of Manresa Beach with a #4 hook and a plastic grub on 10 lb. test line when he hooked the striper. It took him a good 10 to 15 minutes to get the beast to the sand.

That wasn’t the only striped bass weighed in for the "most exotic"...

Stockton, CA -- Delta tunnels opposition researchers have discovered a draft analysis dated September 15, 2017 of CA WaterFix costs completed by the Kern County Water Agency posted at the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District.

This recent Kern County analysis provides a comprehensive review of how expensive the Delta tunnels project would be for Kern County farmers, and elucidates more realistic cost numbers for State Water Project Contractors than those touted by Metropolitan Water District.

Researchers found that:

• Total WaterFix costs are estimated at $32.1 billion to $41.4 billion over 50 years; however, Kern County Water Agency only looked at interest rates of 3.55% or 3.88%. Higher interest rates would result in significantly higher total costs. These costs do not include potential cost overruns.

• Computations in 2033 dollars show that dividing the maximum capital costs by the average water supply yield results in an estimated cost range of $888 per acre-foot of water to $1427 per acre-foot of water for Kern County Water Agency water users. Using 2017 dollars, the price is discounted to $553 to $889 per acre-foot.

• Kern's total costs range from $4.9 billion to $7 billion, and annual costs range from $153.9 million to $247.5 million.

Restore the Delta executive director Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla noted, "Water this costly would cut deeply into profit margins for smaller farms within the Kern County Water Agency service area, and even the profits of big industrial farms like Stewart Resnick's Paramount Farms. It is feasible that the real end-goal is for urban ratepayers within the Kern service area and Metropolitan Water District to subsidize the project, or that Kern County Water Agency could resell a portion of water back to Metropolitan Water District to make enough revenue to cover bond repayment."

Prior to Westlands Water District's withdrawal from California...

Showing the enormous power of the oil industry in California despite the state’s green image, every bill except one opposed by the powerful oil industry has failed to make it out of the state legislature this year and during the 2015-2016 session.

The latest victim of intense lobbying by Big Oil is Senate Bill 188, a bill authored by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) to prohibit new pipelines or other infrastructure needed to support new federal oil and gas development.

Senator Jackson introduced SB 188 in response to President Donald Trump’s recent executive order opening the door to expanded offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters off the California coast.

The oil industry killed that bill, Senator Jackson told the Sacramento Bee on September 1. They are far too powerful.

The defeat of the bill is a big victory in Sacramento for the oil industry and the Trump administration. The Western States Petroleum Association, the California Independent Petroleum Association, the California Chamber of Commerce and California Manufacturers & Technology Association spent big money lobbying to defeat the legislation, as well as pass the oil industry's wish list cap-and-trade bill, AB 398.

A long list of environmental, consumer, fishing and indigenous groups supported the legislation, including the California Coastkeeper Alliance, Environmental Defense Center, Defenders of Wildlife, Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Seventh Generation Advisors, Sierra Club California, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation.

The Committee on Appropriations, chaired by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, held the bill in suspension during their hearing on Friday, September 1. Gonzalez Fletcher’s Office declined to comment on the bill in response to a phone call and email.

Before the bill died in Appropriations, the bill passed through the Assembly Natural Resources Committee by a vote of...

place as drastically as they do underwater. Water can filter certain wavelengths of light, affecting how colors appear. For instance, red light tends to diminish quickly in deeper water, while blues and greens penetrate more effectively.

This means that the visibility of a lure's color can change depending on water clarity and depth. In clear water, lighter colors may stand out better, while in murky conditions, brighter or more fluorescent colors could make a bigger impact.

Additionally, fish may also associate certain colors with specific prey. Over time, if they have experienced positive encounters with a given color, they may be more likely to bite lures of that color.

Ultimately, the best approach is to experiment with different colors and pay attention to what works during different conditions. The effectiveness of a color can also depend on the location and time of year, making adaptability key for anglers seeking success on the water.

While there may not be one definitive answer regarding the importance of lure color, understanding the underwater environment and being willing to try different approaches can significantly enhance fishing success.

Rancho Cordova The salmon ladder at Nimbus Hatchery in Rancho Cordova opened Monday, Nov. 2, signaling the start of the spawning season on the American River.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) hatchery workers opened the gates in the ladder at 9:30 a.m. and may take more than a half-million eggs during the first week alone in an effort to ensure the successful spawning of the returning fall-run Chinook salmon.

California is entering what may be a fifth year of unprecedented drought. Because of current river conditions, salmon are returning later in the year than typical. Overall, the fall-run Chinook salmon return numbers are lower than normal. CDFW seeks to match historic hatchery production goals this year, but that may not be possible given the conditions.

Drought conditions may affect the number of salmon returning to the river to spawn, but hatchery workers will continue to collect eggs throughout the fall with a goal of producing four million salmon fry, said CDFW Program Manager Dr. Bill Cox. We are working closely with other federal and state agencies to release cold water into the river system to give salmon the best chance to get up river to the hatchery.

The three major state-run hatcheries in the Central Valley – the Nimbus Hatchery in Sacramento County, and hatcheries on the Feather River in Butte County and the Mokelumne River in San Joaquin County – will take approximately 24 million eggs over the next two months in order to produce Chinook salmon for release next spring.

Once the young salmon reach 2 to 4 inches in length, one-quarter of the stock will be marked and implanted with coded wire tags prior to release. CDFW biologists use the information from the tags to chart the salmon’s survival, catch and return rates.

The U.S....

Stockton Water hyacinth remains the story in the San Joaquin as the floating green menace continues to plague area boaters. Extensive mats of hyacinth have forced the closure of the City of Stockton’s launch ramps at Buckley Cove and Louis Park, leaving only Morelli Park as the only viable launch in the area.

Alex Breitler of the Stockton Record said, “The alien weed stretches from bank-to-bank across Buckley Cove near the west end of March Lane, and has engulfed all of the docks there. Two neighboring marinas are socked in as well.”

Freezing temperatures are needed to kill the hyacinth, and so far into November, the temperatures have remained very warm, allowing the hyacinth to grow.

The recent winds have cleared some of the bank areas in the southern part of the Delta, and Brandon Gallegos of H and R Bait said, “The Whiskey Slough Road side of the slough was cleared out by the wind which pushed the hyacinth up on the opposite bank, and stripers in the 21 to 24-inch range have been landed with live mudsuckers or fresh shad. In the main San Joaquin River, stripers in the 17 to 23-inch range are taken on the same baits in the clearer areas.”

“The Tracy Oasis is a good location for redear sunfish or largemouth bass, but striper fishermen need to drift live mudsuckers due to the hyacinth,” he tipped.

Further west, Randy Pringle, the Fishing Instructor, said, “We have been catching and releasing up to 70 stripers throwing the ima Big Stick or Little Stick for topwater while working below the surface with the Optima Double AA Bubba Shad or 2-oz. P-Line Laser Minnows in chartreuse/silver or blue silver.”

Their larger fish have come in the shallows with swimbaits, but the schools are thick in the San...

Folsom Lake

If you want to fish in solitude, you can definitely find it now at Folsom Lake. The lake is at its lowest level in history, holding only 151,089 acre feet of water, 15 percent of capacity. The lake level is 353.67 feet in elevation, 112.33 feet below.

While few anglers have been fishing the lake, shore fishermen willing to do some hiking should find improving rainbow trout and king salmon action off the shore at Granite Bay and Browns Ravine as the water cools down and the lake turns over. Fish PowerBait and inflated nightcrawlers on sliding sinker rigs or minnows and worms under bobbers.

The guys who reported catching black bass while trolling with crankbaits a couple of weeks ago aren’t talking now. They were hooking a lot of fish, mostly spotted and smallmouth bass to 4 pounds, while fishing at 10 to 15 feet deep with Strike King and Timber Tiger medium diving crankbaits and similar lures.

While all concrete ramps on Folsom Lake are currently closed due to the low lake level, the two anglers were carefully launching their boats from shore. The lake must be above elevation 369' before the Granite Bay ramp will return to operation.

Oroville: You need a 4-wheel drive vehicle to launch at both the spillway and Bidwell Canyon launch ramps, but the wide-open bass fishing available on Lake Oroville definitely makes it worthwhile.

“Fishing is really good now,” said Brent Cline at Oroville Outdoors. “Boaters are hooking and releasing 50 to 60 fish during a trip. Most of the fish are spotted bass in the 12 to 15 inch range, but two 7 lb. largemouths were also reported lately.”

“You can pretty much use any method you want to use to catch fish,” he emphasized. “You can throw top water lures such as Zara Spooks and Ricos. You can toss out worms and Senkos in bait fish patterns. And you can cast tubes and jigs in green pumpkin patterns all over the lake.”

King salmon fishing has also improved with the cooler water. Boaters are trolling hoochies, tipped with anchovy strips, behind dodgers at 40 to 50 feet deep to catch fish averaging 3 to 4 pounds, according to Cline. The best areas are the dam, spillway and Green Bridge.

“Bass fishing in the Thermalito Afterbay was good last week when the water temperature was warmer, but it is slower this week with the cooler water,” said Cline. “Anglers have been doing best on largemouths from 2 to 4 pounds while flipping jigs in the tules and fishing Senkos, crankbaits and spinnerbaits.”

Lake Oroville was holding 1,023,835 acre-feet of water, 29 percent of capacity and 48 percent of average, at press time. The water level is 667.57 feet above sea level.

A lazy crowd of people were sauntering down Main Street in Rio Vista on a balmy October afternoon. I emerged from the waterfront holding a large fish. The crowd started to stir as I walked up to the Rio Vista Bass Derby weigh-in table.

A woman quizzically asked, “What kind of fish is that?“ It’s a salmon”, I replied. It struck me as kind of funny that somebody wouldn’t know the difference between a striped bass and a salmon.

Then again, not everybody has been trying to figure out how to catch them for as long as I have. And why in the heck was I bringing a salmon to a striper derby anyway?

I’ve been on a quest to catch river salmon for as long as I can remember. I’m not the only one who becomes salmon-obsessed during the fall months. Have you ever taken an October drive down Highway 160 between Sacramento and Rio Vista? If so, you know that hordes of salmon seekers line the shores and choke the waterways to no end.

It doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Aside from producing great smoked salmon, the table quality of river salmon is fair at best. The musty flavor is hard to mask and doesn’t compare to the meat of a freshly caught ocean salmon. Although they get big and put up a decent fight, river salmon don’t pack the same punch as equally sized striped bass.

So why do we chase them? For me, it’s the lure of mystery. There is nothing more exciting than trolling for several hours only to hear the staccato ‘zzz-zzz-zzz’ of your clicker going off. Is it another ten pounder? Or maybe it’s the next state record, eclipsing the 88 pound king caught in 1979.

When reports mention ‘Sacramento Salmon,”...

Most anglers start off their day by checking out weather reports or just looking outside; do I go or not? Just remember that when you look outside and your neighbor’s tree is blowing over, it might not be a bad thing at this time of the year.

Wind in the winter is a whole different ballgame. It just makes it unbearable to fish at times. However, wind in the fall and summer can make the fishing red-hot! You just have to believe in one thing, the wind is your friend.

You can’t change Mother Nature, you’ve got to go with it. For example, if you are a weightless worm fisherman, you are going to have to adjust.

The key to how the wind affects the action is water temperature. At 70 degrees or higher, fish need to eat a lot. So even though the weather may not be to your liking, the fish are still eating. Speaking for myself, I want to feed them!

Let’s talk about the different kinds of wind. Let’s set the table for your day on the delta. The water temperature is in the 70’s; of course it is windy, but is it a cold wind and white caps? Most likely, throughout the night the water temperature dropped, so it will be hard to get a morning topwater bite; not impossible, but tough.

My selections in this case are subsurface baits with a couple of modifications. The first bait I’d turn to is a crankbait. A couple baits come to mind. I need baits with a big wobble, the more commotion, the better. Strike Kings 4S in a crawdad or bluegill pattern and Ima’s Shaker also in a crawdad or bluegill pattern.

Cranking the bait down and ticking the structure with a stop and go retrieve...

Rancho Cordova Nimbus Fish Hatchery workers have counted a total of 2,765 Chinook salmon, including 789 jacks and jills (two-year-old fish), at the facility since the salmon ladder opened Monday, Nov. 2.

Considering the low flows of 500 cfs, this return is surprisingly good. Last year at this time the hatchery had counted approximately 2,950 salmon, including 350 adults.

The other good news is that the water temperature on the river has cooled down 5 to 7 degrees over one week.

“The water temperature has gone down to 55 to 57 degrees, depending on which gauge you go by,” said Gary Novak, hatchery manager. “That’s phenomenal; last year the water temperature didn’t cool down to this temperature until the middle of November.”

The hatchery has spawned salmon three times to date. Novak noted that many of the fish at the facility are still “green,” not ready for spawning yet.

The 300,000 juvenile steelhead that will be released into the river system next February have also returned to the hatchery, after spending the summer at the Feather River Fish Hatchery in Oroville, due to high water temperatures at Nimbus.

Los Vaqueros

Brisk fall fishing is available at Los Vaqueros Reservoir, where anglers fishing from both shore and rental boats are bagging rainbow trout, catfish, striped bass and largemouth bass.

"Fishing for trout continues to be fair with the mixed weather we have had lately," said Brian Demmunik at Los Vaqueros Reservoir. "The rainbows are being caught in South Cove and Oak Point as well as around the lake. The baits of choice for shore anglers are garlic-scented PowerBaits, nightcrawlers or Kastmasters."

Trolling is popular with anglers using Rapalas and other lures in the coves. "A number of limits came out of Howden Cove this week," Demmunik stated.

Fall trout plants are in full swing. Mount Lassen Hatchery planted 1,000 pounds of rainbows and the CDFW stocked 1,000 pounds of trout on Thursday, November 12.

"With the recent rains, the shoreline is slippery – please be careful and watch your footing," he advised.

Chomuam Loth experienced top-notch catfish action when he landed 8 fish weighing a total of 44.49 pounds, topped by an 8.49 pound cat, along with seven more weighing an additional 36 pounds. He was soaking nightcrawlers in Howden Cove.

Bert Palmon of Fremont caught and released a 5.5 pound largemouth bass while tossing out a swimbait from a rental boat.

Night fishing is back every Saturday during November. Every Saturday this month the lake will be staying open until 8 p.m. for night fishing.

"Shakers are still the main action with striped bass," noted Demmunik. "We are still seeing 15-20 undersized fish being caught for every keeper. There have been more boils reported in Cowboy and Howden coves as well as Peninsula Cove, but anglers are having difficulties enticing the fish to bite with swimbaits and other lures. From shore, cut anchovies or shad are the top...

With the temporary closure of the Dungeness crab season, rockfish and lingcod are filling the bill for the time being.

A big swell and heavy winds over the weekend of November 13 put the lingcod off the bite, but rockfish counts remained solid for party and private boats. When the seas were calm earlier in the week, bonito were abundant for trollers working offshore.

The Queen of Hearts scored 30 limits of rockfish in the big sea on Saturday with the Riptide returning with 12 limits and a lingcod, according to Sherri Ingles of Half Moon Bay Sport Fishing. The ling counts were limited by the 9 to 12 foot swell, which results in the groundfish hunkering down to the reefs.

Captain Tom Mattusch of the Huli Cat took out a Becoming an Outdoor Woman charter on Saturday, November 14, and the participants were treated to limits of rockfish off Martin’s Beach and Tunitas Creek with a number of school fish in the mix.

James Nguyen of Dockside Bait was searching for bluefin tuna during the week but didn’t find any tuna. They did find an excellent bonito bite with several fish over 10 pounds and ranging from 27 to 28 inches.

They were trolling Mexican Flag zukers, and they had as many as five on at one time. He said, “We had to go way out to 400 feet in depth to find 59 degree water, but once we hit the warm water, it was on.”

South Lake Tahoe morning temperatures are chilly, crowds are light and the mackinaw are biting consistently. In short, this is a perfect time to visit Lake Tahoe for a limit of late fall lake trout.

For example, the team at Tahoe Sportfishing has been putting their clients on easy limits of mackinaw that mainly fall into the 3 to 6 pound class. Minnows teamed with flashers have been the top offering for the Tahoe Sportfishing fleet.

Gene St. Denis of Blue Ribbon Charters has also been trolling up limits of mackinaw. Gene’s fish also average 3 to 6 pounds, but he’s been getting a few fish in the teens too.

Gene is fishing a variety of different locations with both rigged minnows teamed with dodgers and medium size Flatfish.

Mickey Daniels of Mickey’s Big Mack Charters has been successfully trolling Carnelian Bay. Mickey starts out trolling quickly in shallow water before slowing down and working progressively deeper. His clients are hooking macks running up to 8 pounds.

Mickey has been using a variety of offerings including Kok-A-Nuts teamed with Sling Blade dodgers and Sting King lures.

Chester Exciting late fall trout fishing is underway at Lake Almanor. On one hand, if you visit the lake right now, you’re not going to hook a bunch of fish. However, the fish you hook will be quality rainbows and browns that start at 3 pounds and top out at over 5.

The late fall trout season is underway at Lake Almanor. The water temperature is now in the lower 50’s and we’ve had some snow,” said Bryan Roccucci of Big Daddy’s Guide Service. “The fishing hasn’t changed a whole lot in the past two weeks. I’m still trolling hardware quickly along the west shore. The trout are in the top 10 feet and that’s where I keep my lures. Spoons like Speedy Shiners and similar models are working in a range of different colors including gold, silver, red and even black.”

The trout we have been hooking are good size. The average is over 3 pounds and we are seeing high 4’s and low 5’s daily. Most of the fish are rainbows at this time,” Roccucci reported.

Shore anglers working near canyon dam and off Rocky Point are hooking rainbows in the 2 to 4 pound class on a mix of PowerBait and worms. The typical bank outing yields 1 to 3 fish.

Redding The salmon bite isn’t red hot for Sacramento River anglers, but the fishing is productive for anglers that put in their time. In addition to the salmon, there are good numbers of steelhead in the system.

“We’ve been getting 1 to 3 salmon per trip,” said Robert Weese of Northern California Guide Service. “Most of those fish run 15 to 30 pounds and are a mix of chromers and dark fish. There have been some much larger fish around. For example, we brought a 42 pounder in last week.”

“My anglers have been hooking quite a few steelhead in recent days. The steelhead average 3 to 6 pounds, but fish up to and beyond 10 are showing,” added Weese.

Kirk Portocarrero of SacRiverGuide.Com also reported fair to good salmon action.

“We’ve had some decent rain and we were hoping that would pull fish upstream in a major way, but that hasn’t happened,” said Portocarrero. “We are averaging 2 to 3 salmon per trip. Some of them are chromers, but we are seeing our share of dark fish too. Whether or not we’ll see a solid push of fresh fish prior to the end of the season is anyone’s guess. I hope it happens. I’d love to end the season with a bang.”

Bodega Bay What do Sonoma County saltwater anglers really want? That’s easy they want crab combos! On the up side, the rockfish and lingcod bite along the north coast is really good. Of course the downside is that the crab season remains closed, due to domoic acid found in the crabs, until further notice, although most agree that we’ll see crabs hitting the deck off Bodega and elsewhere within a month.

Captain Tim Wong of Norcal Sportfishing Adventures has been putting his client on very good rockfish and lingcod action. For example his last trip yielded full limits of rockfish and lingcod for 6 anglers. The lings ranged up to 15 pounds.

Captain Rick Powers of the Bodega Bay Sportfishing Center and the New Sea Angler is anxiously awaiting the belated crab opener. Rick is one of the guys that pioneered the concept of crab and rockfish combo fishing and he can’t wait to get started with this fall’s crab season.

Despite rough conditions in recent days, Rick’s clients have been putting the wood to both rockfish and lingcod.

On his most recent trip, Powers headed out with 21 anglers aboard and ended up at Fort Ross. The result was full limits of rockfish and 36 lingcod to 22 pounds.

Stockton Striped bass remain king in the San Joaquin side of the Delta with the water temperatures reaching optimum temperatures. Bait fishermen are finding the best action in the cold water, although there has been a window for swimbaits on specific tides.

Captain Stan Koenigsberger of Quetzal Adventures out of Bethel Island put Alex Harris on a 15-pound striper on frozen shad on the outgoing tide in False River, and young Harris released the fish after a measurement and photograph. Koenigsberger said, "We had a 21 fish day with 10 of the stripers of legal size."

Dan Mathisen of Dan’s Delta Outdoors in Oakley said, "The striper bite is not slowing down, but those tossing swimbaits or plugs will need to adjust their depths as the fish are holding from 6 to 12 feet instead of 4 to 6 feet."

The action with the Optimum 5-inch Bad Bubba Shad swimbait is leading Mathisen to state, "We are still cracking them as my wife and I routinely catch and release between 25 and 30 fish to 12 pounds with most of the stripers in the 4 to 6-pound range."

The action has been best in the north/south sloughs to avoid the massive islands of hyacinth, and Broad Slough and Three Mile meet this description.

The water hyacinth in the Stockton area is starting to curl up and show some shades of brown from the recent cold spell, but it hasn’t been cold enough despite Sunday’s record 25-degree low temperature to kill off the heavy hyacinth growth.

Brandon Gallegos of H and R Bait in Stockton said, "It’s still more green than brown out there on the San Joaquin; but there have been some clearer areas in the east and south Delta. Stripers in the 5 to 6-pound range have been taken...

(Sacramento) In spite of cold storms that haven’t translated into much runoff into the Sacramento River to date, sturgeon fishing is surprisingly good from Prospect Slough to the Sacramento River below Freeport.

“We sold out of ghost shrimp in 6 hours after our shipment arrived,” said Tim Boggs of Elkhorn Outdoors. “Jesse, a local fisherman, said the anglers in the 30 boats that he saw fishing in Prospect Slough on Saturday all reported hooking fish, releasing shakers or oversized fish or catching keepers.”

“Terry McClure also reported catching a 52 inch sturgeon while fishing shad for stripers in Sherman Lake,” said Boggs.

James Netzel of Tight Lines Guide Service reported great salmon action in the Sacramento River out of the Sacramento Yacht Harbor while using a method new to the Sacramento – trolling with Brad’s Cut Plugs filled with tuna behind Pro-Troll dodgers.

“We have caught over 20 salmon over the past week,” he noted. “We landed 3 chrome-bright salmon to 12 pounds in just one hour this morning. The two people fishing with me yesterday landed their limits of kings to 12 pounds. Earlier in the week, anglers bagged kings in the 15 to 22 lb. range.”

“Anglers have reported limits of salmon up to 35 pounds while fishing below Sherwood Harbor over the past couple of days,” confirmed Will Pfingst of Broadway Bait Rod & Gun. “On my last trip on a kayak in the Liberty Island area, I caught and released stripers measuring 29, 30 and 25 inches while fishing crankbaits and top water lures.”

Troy Fletcher, a visionary leader of the Yurok Tribe, passed away of a heart attack on Friday night, November 20.

I first met Troy nearly 20 years ago at a Fish and Game Commission hearing when he was the director of the Yurok Fisheries Program. From that first time I talked to Troy, I watched him play the key leadership role in building bridges between the Tribe and commercial fishermen, recreational anglers, environmentalists, farmers, other tribes and federal and state government officials who were often in conflict with one another.

Troy, who became the Executive Director of the Tribe, was one of the rare people who could truly see the big picture of fishery and environmental restoration - and what was necessary to restore the Klamath Basin and Pacific fisheries.

He told me several times at protests and meetings, "Fishermen will always fight over the fish. Our goal is to see that there are more fish that we can fight over."

He also talked to me a number of times about his vision of the way to accomplish restoration of the Klamath and other fisheries - by forming blue collar task forces rather than the Blue Ribbon Task Forces dominated by corporate interests and political appointees that oversaw the MLPA Initiative, BDCP and other environmental processes. Troy said these blue collar panels would be comprised only of those whose hands touch the water - farmers, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and tribal gatherers and fishermen.

Troy, along with Ron Reed of the Karuk Tribe, spoke at rallies and meetings in solidarity with recreational anglers and commercial fishermen fighting to bring back salmon on the Klamath, Sacramento and other watersheds - and fighting to defend their fishing rights.

While Troy was a bridge builder, he also stood firm when the Tribe's sovereign...

Oregon House

“How fast things can change in only two weeks!” exclaimed Kathy Hess of the Collins Lake Resort. “Trout ‘catching’ is definitely speeding up to an all time high this week.”

Cory, Paul and Vasile all limited out on trout while fishing from the shoreline near the ramp at the dam using PowerBait and lures, according to Hess. Their big fish weighed 6 pounds, 2 ounces. Tony Troncale of Lodi also hooked a 6 lb. rainbow and a 4 lb. trout by the dam on PowerBait.

Sandy Settles from Rio Linda also landed a limit of rainbows by trolling worms in the channel. Ryan Barella from Windsor trolled near the dam and hooked two nice trout, topped by a 3 lb. 8 oz. beauty.

Little Chevy Luna reported catching a limit of rainbows, topped by a 3 lb. 12 oz. fish while fishing with worms.

Members from the Slow Trollers Fishing Club of Yuba City have caught some great fish these past couple of weeks. Jim Chausee topped his stringer with a 4 lb. 1 oz. trout, Manny Castro with a 4 lb. 6 oz. rainbow, and Tom Pickett with a 3 lb. 11 oz. trout. All were caught on Rapala-type lures.

Vietnam Vet, Ken Smith, caught a glorious 4 lb. rainbow measuring 22″ long. He used PowerBait from shore below the store.

“Hansen and his son Robert worked tirelessly on their new boat project for three months that they brought up to Collins Lake to test. That boat was very good to them; besides keeping them afloat, it also helped them catch a half-dozen dozen bass weighing up to 4 pounds, 10 ounces,” she added.

Lake Chabot, a pretty reservoir nestled in the tree-studded foothills east of San Leandro in the unincorporated area of Castro Valley, is now a popular location for anglers to pursue largemouth bass, rainbow trout and channel catfish, but it wasn’t always that way.

Built in 1874-75 as a primary drinking water supply for the East Bay, the 315-acre lake was closed to fishing and other recreation for most of its history, 91 years. The lake finally opened for controlled recreational uses in 1965 after legislation was passed in the 1960s. The lake now serves as a standby emergency water supply.

This past year has been an interesting one due to the prolonged drought that has brought the lake level down to very low levels, according to Joe Sullivan, Acting Fisheries Program Manager for the East Bay Regional Park District.

The low water levels and the toxic blue-green algae blooms that occurred at Lake Chabot this summer definitely had an impact on park attendance. Because of this, the park district reduced their fish plants during the very warm summer months.

The good news is that the largemouth bass and other naturally reproducing fisheries appear not to be affected by the toxic algae and low water level.

I haven't had a chance to analyze our annual monitoring data that we collected this past spring and summer, but a first glance shows that fish numbers are staying pretty steady compared to previous years, said Joe Sullivan of the East Bay Regional Park District.

We even had a largemouth bass caught a couple of months ago that was just shy of a lake record, and there's a lot of other monster bass out there, he said. Now that the weather has cooled and we've received some rain, we are back in full swing with...

Moss Landing

If you want to catch a limit of both lingcod and rockfish, you don’t have much time left this year, since the season closes on December 31. The Kahuna continues to see great action on both species as the season enters its final stretch.

The 22 anglers aboard the Kahuna on Sunday, November 29, landed 66 lingcod, 12 copper rockfish, 175 assorted rockfish, and 33 vermilion rockfish, according to Carol Jones of Kahuna Sportfishing.

The two previous adventures produced top-notch fishing also. A trip by 24 anglers on November 22 returned with 72 lingcod, 28 bocaccio, 35 vermilion rockfish, 146 rockfish, 72 lingcod and 31 copper rockfish. A trip by 22 people on November 21 produced 66 lingcod, 41 vermilion rockfish, 154 rockfish, and 25 copper rockfish.

Chris Arcoleo of Chris’s Fishing Trips in Monterey confirmed the superb lingcod action off the Monterey County coast, with all three boats reporting limits of lingcod on Sunday, November 29. The lingcod are hitting small mackerel running about the size of large anchovies.

The Check Mate checked in with 21 limits of lings and half limits of rockfish, the Caroline boated limits of lings and half limits of rockfish and the Star of Monterey returned with 16 limits of lings and limits of rockfish.

Great weather continued today near Franklin Point and Davenport for rockfish, said Todd Fraser of Bayside Marine in Santa Cruz. The surf fishing has improved with the last few storms making nice sandbars. The perch are biting ghost shrimp and Camo Gulp Worms.

The water temperature has cooled down and most of the pelagic species, including bonito and bluefin tuna, have moved further offshore, Fraser added.

Colfax With continuing cool weather the trout action at both Rollins Lake and Scotts Flat Reservoir is picking up. Most of the trout being caught are browns and there has been zero planting on behalf of the DFW.

“Usually at this time of the year, both Rollins and Scotts Flat are kicking out good numbers of planted rainbows, but that isn’t the case this year,” reported Jason Pleece of Meadow Vista. “There is a hatchery trout shortage in Northern California and we just aren’t seeing the rainbow plants we’ve had in previous years. As a result the only available trout are holdover and wild fish.”

“I fished both Rollins and Scotts last week and caught fish on both trips while working from my kayak. At Scotts, I caught a 13 inch brown trout and 3 smallmouth bass to 2.5 pounds while trolling a broken back perch pattern Rapala,” said Pleece.

“At Rollins, I got two browns to 16 inches and a beautiful 14 inch squaretail rainbow that must have moved into the lake from the Bear River. I trolled my way up the Bear River Arm pulling both spinners and minnow plugs for zero strikes. Once I hit the current I dropped down several hundred yards and started still fishing with worms. I got one brown off the bottom using a sliding sinker rig. The other two fish grabbed worms suspended 6 feet under a clear bobber,” related Pleece.

“I released all the trout I caught this week. With no trout plants in sight, I think it’s important to conserve the trout we have,” Pleece asserted.

East Bay: The bad news is that crab season has yet to open. The good news is that the latest testing indicates a drop-off in the level of toxins found in the crab, so an opener is expected in the near future. The best news is that the bottomfish action for both rockfish and lingcod has been wide open at the Farallons when the weather cooperates.

Captain James Smith of California Dawn Sportfishing in Berkeley hasn’t been running every day, but when the boat does head out to the Farallon Islands, limits of rockfish and limits to near limits of lingcod have been the result.

In Emeryville, the story is much the same. Anglers want the crab season to kick off so they can enjoy some outstanding crab and bottomfish combination trips.

In the short term, boats like the New Salmon Queen, New Huck Finn, and Sea Wolf have been pushing out to the islands for limits of rockfish and near limits of lingcod up to and beyond 20 pounds.

The rockfish season in the Golden Gate region is slated to run until December 31, so there is plenty of time to get out and top off your freezer with tasty fillets.

Once known primarily as a trout and kokanee salmon fishery, Bullards Bar has become legendary for the world record class spotted bass that lurk in its clear waters.

Paul Bailey, a Kelseyville bass fishing guide, caught a potential new world and state record spotted bass weighing 11.4 pounds, but he opted to release the fish rather than kill it on November 29, the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

“It weighed 11.4 pounds on one digital scale, 11.5 on another and 11.7 pounds on another,” he said. “We tried to get ahold of a CDFW biologist to examine it, but only one person was working on Thanksgiving weekend.”

“We could have transported the fish 75 miles to the nearest town, Oroville and weighed it on a certified scale,” he said. “However, the bass wouldn’t have survived in the live well during the trip to and from Oroville.”

Tim Little of Kelseyville set a new world and California state record for spotted bass when he landed a 10.38 lb. fish at Bullards Bar this January.

Then Louis Ferrante shattered Little’s record by catching an 11 lb. 3 oz spotted bass on February 21, 2015. The fish measured 31 inches long and 20.5 inches in girth, according to the CDFW.

Twitch, twitch…tug, twitch, twitch, I gently picked up the Cousins tackle spinning rod and opened the bail on the Abu Garcia Cardinal. The trout were a bit sluggish, so I wanted to give the fish plenty of slack.

Seconds went by and nothing happened, but then the fish came back and coils of line started flipping off the reel, slowly at first and then faster.

I snapped the bail closed, allowed the line to tighten and set the hook. The rainbow might have been a bit lethargic when mouthing the ball of Zeke’s Sierra Gold, but it came to life with the sting of the hook and put up a spirited fight.

With my 14 inch rainbow on the stringer, I quickly got the rod back into the water and Gene Rush and I settled in to await the next bite.

It was December 2 and we were fishing at Collins Lake, one of my favorite trout fishing destinations whether I’m fishing bait from the bank or trolling from a boat. In truth while we were bait fishing, we weren’t on the bank. Instead we were situated a few feet offshore on the Collins Lake fishing and rental boat dock. It provided an awesome platform to operate from and we didn’t even get any mud on our shoes!

When I picked Gene up in Foresthill the streets were wet from rain and we were a little worried that we were going to get dumped on, but we didn’t encounter any rain during our trip. Instead the conditions were just about perfect. The overcast skies made for a low light level and with zero breeze the lake’s surface was calm and mirror like.

As I rigged a pair of spinning rods for bait soaking, Gene walked the dock and made casts...

There are two kinds of anglers residing in northern California, those that have landed a sturgeon and those that should land a sturgeon.

With good sturgeon action now underway in the West Delta this is a perfect time to contemplate how to catch sturgeon during the late fall and winter months.

Consistently successful sturgeon anglers are the ones that effectively blend patience, skill, execution and plain unadulterated luck. Back in the old days, it was said that an aspiring sturgeon angler could plan on putting in an average of 100 hours on the water before that first elusive keeper was landed. These days with modern electronics and a more widespread and thorough understanding of sturgeon behavior, the amount of time it takes an angler to land a keeper is significantly shorter...Usually.

One of your greatest resources for finding sturgeon is your delta map. When you unfold the map to look for potential sturgeon fishing spots, you are looking for several different features. The first thing you want to locate are deep holes. Sturgeon tend to keg up in deep areas.

Of course the term deep hole is relative. In a slough that averages 10 feet deep a hole that is 20 feet deep is deep. Conversely out on the main Sacramento where much of the water averages 20 to 30 feet deep, water that is 40 or more feet deep constitutes a deep spot.

Now the sturgeon you find holding along the bottom of deep holes often won’t be feeding, but deep areas do attract and concentrate sturgeon and that is important. Since, when those fish become active and move out of the hole to eat, you can put yourself in a position to ambush them.

The areas where I’ve had the most luck hooking sturgeon are the flat, relatively...

Napa Now that the water at Lake Berryessa has turned over, rainbow trout fishing is picking up.

Boaters are hooking rainbows in the 12 to 15 inch range while drifting minnows east of the Big Island and in the narrows, said Jack at Sweeney’s Sports. The king and kokanee salmon fishing remains slow. There aren’t many trollers fishing the lake now.

Shore anglers should find their best trout action while drifting minnows and nightcrawlers around the old bridge past Cappell Cove.

The black bass fishing is still pretty good, although it is not as good as it was a few weeks ago, reported Jack. Boaters are doing best running around from spot to spot, following schools of shad. Your best bet is to use drop shot rigs where the shad and bass are concentrated, including in open water, at 30 to 40 feet deep.

Rock and clay bluffs in the Putah Creek arm are also producing some spotted and smallmouth bass, along with some largemouths, he added. My buddy and I caught around two dozen largemouths on our latest trip in Putah Creek while dropping Bladerunner Spoons in morning dawn.

Expect to hook bass in the 2 to 3 pound range, along with some bigger fish, at Berryessa this month.

Los Vaqueros (Byron) Fall is ending with solid trout, catfish, and striped bass fishing at Los Vaqueros Reservoir.

“With recent plants, trout fishing has improved with more limits being caught from all around the reservoir,” reported Brian Demmunik of the Los Vaqueros Marina. “They are being caught in South Cove and Oak Point as well as all around the lake. Mt. Lassen stocked 2000 pounds of trout on December 7. We will be planting again the week of December 14.”

Shore anglers are doing best with garlic scented PowerBaits, nightcrawlers, or Kastmasters. Out of South Cove and from around Oak Point, trout average a pound and a half but range to over 5 lbs. Trolling is employing Rapalas and other lures in the coves.

“Shakers are still the main action with striped bass,” said Demmunik. “We are still seeing many undersized fish being caught for every keeper. From shore, cut anchovies or shad is the bait of choice.”

Stripers need to be 18 inches or more to be legal. Please continue releasing the small fish as quickly and carefully as possible,” he tipped.

Catfish continue to be caught here and there but with the cooler water they are becoming more difficult to catch. For those wishing to target catfish, anchovy and chicken liver are the best choices of bait.

“Most anglers are focused on stripers or trout, although there have been many sightings near the boat dock and adjacent fishing pier. Senkos have been seen catching some nice fish in that area,” he stated.

The water level is currently at 86,600 acre feet. The water temperature has dropped to 59-60 degrees.

Shadow Cliffs (Pleasanton) Anglers fishing bait on Shadow Cliffs are nailing both rainbow trout and channel catfish, in spite of the recent cold snap.

The park district stocked 1000...

Oroville Boaters launching their boats with 4-wheel drive vehicles at either the spillway or Bidwell Canyon launch ramps are experiencing top-notch spotted bass action at Lake Oroville, but don’t expect to hook any trophy fish.

The fishing is still good, but it’s hard to get fish of any size,” said Brent Cline of Oroville Outdoors. “Most anglers are using finesse techniques, including using worms, tubes and jigs.”

“My fishing buddy and I caught and released 30 bass on our latest trip on the lake,” reported Cline. “The biggest fish weighed 2 pounds and most of the fish were in the 1 to 1-1/2 lb. range. We fished with jigs and tubes in the main body and Middle Fork at 10 to 30 feet deep.”

Few anglers are targeting the king salmon. Your best bet is to troll hoochies, tipped with anchovy strips, behind Sling Dodgers. Bass anglers are reporting catching a few salmon up to 4 pounds while drop shotting with Robo Worms.

“Fishing pressure is light on largemouth bass in the Thermalito Afterbay,” he added.

Lake Oroville was holding 913.014 acre-feet of water, 26 percent of capacity and 42 percent of average, at press time. The water level is 650.17 feet above sea level.

Redding The 2015 river salmon season officially closed on December 16. Fishing during the final week of the season was fair and steady for a mix of mainly dark fish in the 15 to 30 pound class.

Now that salmon season is a memory, Sacramento River anglers are turning their attention to wild rainbow trout and steelhead fishing.

Kirk Portocarrero of SacRiverGuide.Com describes the trout fishing as excellent at this time with anglers picking up as many as 30 fish per trip. There are decent numbers of steelhead mixed in with the trout, so you never know what your next hook-up might produce.

Portocarrero is fishing the stretch from Bonneyview to Jelly’s Ferry. Both egg patterns and mayfly nymph imitations are drawing strikes for fly anglers.

Conventional tackle anglers are drifting with glo bugs, beads and Pautzke Salmon eggs. When the trout are feeling aggressive, back trolling small crankbaits like Wiggle Warts and Flatfish is a great approach.

As of press time, the river was running at 4,250 cfs and was low and clear, but a major storm is on the way that threatens to blow the river out for a few days.

Imagine trophy striper fishing on the Sacramento River on a cold winter morning. You make a cast near a tree that happens to be in the middle of the river. The 8 inch Savage Gear Glide Bait barely hits the water and there’s a huge explosion on the surface of the water.

I was fishing with Brett Brady of Barebones Guide Service and I yelled over to him that this was a huge fish. At that point both of us started to act like two little kids that had never caught a fish before. There was pure excitement because this is the trophy sized fish that we were hoping to have a chance to catch.

Big fish are smart and this fish was no exception. After the fish realized it was hooked, it made a run for the tree. There was no turning this fish around. The fish was hooked right next to the tree and it didn’t have far to go before it swam underneath it and was on the opposite side from where I had initially hooked it.

I could feel my line rubbing against the tree as the fish made its way down river. Soon, my line was wrapped around the tree and it was impossible to reel in my line. We were only fishing in about 6 feet of water. I tried to free my line for several minutes, at times, laying on my belly on the boat, but to no avail.

It was at that time that Brett came up with a brilliant idea. Brett maneuvered the boat to the free side of the line and attempted to catch my line with line from another rod and reel. Eventually he caught it. Then I wondered what we were going to do with it. He told...

Even during a drought, Englebright Lake is always full. That means that you will have no problem launching a boat at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir that sits at an elevation of 527 feet on the Yuba River off Hwy 20 just west of Penn Valley.

Not only does Englebright offer easy access to anglers during the drought, but it holds a wide variety of rainbow trout, brown trout, kokanee salmon, bluegill and largemouth, spotted, and smallmouth bass. Trout fishing is good year-round at Englebright since the lake benefits from the cold water released from the bottom of Bullards Bar Reservoir.

However, it’s the stringers of big rainbows up to 10 pounds that have attracted the most angling attention in recent years, due to the efforts of Lisa and Nick Rogers, owners of the Skippers Cove Marina.

The pen project began in 2010 after the Rogers had purchased the Skippers Cove Marina and realized that trout weren’t being stocked in the reservoir due to a biological assessment of lakes and streams required of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, according to the terms of the settlement of a lawsuit filed by environmental NGOs.

They realized they needed to put fish back in the lake and put Englebright on the map of fishing destinations – and the pen program was a good way to improve the fishery. They built four floating pens, each 8 feet wide by 12 feet long, by 12 feet deep, and put them in the marina.

It’s been a tough bite these past few weeks fishing at the California Aqueduct. I was able to land several stripers using a planar board paired with a SpeedLure jerkbait. I was trolling about 10 feet from the canal wall.

Typically, this time of year stripers will relate closer to the bottom. On a recent trip, I noticed stripers were feeding off the remaining scattered baitfish swimming near the surface. The planar board kept my lure right in the strike zone for these feeding stripers. They slammed the lures as I was walking down the paved road. Most strikes came from stretches with change in the current such as bends in the aqueduct.

Casting lures near bridges worked for me as well. Being higher in elevation allowed me to see how these stripers were reacting to my lure. You can tell they’re less active as they glide up to inspect your lure from the depths. Occasionally, you’ll get one hungry enough to slap the lure and hook into it. Most bites came right next to the canal wall, just two feet from the edge. They’re really honing in on the locations of these bait fish.

Water visibility is slightly stained in most areas. Water is flowing in most parts of the aqueduct and best time to catch fish are early mornings and late afternoons.

Rancho Cordova The number of steelhead showing now at Nimbus Fish Hatchery has improved greatly from last season, in spite of continuing low releases of 500 cfs from Nimbus Dam.

This year is much different from last season, when a total of only 154 steelhead were trapped from December through mid-March.

In contrast, the hatchery has trapped over 148 steelhead to date as of December 22. Last season only 10 steelhead had been trapped by December 29.

“There are lots of steelhead in the hatchery now,” said Gary Novak, Nimbus Fish Hatchery manager. “I’m floored.”

The hatchery has spawned a total of 27 pairs to date compared with only 31 pairs all of the last season.

“The males are above average size and the females are also large,” he said, leading to speculation that some of the steelhead may have stayed out in the ocean for an extra year and have come up the river as 4-year-olds.

“We won’t know for sure until scale samples of the steelhead are analyzed. Most steelhead return to spawn as three-year-olds on the American River.

The number of eggs taken from the fish to date is 198,278. That’s more than total for the entire season last year, 192,278 eggs.

“We averaged about 6,000 eggs per female last season,” he said. “This year we’re seeing over 7,000 eggs per fish.”

However, to put the current steelhead run in perspective, banner years for steelhead on the American have seen up to 2,000 adult steelhead counted by this time of year.

The numbers of fall-run Chinook salmon, including jacks and jills (two-year-old fish) showing at the hatchery are now also above those trapped last year. The facility has trapped 9,716 salmon, including 7,326 adults and 2,390 jacks and jills this season.

Last year hatchery staff counted a...

There is no doubt that a variety of different rod, reel and line combinations will work for trout trolling. I’ve spent decades trolling for trout and the gear I use has changed quite a bit.

Early on I used spinning gear, now I seldom do. For a while I used light to ultra light gear. That was fun, but I lacked the power I needed for big fish. These days I’ve settled on what I consider to be the ultimate trolling set up.

It’s a compromise between being light enough to enjoy the fight of average size fish and heavy enough to land trophy caliber fish when I hook them. Check out the accompanying video as I break down the rig I use.

Water levels are good at both Rollins Reservoir and Scotts Flat Reservoir and fishing pressure has been light. Cold water has resulted in sluggish, uncooperative bass at both lakes and the lack of recent trout plants has made for slow trout fishing.

Right now if you travel to Rollins or Scotts Flat to target trout you likely won’t have much action, but if you do hook a trout it will likely be a quality fish, reported Jason Pleece of Meadow Vista.

I’ve fished both lakes over the past week. At Scotts I spent time trolling and drifting with bait. On that trip I didn’t get any action at all. At Rollins Lake I spent 7 hours trolling from my kayak and ended up catching a single 22 inch brown trout. I tried a variety of minnow plugs for zero strikes early in the day. I got the brown in open water near the power lines on a threaded crawler pulled behind a chrome and brass Sep’s Strike Master dodger. That fish hit right around noon, but it was overcast on the day of my trip, disclosed Pleece.

I’ve been fishing Rollins for over 15 years and this has been the worst cold weather trout season I’ve seen. The lack of plants by the DFW has been devastating. There are no pansize rainbows to be had and the brown trout fishing hasn’t been as good as it usually is either. I think that the introduction of planter rainbows into the lake actually stimulates the brown trout bite, added Pleece.

The Progressive San Francisco Boat Show is slated to run from January 15 to 18 at Pier 48 and McCovey Cove at AT&T Park. This is northern California’s only complete boat show. Whether you’ve been yearning for a yacht, coveting a family cruiser, or anxious to dive into the exciting and healthy world of paddle sports, now is the time to make that dream a reality.

This year's show features an expanded selection of boats for every lifestyle and activity displayed both on land and in water, and dozens of booths showcasing the newest nautical gear, gadgets, and accessories. There’s no better place to buy. Take the free Cable Car Shuttle for easy and comfortable transportation between Pier 48 and McCovey Cove.

Not in the market to buy a boat? The show is the perfect place to sample the boating lifestyle. Head to Try It Cove to test drive kayaks, stand up paddleboards, and other water sports. Take a sailing lesson without leaving dry land aboard the Sailing Simulator, or test your boating skills on the United States Power Squadrons Boating Skills Virtual Trainer.

If you currently own a boat you won't want to miss the free boat and motor maintenance seminars at Fred’s Shed Interactive Learning Center.

The S.F. Boat Show’s seminar program is loaded with educational and entertaining programs hosted by experts who will share practical advice, expert opinions, and information on a wide variety of topics, including sail and power, anchoring, green boating, insurance and finance, sportfishing in the Bay Area, and more.

If you really want to kick your boating skills up a notch, take an on-water workshop for practical training at the helm. Discover Boating’s Hands-On Skills Training offers a number of powerboating and sailing workshops at the show, taught by certified professional instructors.

When...

(Berkeley) The end of the rockfish season is seen by many as the end of the saltwater fishing season. This year the season ended on a somber note with crab fishing closed and rough seas that kept both charter and private boats in port.

As of press time there was zero action aboard East Bay charter boats save for much needed maintenance. Sturgeon fishing has yet to ignite in the south bay. If and when it does there will surely be some charter boats willing to chase them. Likewise if crab season does get into gear there will certainly be some charter operators targeting them.

In review the 2015 season was a memorable one for East Bay charter boat anglers. All the usual species were on hand at one point or another during the season including rockfish, lings, stripes, salmon, halibut and sharks.

Warmer than usual water conditions also brought a lot of exotics into our waters during the late summer and fall, including bonito and clouds of mackerel.

If you had to point to one or two highlights for the season, one would have to be the incredible striper action that took place both inside and beyond the bay as huge schools of bass rampaged on clouds of anchovies.

The other bite that really stands out was the lingcod bite. The average keeper lingcod caught wasn’t large at 6 to 7 pounds, but they were incredibly plentiful. Lots of charter boats scored limits and near limits of lings daily from July right on into the fall.

There were some big lings in the mix too. The highlight of this reporter’s season was bagging a 30 plus pound lingcod off Point Reyes in August!

In a media teleconference on January 7, three Brown administration officials claimed that no money in the $122.6 billion General Fund budget for 2016-17 unveiled by Governor Jerry Brown would be used to implement the Delta Tunnels under the California Water Fix.

In response to a reporter’s question about whether any budget money would be used for the Delta Tunnels, John Laird, California Natural Resources Secretary, said that California Eco Restore has been separated from the California Water Fix, the conveyance plan.

Mark Cowin, Director of the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), affirmed that there is no money in the budget to advance the study of the California Water Fix or tunnels. He stated that those activities are funded entirely by the state and federal water project contractors that benefit from the project.

Chuck Bonham, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Director, noted that money allocated from the state’s cap-and-trade program would be used to restore wetlands through the California Eco Restore program. He emphasized that this program has nothing to do with the proposal to modernize conveyance infrastructure.

However, Restore the Delta (RTD) disagreed strongly with the administration officials' contentions that no budget money would be used to fund the controversial conveyance project. They pointed out the budget does include $3.6 million for the Delta Tunnels.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta (RTD), stated that the money would come out of the General Fund to the Delta Stewardship Council and is intended to incorporate the Delta Water Tunnels conveyance project into the Delta Plan.

She explained that the Delta Plan was originally written for the incorporation of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), which failed to meet Federal guidelines for water quality and fishery standards. The new plan for the Delta Tunnels has already received...

State officials originally pledged to conduct a regional review of the so-called marine protected areas created under the controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative every five years, but they have now reversed course and plan to do the reviews only once every 10 years.

George Osborn of the California Sportfishing League spoke at the California Fish and Game Commission meeting in December to challenge this change in plans.

“As anglers know, the State of California designated over 800 square miles of the Pacific Ocean off limits to recreational fishing - in large part due to overfishing by the commercial fishing industry,” according to Osborn. “However, the State said these marine protected areas would be temporary and after five years, they would conduct a regional review to determine when they open to recreational angling once again.”

“Well.. that was then. Now, they want to extend this review process out another 5 years! Why? They don't have the money,” he said.

In objecting to this move, Osborn asked, "When can recreational anglers again drop a line into an area now closed?"

“That’s not what the fishermen were told when the marine protected areas were adopted by the Commission,” added Osborn. “They are very disappointed in this change of plans.”

The Commission voted to notice the Master Plan for the February meeting, when it will be discussed. Then the Commission will act upon the plan in April.

“I’ve been told personally by commissioners who are no longer on the commission and commissioners still on the commission that they couldn’t wait for the day to show the fishermen that the MPAs have worked and closed areas could be opened again to recreational anglers,” he stated.

Osborn believes that this latest action confirms the suspicion of anglers during the process that once the marine...

The kick-off event for the 2016 NorCal Trout Angler's Challenge is less than a month away, as San Pablo Dam will again be the site of this year’s season opener on Saturday, February 6.

Last year’s NorCal Trout Anglers Challenge Championship at Collins Lake saw trout angler Gary McCune take home the overall championship with a 7-plus pound rainbow, and angler Cory Harms winning a spot in the top ten draw and taking home the Klamath both motor and trailer package.

As the new season begins on Feb 6th at San Pablo Dam, all stats and tales of glory will be set to zero, as everyone participating will have a chance at winning cash, prizes, and a shot at participating in the year-end tournament of champions event.

For those who have never fished an NTAC event or don’t know what the NTAC is all about, here’s the scoop:

The NTAC is what we call the “every man’s” or “every family’s” trout fishing event. Each event offers cash prizes, gear, and other goodies, and the entry fees are low. If you pre-register, adults only pay $20 to participate, and kids under 15 are free. If you wait until game day to register, it will still only cost an adult $25 and a junior angler $5.

As if those prizes weren’t exciting enough, the NTAC season will end with a Tournament of Champions shootout where the overall winner will take home a new fishing boat complete with motor and trailer. The top 25 youth finishers and the top 50 adult finishers from each of the 5 regular season tournaments will be invited to participate in the end of season TOC for a chance at the boat and other cash prizes.

Angler’s Press recognizes the financial challenges that many anglers face these days,...

Los Vaqueros

(Byron) Los Vaqueros Reservoir anglers celebrated the first two weeks of the New Year with solid rainbow trout and striped bass fishing, reported Brian Demmunik of the Los Vaqueros Marina.

Three larger trout - 7.3, 7.4 and 6.88 pounders - were caught last week, said Demmunik. Two were taken from South Cove on PowerBait and the last was caught on a Rapala in Howden Cove.

Fishing for trout continues to be good with all the trout plants and cooler water temperatures, said Demmunik. They are being caught in South Cove and Oak Point as well as all around the lake. The baits of choice for shore anglers are garlic-scented PowerBaits, nightcrawlers or Kastmasters. Trolling is popular with anglers using Rapalas and other lures in the coves.

There was a 1,000 lb Lassen plant on Wednesday, December 30. There will be another 1,000 lb Lassen plant the week of January 4. With the plants, trout fishing is better with more limits caught from all around the reservoir.

Most striped bass being hooked now are undersized, under 18 inches. From shore, cut anchovies or shad are the top baits, said Demmunik. We are still seeing many undersized fish being caught for every keeper.

Most anglers were focused on stripers or trout although there have been many sightings of largemouths near the boat dock and adjacent fishing pier, he said. Senkos have been seen catching some nice fish in that area.

The water level is currently at 84,500 acre feet. The water level is dropping due to use. The water temperature is 54-55 degrees.

The next monthly fishing clinic will be held at the Marina Saturday, Feb. 6 at 9 a.m. Learn everything you've wanted to know about lake fishing.

Fishing topics rotate on a monthly basis and may be tailored...

If you want to earn the best incentives at the Sacramento ISE Show, stop by the Fish Sniffer booth. Our incentives come with a subscription to the Fish Sniffer, the hardest hitting, most in-depth fishing magazine on the West Coast.

What do we have to offer? I’ll assume that since you are reading this, you already know that the Fish Sniffer is published every other week, 26 times a year, and that we cover both the freshwater and saltwater fishing scenes here in California and beyond. We provide a long list of location-specific fishing reports in addition to fishing features, map features, how-to articles, conservation articles, and product reviews.

All this is a given and you can get it all by buying a subscription over the phone, through the mail, or online. You can even buy the magazine one issue at a time over the counter at one of our hundreds of retail outlets. Yet if you buy your subscription at this year’s ISE Show, you’ll get all this great information, plus you’ll share in all the great incentives that we give away with subscriptions purchased at the show.

This year, as always, we’ve got a bunch of fishing rods to give away to our supporters, and as anyone that has stopped by our ISE booth will certainly attest, our rods are not the low-end bargain basement models that some outfits pass out.

We’ll be supplying our subscribers with saltwater and freshwater rods from a variety of different manufacturers such as Diawa and Penn. Kokanee rods are always a big hit with our subscribers. This year we’ll be offering Vance Staplin Signature Series kokanee and trout trolling rods from Vance’s Tackle.

Do you need fishing line? With a subscription to the Fish Sniffer, you’ll receive a filler spool of premium...

In his State of the State Address at the State Capitol in Sacramento on Thursday, Governor Jerry Brown promoted building reliable conveyance and building storage to supposedly achieve the goal of providing a reliable water supply for the state's residents.

“One of the bright spots in our contentious politics is the joining together of both parties and the people themselves to secure passage of Proposition 1, the Water Bond,” said Brown. “That, together with our California Water Action Plan, establishes a solid program to deal with the drought and the longer-term challenge of using our water wisely.”

“Our goal must be to preserve California’s natural beauty and ensure a vibrant economy – on our farms, in our cities and for all the people who live here. There is no magic bullet but a series of actions must be taken. We have to recharge our aquifers, manage the groundwater, recycle, capture stormwater, build storage and reliable conveyance, improve efficiency everywhere, invest in new technologies – including desalination – and all the while recognize that there are some limits,” he stated.

He also uttered some of the achieving balance between conflicting parties rhetoric that he has become known for, all while he continues to serve the interests of the corporate agribusiness, Big Oil, Big Timber and other corporate interests through his anti-environmental water policies that have brought Central Valley steelhead and salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, green sturgeon and other fish species to the brink of extinction under his administration.

“Achieving balance between all the conflicting interests is not easy but I pledge to you that I will listen and work patiently to achieve results that will stand the test of time," Brown claimed. “Water goes to the heart of what California is and what it has been over centuries....

the final day of the season.”

Fishermen can expect to catch a variety of rockfish and lingcod throughout the year, with the best opportunities typically found in the spring and fall. The waters off the Big Sur coast are rich with nutrients, attracting a diverse range of marine life that makes for an exciting fishing experience.

Catch and release is encouraged to maintain these thriving fish populations, and anglers should be mindful of size and bag limits to ensure sustainable fishing practices. Local charters provide excellent access to prime fishing spots, and many offer the services of knowledgeable guides to help maximize your experience.

Fishing along this breathtaking coastline not only provides memorable moments on the water but also the chance to take in the stunning landscapes that surround you. From coastal cliffs to crashing waves, the natural beauty of the Monterey County Coast enhances every fishing trip.

As you plan your fishing adventure, consider the weather, tides, and local regulations to ensure a successful outing. Whether you're an experienced angler or a beginner, the Big Sur coast is a remarkable destination for those looking to enjoy a day of fishing while surrounded by some of California's most iconic scenery.

Fish species ranging from endangered Delta Smelt to Striped Bass continued to plummet to record low population levels in 2015 in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, according to the annual fall survey report released on December 18 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Only 6 Delta smelt, an endangered species that once numbered in the millions and was the most abundant fish in the Delta, were collected at the index stations in the estuary this fall. The 2015 index, a relative number of abundance, is the lowest in history, said Sara Finstad, an environmental scientist for the CDFW’s Bay Delta Region.

The Delta Smelt, a 2 to 3 inch fish found only in the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary, is an indicator species that demonstrates the health of the Delta, an estuary that has been dramatically impacted by water exports to corporate agribusiness interests and Southern California water agencies during the record drought, along with other factors including increasing water toxicity and invasive species.

The Fall Midwater Trawl Survey, used to index the fall abundance of pelagic fishes most years since 1967, conducts monthly surveys from September through December. The 2015 sampling season was completed on December 11.

In September, the only Delta Smelt collected were from index stations in the lower Sacramento River. In October the only Delta smelt collected came from a non-index station in the Sacramento Deep Water Shipping Channel.

In November, no Delta Smelt were collected and in December, the only Delta Smelt collected were from index stations in Montezuma Slough and the lower Sacramento River, according to Finstad.

The population of striped bass, a popular gamefish, has also declined to record low levels. The 2015 abundance index is the second lowest in history. Only 42 age 0 striped bass were recorded at the survey...

If you’ve ever attended a NorCal Trout Anglers Challenge event, you know that a lot of tackle and bait is given away. Without the tour’s robust sponsor list these special giveaways wouldn’t be possible.

Fisherman’s Warehouse is on board and will undoubtedly push a bunch baits, lures and gear down the line to NTAC participants.

The folks at the Pautzke Bait Company supply NTAC anglers with a ton of bait in the form of floating Fire Bait and their tried and true Green Label Eggs, Orange Deluxe Eggs and Yellow Jacket eggs.

Berkley has come on board with PowerBait, rods, reels and fishing line, while Thomas Lures, Sep’s Pro Fishing, Magic Products, Acme Tackle, Silver Horde and Dick Nite Spoons have provided an array of lures, dodgers and more.

Yakima Bait has stepped forward and is providing all manner of baits including tried and true Flatfish that have been killing trout for decades.

Atlas-Mike’s is providing an array of Zekes Floating Bait, scented salmon eggs and deadly scents.

Pro-Cure Bait Scents is also a part of the NTAC team in 2016, so you’ll be seeing Super Gel and other products at events this season.

When it’s time to purchase gear, please remember these manufacturers that have stepped forward to promote the great sport of trout fishing across northern and central California.

Hearing board action falls short of community demands to shut down Aliso Canyon Storage Facility

Three groups - Save Porter Ranch, the Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch - on Saturday, January 23 released a joint statement accusing the South Coast Air Quality Management District Hearing Board (AQMD) of making a decision regarding the SoCalGas Leak that fails to adequately protect residents of Porter Ranch and other surrounding communities.

The gas blowout that continues as I write this is considered by many to be the worst disaster of its kind since the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The leak detected on October 23, caused by well integrity failure, is only the most recent of many such leaks caused in California by aging infrastructure — and just one of the many environmental disasters that have ravaged California under the Brown and Schwarzenegger administrations.

Over the past few months, thousands of residents have been displaced and sickened by the fumes that contain carcinogens including benzene and toluene. The gas leak has emitted methane at a rate of 50,000 kilograms per hour, equivalent to 25 percent of the state’s total emissions of this heat-trapping gas, according to the groups. The leak has forced more than 12,000 residents to relocate and 1,800 more households are waiting for relocation assistance.

After three weeks of hearings and deliberation, AQMD issued a Stipulated Order for Abatement, but residents and local elected officials say the order, which does not require the permanent closure of the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility, falls short of what’s necessary to protect public health. The order also appears to contradict Governor Jerry Brown’s Executive Order to protect public safety, according to the news release.

Gov. Brown’s order, issued January 6, requires state agencies to protect public...

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta (RTD), and Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), will appear at the Stockton City Townhall with environmental activist Erin Brockovich today, February 1, at 6 PM to discuss the relationship between Delta management, the Delta tunnels project and water quality for municipal use.

The event will be held at the Atherton Auditorium, San Joaquin Delta College, 5151 Pacific Ave, Stockton, California 95207.

Other panelists include Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva and water treatment expert Robert W. Bowcock from the Integrated Resource Management, Inc. Stockton Vice Mayor Christina Fugazi will present information from the City of Stockton.

The event takes place at a critical time for the Delta, the state’s fisheries and the public trust. The mismanagement of Central Valley reservoirs and the Delta during the record drought by the Brown and Obama administrations has brought Delta smelt, longfin smelt, winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and other fish species closer to extinction.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources systematically emptied Folsom, Oroville, Shasta and Trinity reservoirs to export water to corporate agribusiness interests growing almonds and other water-intensive crops on drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, as well as to oil companies, now conducting fracking and other extreme oil extraction methods in Kern County, and Southern California water agencies. The outdated Delta water plan of the State Water Resources Control Board currently allows half of the Delta flows to be exported for Big Ag, according to RTD.

To sign or share RTD’s petition to update Delta water quality standards, go to https://www.change.org/p/blumenfeld-jared-epa-gov-tell-epa-new-bay-delta-water-quality-standards-urgently-needed

According to Wikipedia, Erin Brockovich-Ellis (born June 22, 1960) is an American legal clerk and environmental activist, who, despite the lack of a formal...

Fishing during the dead of winter can be challenging. Sure there are some good bites available, for example steelhead are hitting in several different rivers and lakes like Shasta and Berryessa are booting out good numbers of bass. Yet overall, fishing is fairly slow at most destinations and fishing pressure is light.

This being the case, I figure this is a good time to toss out a few winter fishing tips that might just help you put a few fish on the stringer if you do decide to hit the water in the coming days and weeks.

Trout When The Water Is Cold And Stained

When it comes to bank fishing for trout, the two most popular baits to employ are either commercially prepared dough or worms. Of course dough baits are naturally buoyant. Worms tend to sink slightly slower than the proverbial rock, so you’ll have to take steps to make your worms float.

Worm floatation can be accomplished by teaming your worm with a marshmallow or injecting your worm with air using a worm blower or hypodermic needle. In most cases I prefer to float my worms with an injection of air because this makes for a more natural looking offering.

Commercial worm blowers are basically plastic bottles that have a needle attached. My only complaint about these worm blowers is that the needle is usually thick. This punches a big hole in the worm allowing a good portion of the air injected into the worm to escape. A hypodermic needle does a better job, but they are difficult to get. Farm supply stores are the best source for hypodermics that I’ve found.

I firmly believe that a worm gives me two distinct advantages over dough baits. First of all, experience has demonstrated that worms provide me with...

Stockton

Most Delta anglers are migrating to the Sacramento River with increased chances for sturgeon and striped bass success. The incoming flows should help in pushing out the dying water hyacinth, and a good flush is just what is required for the health of the San Joaquin River.

Dan Mathisen of Dan’s Delta Outdoors in Oakley said, “In Discovery Bay, the bite is improving as water temperatures stabilize in the 50’s. Slow-rolling spinnerbaits or jigs along the ledges near flats or drop-shotting 6 or 7-inch worms in the clearer water are working for largemouth bass with a few stripers taken on Optima’s Bad Bubba Shad swimbaits.”

“In Frank’s Tract, Bobby D’s spinnerbaits, swim jigs, or Six Sense ripbaits are good options in the warming water. For sturgeon, there have been a few shaker sturgeon with the occasional keeper in the Antioch area around the Antioch Bridge, Broad Slough and New York Slough. A few stripers are taken on frozen shad, anchovies, or sardines in many areas with most bank fishermen working the Antioch Fishing Pier or along Sherman Island Road,” said Mathisen.

Steve Santucci of Santucci’s Fly Fishing Guide Service said, “Fishing was pretty nice when the weather cooperated this week. We found some nice chunky stripers today that were very aggressive as they were chasing the fly to the boat and hitting it on the drop. Fishing is going to be really good as the water temperatures were 52 degrees in the early morning and hit 55 degrees by the end of the day.”

Despite the reductions in pumping from the south Delta, the currents have not increased on the river.

The year 2015 will become infamous as the one when many California fish populations reached record low levels, largely due to poor water management by the state and federal governments.

The Bureau of Reclamation and Department of Water Resources continued to drain Trinity, Shasta, Oroville and Folsom reservoirs to record low levels during a record drought to supply subsidized water to corporate agribusiness interests, Southern California water agencies and oil companies conducting fracking operations.

The good news in an otherwise disturbing outlook is the first El Niño storms that arrived at the end of the year to start recharging reservoirs depleted due to mismanagement by the agencies.

Folsom Lake dropped to a record low level of 14 percent by the end of November and early December and other reservoirs around the state were plagued by record low water conditions.

Winter-run Chinook salmon, a federal and state endangered species, suffered from the second disastrous year in a row, perishing in lethally warm conditions on the upper Sacramento River as almond growers continued to expand their water-intensive almond tree acreage on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

Only 318,000 juvenile winter-run salmon survived to pass Red Bluff in 2015, or just 3 percent of 9,744,000 eggs according to data released by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. Just 5 percent of the salmon survived to pass Red Bluff the previous year. By comparison, 41 percent of 2,0148,000 eggs survived to pass Red Bluff in 2011.

"I think everyone tried to make it work and despite everybody's best efforts it still was too warm," claimed Maria Rea, a deputy regional.

We dream of big wild brown trout lurking in high Sierra lakes, chrome bright king salmon slamming baits outside the Golden Gate and acrobatic steelhead surging up storm swollen coastal rivers.

While California offers anglers chances at some very iconic species of fish in some of the world’s most inspiring backdrops, in a lot of ways it’s planted rainbow trout that drive fishing in northern and central California.

That’s right, planted rainbows…day in day out all year long if you did a tally of all the anglers on the water, you’d find that a large percentage of them if not the majority of them have their sights set on planted ‘bows.

To understand the significance of planted trout, you need look no further than the success of PowerBait. Berkley has sold millions of jars of their colorful dough to anglers that want nothing more than a metal stringer sporting a limit of freshly planted government trout.

The fact of the matter is, that if there aren’t planter rainbows in lakes like Rollins Lake there isn’t much to catch in them save for smallish spotted bass and a few big wary browns. Jason Pleece of Meadow Vista recounted to me in a recent conversation.

He went on to say, Rollins used to be planted several times a year. Now I can’t remember the last time we had a plant. I know that there is a trout shortage at the DFW, but when I look at the trout planting data on the DFW website I get confused. If you look at the plants, most of them are taking place in southern California, why are we being excluded up north?

Pleece’s comments rattled around in my head for a while and ultimately prompted me to seek out someone at the DFW that could...

The story behind the Rancho Seco Recreation areas and the fantastic fishing it features is fascinating.

The Rancho Seco Recreation area features a 120 acre reservoir that boasts rainbow trout, Florida-strain largemouth bass, redear sunfish, bluegill and crappie. Fishing at the family oriented facility, operated by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and the Rocky Mountain Recreation Company, is a year round affair.

The reservoir, supplied by the Folsom South Canal, was built to serve as a source for emergency cooling water in the event of a nuclear accident. After the power plant was decommissioned in a ballot measure approved by the region’s voters November 1990, the lake became a year-round recreational facility.

On February 20, the Norcal Trout Anglers Tournament Tour will pay Rancho Seco a visit.

The event, set in one of the valley anglers’ favorite fisheries, will offer trout anglers of all ages and skill levels a great opportunity to catch some quality fish and win some outstanding prizes.

Two divisions will be available, both kids and adults, with all anglers being allowed to compete from either the shore or from a boat. Great cash and prizes will be paid out at the end of this event.

Pre-event adult division entry fee is just $20, ($25 if paid the day of event), with kids 15 and under receiving FREE entry. Kids signing up the day of the event are $5.

For more information on rules and to sign up, visit www.anglerspress.com or call 916-768-0938.

Clearlake Oaks Largemouth bass action is heating up at Clear Lake as the water rises from recent storms.

“The water level is higher right now than it has been for the past two years,” said Troy Bellah of Clear Lake Outdoors. “The water level is now 4.4 and the lake is 7.5 when full. We got our fingers crossed that the rain will continue, but it will probably get full this season.”

The bass fishing has been solid between the storms. “These storms have come from the west, so they are warmer than normal for this time of year and the water temperature is 2 to 3 degrees warmer than is typical for now,” said Bellah.

Bellah and his partner reported great action during a recent Clear Lake Bassmasters Club Tournament, winning first place with a 20 pound limit topped by a 6.83 lb. largemouth taken on a spoon and a 6.33 pounder caught on a Lucky Craft Pointer Minnow rip bait.

“We fished the middle section and south end of the lake, where the water is clearer,” he noted. “Anglers participating in the event found the best action while fishing ripbaits, jigging with 1 oz. spoons and throwing Alabama rigs.”

Crappie action is also improving. Anglers are hooking a few slabsides while jigging with small spoons and chartreuse colored jigs off Konotyee and Henderson Point.

“Not many folks are catfishing now, but a couple of guys reported good action while fishing cut bait off Shag Rock,” he noted. “Their fish weren’t huge, ranging from 7 to 10 pounds.”

In one of the biggest environmental conflicts of interest in recent California history, a Big Oil lobbyist led a state panel to create so-called marine protected areas in Southern California ocean waters at the very same time that the oil industry was conducting offshore fracking operations in the region.

That's right - Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called marine protected areas in Southern California from 2009 to 2012 as the oil industry was fracking South Coast waters with little federal or state oversight.

However, the rubber stamping of fracking operations by the federal government has at least temporarily stopped. The federal government has agreed to stop approving fracking from oil platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel until it conducts environmental studies to determine whether the controversial practice is safe for marine life and the environment, according to two separate legal settlements filed in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Defense Center on Friday, January 29.

The agreement resolves a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit that challenged the U.S. Department of the Interior’s practice of rubber-stamping fracking off California’s coast without engaging the public or analyzing fracking’s threats to ocean ecosystems, coastal communities and marine life, including sea otters, fish, sea turtles and whales.

This halt to offshore fracking is a huge victory for California’s coastal environment, said Kristen Monsell, a Center attorney. Offshore fracking is a dirty and dangerous practice that has absolutely no place in our ocean. The federal government certainly has no right to give the oil industry free rein to frack offshore at will.

The agreements reached by the two environmental groups apply to operations off Ventura and Santa...

the Fish Passage Evaluation. Their plan focuses on restoring native winter run Chinook salmon to the McCloud River above Shasta Dam. It is critical that the restoration efforts prioritize the introduction of genetically diverse, wild salmon rather than relying solely on hatchery fish.

Furthermore, the McCloud River holds significant cultural and ecological importance. The Winnemem Wintu Tribe has been deeply connected to this river for generations, and their knowledge of the ecosystem should be valued in any restoration plan.

In conclusion, we urge the Bureau of Reclamation to reconsider its current approach and adopt a more holistic, ecologically sound strategy that includes the Winnemem Wintu Tribe's restoration plan. Protecting and restoring native salmon populations is crucial for the health of our ecosystems and the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

Dan Bacher

Editor, Fish Sniffer magazine

The Norcal Trout Angler Tour event at the Rancho Seco Recreation Area on Saturday, February 20 drew 150 anglers to target rainbow trout with a variety of baits and lures.

Rancho Seco is a great venue, with lots of family friendly facilities and excellent shoreline access all around the lake, said Vince Harris, owner of Angler’s Press and event organizer.

Jessie Trejo Jr. won first place in the adult division with a 2.37 lb. rainbow trout. He landed the fish while fishing PowerBait from shore first thing in the morning.

Fishing with me were my son, 14-year-old Jacob Trejo, and my nephew, 17-year-old Wesley Trejo, he said. We each caught a trout while fishing PowerBait.

The second through tenth place winners were: (2) Jason Williamson, 2.04; (3) Maleek Johnson, 1.99; (4) Koua Xiong, 1.93; (5) Jeremiah Ramirez, 1.86; (6) James Lew, 1.79; (7) Shawn Myers, 1.79; (8) Westly Trejo, 1.75; (9) William Martinez, 1.71; and (10) Larry Butler, 1.65.

The eleventh through twentieth place winners were: (11) David Tabuchi, 1.6; (12) Daryl Jackson, 1.58; (13) Eddie Navarette, 1.52; (14) Christina Butler, 1.36; (15) Tom Morgan, 1.33; (16) Mike Combs, 1.29; (17) Joe Hill, 1.28; (18)

five Fish Sniffer supporters all itching to catch a sturgeon aboard Captain Chris Smith’s Captain Hook, I didn’t even plan on picking up a fishing rod during the trip and in retrospect maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t.

It was just past lunch when the rod on the port corner started pumping. No one was close to it, so I slid it out of the holder and prepared to set the hook. As I stood with the rod in my hand feeling the faint, but strengthening tugs of a sturgeon, a gust of wind hit the boat and we started to swing away from the fish.

I wanted to play the bite out and wait until the sturgeon was really working on the lamprey eel before setting the hook, but I knew in a matter of seconds the swing of the boat would pull the bait away from the fish. I waited as long as I thought I could, reared back on the rod and missed the fish. As bad as it is to miss a sturgeon bite, it’s even worse to miss the last good bite of the day during a trip when the fishing has been tough.

And, of course, there was the smack talk from Captain Chris, followed by some long distance ribbing from Hot Sheet author Dave Hurley when he called Chris’s cell phone for a fishing update. We didn’t have a fish in the box, but at least we were having fun!

Thursday, February 18 was one of those days when you drive into the Martinez Marina with mixed feelings. On one hand, we had a great tide with about 6 feet of movement. On the other hand, the sturgeon bite had been getting slower over the past several days, and a...

Los Vaqueros

(Byron) You never know what you might catch when you go trout fishing at Los Vaqueros Reservoir.

Just ask Gayle Greer of San Jose, who landed a 23.9 lb striped bass, according to Brian Demmunik at the Los Vaqueros Marina. He was fishing PowerBait from shore in the south cove when he hooked the fish.

"We're seeing a lot of small stripers from 15 to 17 inches long, along with some 20 to 23 inch keepers," he said. "They’re hitting cut anchovies and shad."

The trout fishing is going strong at Los Vaqueros, though not as hot as during the previous week. "Most people are catching a few fish, but we’re not seeing as many limits as the week before when everybody was limiting out," said Demmunik.

"Anglers are mainly using crawlers, garlic PowerBait and Kastmasters," he noted. "We’re seeing the top action in the South cove and the Peninsula Cove."

Big trout honors go to Alex Xavier of Hayward, who landed a 7.57 lb. rainbow while using a Rapala in Peninsula Cove. Bryer Smith of Santa Cruz bagged a 6.69 lb. rainbow while fishing a Kastmaster in South Cove.

Finally, Martin Villafuerte of San Jose was casting a Roostertail in South Cove when he caught a 7.19 lb. trout.

Mt. Lassen Fish Farm is now planting 1,000 pounds of rainbows every week.

The water level is currently at 82,100 acre-feet, about 50 percent of capacity. The water temperature is 54 degrees. The water clarity is fair with some creek run-off clouding up South Cove and Cowboy Cove.

San Pablo

(Antioch) "The trout bite is on for boaters," said Marcella Shoemaker of the Rocky Mountain Recreation Company. "The best spots are the Rock Wall, Sandy Point and Scow Canyon. I have seen anglers trolling out here.

Berkeley After weeks of inactivity, East Bay charter boats are once again on the water now that the recreational crabbing season has opened south of Point Reyes.

The Happy Hooker piloted by Captain Jim Smith, headed out on the hunt for crabs last Saturday and returned to the Berkeley Marina early with 10 limits of jumbo crabs.

Smith is available for both crabbing trips outside the Golden Gate and sturgeon trips in San Pablo Bay.

In Emeryville, several boats are running out for crabs. Captain Jay aboard the New Huck Finn hammered out 36 limits of jumbo crabs on his most recent trip. The Sea Wolf and New Salmon Queen are also running for crab out of the Emeryville Sportfishing Center.

Private boaters continue to pick up keeper and oversize sturgeon while fishing the extreme south end of the bay. Herring fillets, ghost shrimp and eel have been the best baits.

Shore anglers are finding perch in both the south and central section of the bay. Pile worms work great if you can get them. If not, white prawns are drawing strikes too.

Amador

(Ione) Rainbow trout fishing continues to be pretty good, with plants of 1200 pounds taking place every other week. The plants will ramp up in the spring.

The fish are going down deeper, up to 15 feet with the sunny weather, according to Elise Lockhart at the Lake Amador Café.

Bank anglers are hooking fish while tossing out PowerBait and Kastmasters in gold and silver. Trollers are picking up rainbows while fishing broken back Rapalas and white grubs while trolling the outer edges of the lake.

For example, Shawn Burrell from Elk Grove bagged two beautiful rainbows weighing up to 4.6 pounds while fishing off the dock. Another angler bagged a 3.52 lb. rainbow.

The annual trout derby will run until March 6, 2016 with a one-time $7.00 entry fee.

The bass fishing is picking up for anglers using jigs in the back of the lake in the Mountain Springs, Rock creek and Jackson Creek arm, said Lockhart.

Lake Amador is only 5 feet from full. The launch is now open with two lanes and two docks as the cove is full of water.

Camanche

(Burson) The big news at Lake Camanche was the capture of a monster 15 lb. 12. largemouth bass by James Vella.

I caught the fish on 6 lb. test line while fishing the lake with my dad on February 12, said Vella. The fish measured 28" length and 23.5" in girth.

A massive 3,600 lb. Mt. Lassen trout plant arrived just in time for Presidents Day weekend, boosting fishing success at

(Brannan Island) Excitement is running high in the West Delta. The sturgeon bite has been fair to good, depending on the day and the spring striper run is just getting started.

Captain David Hammond of Delta Pro Fishing has been trolling for stripers in the West Delta. Limits and near limits have been the rule. Hammond is primarily pulling Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnows for his fish.

Bait anglers have been getting in on the striper action too, while fishing the edge of the channel off Decker Island. The best bait has been frozen shad, but sardine fillets are yielding results too.

For sturgeon anglers are fishing from the Power Lines on the Sacramento all the way down to the Moth Ball Fleet in Suisun Bay. One of the best spots has been the area around Roe and Ryer Islands, but there have been good numbers of keeper and oversize fish being caught in Suisun and Montezuma Sloughs.

Eel has been the best bait for sturgeon, but salmon roe is producing some fish too. Grass shrimp has been nearly impossible to get, but ghost shrimp are available at some shops.

"I’ve been targeting sturgeon out of the Pittsburg Marina," related Captain Steve Mitchell of Hook’d Up Sportfishing. "We’ve been dealing with quite a few jumbo shakers and there has been some grass in the system in recent days that isn’t helping the cause too much. The good news is that the water remains stained and the temperature is inching up. Warm stained water this time of the year typically results in epic sturgeon action. I think the bite is going to come on strong soon."

Hundreds of people, including commercial fishermen, charter boat skippers and recreational anglers, packed a large room at the Sonoma County Water Agency offices in Santa Rosa on Wednesday, March 2, to hear the discouraging news from state and federal scientists about the prospects for this year’s ocean and river salmon seasons.

Low ocean abundance forecasts for Sacramento River and Klamath Chinook fall-run Chinook salmon point to restrictions in the recreational, commercial and tribal fisheries this upcoming season, according to data released in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s annual salmon fishery information meeting.

Agency scientists estimate that there are approximately 299,600 adult Sacramento River fall Chinook salmon and 142,200 Klamath River fall Chinooks in the ocean this year, based on the returns of two-year-old salmon, called jacks and jills. The salmon from these two rivers comprise the majority of salmon taken in California’s ocean and inland fisheries.

The forecasts are lower than in recent years and suggest that California fisheries may see salmon seasons in 2016 that have reduced opportunities over last year, said Brett Kormos, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the moderator of the meeting, in a news release issued right after the meeting.

We’re in an unprecedented situation where fishermen face constraints both in the north (Klamath) and the south (Sacramento), said Dr. Michael O’Farrell of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

These forecasts, in addition to disturbing information on endangered Sacramento River winter Chinook salmon, will be used over the next couple of months by federal and state fishery managers to set sport and commercial fishing season dates, commercial quotas and size and bag limits.

A total of 112,434 Sacramento River fall adult salmon and 19,554 jacks returned to spawn in the river in 2015, according to Vanessa Gusman,...

The Karuk Tribe and conservation groups yesterday filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a post-fire logging plan in the Klamath National Forest. The press release was issued just a day after federal and state fishery managers released data showing a low return of fall-run Chinook salmon on the Klamath River system this year and pointing to restrictions on the recreational, Tribal, and commercial fisheries this year. We must do everything we can to restore our imperiled salmon populations, including supporting Klamath River Dam removal and challenging timber management plans that harm fish and their habitat. Below is the news release from the Tribe and environmental groups.

Happy Camp, CA – On March 3, the Karuk Tribe, along with the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild), Center for Biological Diversity, and Klamath Riverkeeper, filed suit in federal court challenging a massive post-fire logging plan in Klamath National Forest that will increase fire danger, degrade water quality, and harm at-risk salmon populations.

The Tribe leads a diverse plaintiff group united by a common interest in restoring healthy relationships between people, fire, forests and fish. The groups seek to protect rural communities from fire risks, restore watershed health, and provide economic opportunities for locals.

The coalition is challenging a post-fire timber sale, the Westside Project, which fails rural river communities by implementing the same management practices that have for decades resulted in a landscape prone to dangerous fire events, degraded water quality, and contributed to declining salmon populations. The suit alleges the Klamath National Forest Plan, as approved by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, illegally increases the risk of extinction for threatened populations of coho salmon.

The Westside project would clear-cut 5,760 acres on burned forest slopes above tributaries of the Klamath River. This aggressive approach...

As Delta smelt and other fish species reach record low population levels and fishermen and fisherwomen brace for salmon restrictions this season, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California authorized the purchase of four islands in the San Francisco Bay-Delta for an undisclosed sum at a closed session of the agency's Board of Directors meeting on the morning of Tuesday, March 8.

The Metropolitan Water District is a regional wholesaler that delivers water. MWD, Southern California’s most powerful water agency, is one of the strongest proponents of Governor Jerry Brown's California Water Fix to build the controversial Delta Tunnels. MWD’s 37-member Board of Directors represents 26 agencies in Southern California.

The deal is highly controversial in Northern California, as it would put Southern California’s most powerful water agency in control of a group of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta islands that can serve as water storage areas or entry points for the proposed $15 billion Delta Tunnels projects, observed Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta.

For months, MWD has been considering the purchase of islands now used for farming. The islands mirror the path of the plan for the Delta Tunnels proposal, said Barrigan-Parrilla.

The four island deal includes Bouldin Island, Webb Tract, Holland Tract, and Bacon Island, covering approximately 20,369 acres of the Delta, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

It is troubling for the Delta region that the Metropolitan Water District is going to acquire such a significant portion of Delta land and Delta water rights, said Barrigan-Parrilla. They have the resources to change law and policies statewide to maximize their access to Delta water in their favor.

By the numbers, trout are the West Coast’s most popular species of gamefish. In addition to their beauty, trout enjoy a broad distribution that few other West Coast gamefish can match. Trout are at home in pristine high country streams, foothill reservoirs, urban ponds and just about everywhere in between.

Undoubtedly, one of the most important factors driving the popularity of trout among anglers is the fact that they are willing strikers that can be caught using a variety of different techniques. I like to call trout equal opportunity gamefish because both bank and boat anglers achieve a high level of success while targeting them with a long list of offerings including spoons, spinners, plugs, flies and a smorgasbord of natural and manmade baits.

Certainly we all love catching trout on lures, but day in day out it's bait that yields the most consistent results. When the going gets tough or even when it’s not, break out the bait and you’ll be well on your way to filling up your stringer with tasty rainbows.

With spring trout fishing breaking loose in lakes and the stream season slated to get underway on April 23, this is a perfect time to ponder the core baits that no Golden State trouter will want to be without.

Lake And Reservoir Baits

Three decades ago, worms, salmon eggs and soft cheese were the kings as far as trout baits were concerned, and then it happened. Floating dough baits arrived on the scene and things haven’t been the same since. PowerBait is the most popular and certainly one of the most effective of these convenient putty-like concoctions.

When PowerBait first came out, my buddy Red and I each picked up a bottle of orange dough. We didn’t give the bait a try for quite...

The Russian River in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties is one of the most legendary fishing streams in California.

For over 100 years, the scenic river that courses its way through both vineyards and redwoods has drawn anglers from the Bay Area, Central Valley and elsewhere in California and the United States to fish for an array of species, including steelhead, Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, striped bass, smallmouth and largemouth bass, bluegill, channel catfish and other catfish, American shad and even white sturgeon.

The river’s abundance of fish, both native and introduced, is celebrated in a number of books, including Meghan Walla-Murphy’s “Fishing on the Russian River,” Russ Chatham’s “Rivers of A Lost Coast,” and Ben Taylor’s “I Know Bill Schaadt.”

The abundance of fish in the Russian in the 1950s and 1960s is illustrated by a photo in Ben Taylor’s book that shows the legendary fly fisherman, Bill Schaadt, and his fellow anglers Homer Wilson and Bob Nauhrim posing with three fish limits of huge steelhead from the Russian River, along with a limit of monster striped bass. All of the fish in this photo were caught on fly rods.

Since the 1950s, catches like those found in the photos and recollections in these books are no longer caught. After the federal government built Coyote Dam, which forms Lake Mendocino, and Warm Springs Dam, which forms Lake Sonoma, hundreds of miles of spawning habitat were lost.

“Okay, cast up into that area of broken water,” instructed Kirk Portocarrero, and I fired my bead and slinky rig upstream.

The water was about 10 feet deep, so it took a second or two for the rig to reach the bottom. Once it did, I could clearly feel the slinking working over rocks and gravel, and then I felt something else: two firm tugs followed by steady pressure. Instinct took over, the spinning rod’s tip shot skyward, and the rod bent as I worked the reel quickly to keep any slack from forming.

At first, the unseen trout did some head shaking before taking off on a long sustained upstream run. This was no pansize rainbow; this was a substantial fish!

Kirk grabbed my video camera and started shooting as minutes slipped by. The fish’s strategy was to stay deep in the fastest moving water it could find. My strategy was to keep the rod loaded and hope that the barbless hook stayed in place.

The river’s cold, oxygen-rich water is like a steroid for the Sac’s wild rainbows, giving them incredible power and stamina. For quite a while, the big rainbow didn’t seem to weaken at all, but ever so slowly, I sensed that the tide was turning my way. The movements of the fish were less crisp, and I was able to break it free of the bottom.

When the trout first appeared beside the big Willie jet boat, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. The rainbow was a full 23 inches long, was at least 6 inches wide along the flanks, and likely weighed just over or under 4 pounds. It had an incredible iridescent red strip that started on the gill plates and extended down the length of the body nearly to the tail....

(Oregon House) Big, bold rainbow trout can be found in abundance, now that the spring trout planting program is in full swing.

"We have been stocking every other week with 1,800 lbs. of fish, including some giant trophy sized ones," said Kathy Hess at the Collins Lake Resort. "Our lake looks incredible; we are at 60% capacity already with more rain coming in the spring. Of course, our hope would be to fill up to maximum capacity, but even if that doesn’t happen we are already at the same level we were last year at this time."

"Jason Whitten was fishing with his Papa and caught his first fish, a rainbow trout while trolling a flasher and a worm near the dam. Little Malia Jahnke from Jackson fished the shoreline and caught three amazing trout," said Hess.

Two local buddies named Gary Skaggs and Tom Pickett of Yuba City trolled in the middle of the lake with Rapalas and took home 6 trout, according to Hess.

"Some bass have already been seen hanging around in shallow water on the east side of our lake, accessible by boat or walking across the dam," noted Hess. "The lake’s surface temperature on this side has been running 52 degrees and add another five degrees if you are fishing on the east side which gets more afternoon sun."

She added, "You don’t need a boat to catch fish at Collins Lake. Our shoreline fishing is ideal and parking is super convenient especially this time of year."

Collins Lake has risen 47 feet since November. The lake level is now only 21 feet from full, coming up from a low of 68 feet from maximum pool.

Clearlake The crappie bite has busted loose on Clear Lake, drawing lots of anglers to target the slabsides from shore and boat around the lake.

A friend and I went out fishing for crappie on Sunday, said Dave Brabec at Clear Lake Outdoors. We caught and released around 100 crappie while using 1/16 oz. jigs on 4 lb. test line. They were all good-sized, around a pound each.

The crappie are showing over the entire lake, said Brabec. They’re hitting best in 5 feet of water. Shore anglers have reported hooking the fish at Clear Lake State Park, Indian Beach, Holiday Harbor and elsewhere on the lake.

We fished from 8 am to 2 pm, said Brabec. We also fished for bass for a bit. We had a lot of fun and were giggling like a couple of kids as we hooked one crappie after another.

The bass fishing is also going strong. It took a five fish limit of 36-1/2 pounds to win a recent ABA tournament at the lake, he said. A friend caught five fish weighing 27 pounds and he didn’t even get a check.

Lucky Craft LV 500s, jigs, ripbaits and swimbaits are producing the better largemouths, he noted.

The water temperature has risen to 54 degrees during midday. The water is starting to get clear, but the forecasted rain should color the water a bit with runoff, he said.

Since everybody is concentrating on the great crappie and bass bites, hardly anybody has been targeting catfish.

Los Vaqueros (Byron) Rainbow trout offer you your best chance of hooking up now at Los Vaqueros Reservoir. Bank fishermen and rental boaters are landing the trout while fishing PowerBait, nightcrawlers and lures in the South Cove, Peninsula Cove and Cowboy Cove.

Trout plants continue, with the latest plant of 1000 pounds of Mt. Lassen rainbows going into the reservoir on Thursday, March 3.

The fish being caught now are averaging 1 to 4 pounds, with an occasional 7 to 8 pounder, according to Matt de la Madrid at Los Vaqueros Marina.

Big fish honors go to Sean Alvey, who landed a 7.11 lb. rainbow while trolling a Rapala from a rental boat in Peninsula Cove. Martin Villasuerte demonstrated his angling prowess by nailing a 6.18 trout while employing a Mouse Tail from the bank in South Cove.

No big striped bass have been caught since Gayle Greer of San Jose landed a 23.9 lb striped bass while fishing PowerBait from shore in the South Cove in February. A lot of undersized fish continue to be caught for every keeper. From shore, cut anchovies and shad are the top baits.

I heard of a couple of largemouth bass landed, but no catfish over the past couple of weeks, said de la Madrid.

The water level is currently at 80,600 acre-feet. The release has stopped due to lower salinity in the delta. The water temperature is at 52-53 degrees and the water clarity remains good.

San Pablo (Antioch) The trout bite remains good for boaters, with the best spots being the Rock Wall, Sandy Point, and Scow Canyon.

I have seen anglers trolling out here with not much luck; bait fishing is the best bet, said Marcella Shoemaker of the Rocky Mountain Recreation Company. Mice Tails, Power Bait and worms are...

In the video from a recent hearing in the California Legislature, it appears that a Brown administration official is admitting that financial support for Governor Brown’s controversial Delta Tunnels Plan is rapidly collapsing.

On March 11, Secretary of Natural Resources John Laird spoke on behalf of the administration during a hearing in San Francisco by the Senate Select Committee on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta entitled "Pending Delta Decisions and their Potential Economic and Other Impacts on San Francisco & the Bay Area."

Laird responded to the news that the Westlands Water District, the largest agricultural water district in California and longtime proponent of the tunnels, used Enron accounting to mislead investors about a $77 million bond sale, resulting in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over civil charges. He described the news as disturbing and then admitted that the California Water Fix to build the Delta Tunnels "won’t move ahead unless people, it pencils out for people and they sign up and they pay."

Westlands agreed to pay $125,000 to settle the charges, making it only the second municipal issuer to pay a financial penalty in an SEC enforcement action. The district’s general manager Thomas Birmingham agreed to pay a penalty of $50,000, and former assistant general manager Louie David Ciapponi agreed to pay a penalty of $20,000 to settle the charges against them.

It is disturbing, said Laird during the hearing. It’s disturbing to us. We found out about it just as you did, from the press reports of the SEC decision.

And, overall, this is, as you say, a beneficiary pays project, where the beneficiaries themselves have to decide to do it, Laird continued. It really depends totally on their ability and their willingness to pay for the project. And I think it is totally clear...

As oil companies were fracking off the Southern California Coast, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called marine protected areas in Southern California from 2009 to 2012.

In one of the biggest environmental conflicts of interest in California history, Reheis-Boyd led a process that created faux marine protected areas that fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil spills, offshore oil drilling, pollution, corporate aquaculture, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering. At the same time that Reheis-Boyd was leading the campaign to expand fracking and offshore drilling in California, state officials and MLPA Initiative advocates praised the process that she oversaw as open, transparent and inclusive when it was anything but.

The marine protected areas created under the leadership of Reheis-Boyd and other corporate operatives not only fail to protect the ocean, but they are based on incomplete and terminally flawed science and violate the traditional gathering and fishing rights of the Yurok Tribe and other North Coast Tribes. The Brown administration completed the network of flawed marine protected areas on December 19, 2012, when the North Coast MPAs went into effect.

The suspicions of Tribal leaders, fishermen and grassroots environmentalists that there was something very fishy about the failure of the oil lobbyist-overseen MLPA Initiative to protect the ocean from oil drilling and pollution were confirmed in the summer of 2013 when an Associated Press and Freedom of Information Act investigation revealed that oil companies had fracked at least 200 wells in state and federal waters off Long Beach, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach and in the wildlife-rich Santa Barbara Channel.

Hey, nobody is happier than I am about the MPA.

The Bechtel Foundation-funded Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a long-time supporter of Governor Jerry Brown's Delta Tunnels Plan, has released a poll concluding that 54% of those surveyed believe the California Water Fix is very important to the future of the state.

According to a PPIC press release, the governor has proposed building tunnels in the Delta to improve the reliability of water supplies. About half of adults (54%) and 45 percent of likely voters say building the tunnels is very important to the future of California. Residents in Los Angeles (61%) and the Inland Empire (61%) are the most likely to say this is very important, followed by the Central Valley (51%), San Francisco Bay Area (49%), and Orange/San Diego (47%).

The question was worded to produce the pre-determined result of support for the tunnels. The question asked how important the governor's proposal to improve the reliability of water supplies by building tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is for the future quality of life and economic vitality of California. The options included very important, somewhat important, not too important, or not at all important.

The results were as follows:

54% said very important

26% said somewhat important

6% said not too important

7% said not at all important

People are likely to respond positively to this misleading question. This question is based on the claim that the tunnels proposed under the California Water Fix will improve the reliability of water supplies when there is no evidence to support this.

Furthermore, there is no mention of the enormous costs of the plan to ratepayers, taxpayers, and the people of California, nor the devastating environmental consequences of the project, as documented by U.S. EPA scientists and various scientific panels.

The question also fails to mention the significant threat the...

Have you heard about the new Shim-Abu-Dia-Lew baitcasters? They’ve got 200 ball bearings and generate 5,000 pounds of drag pressure. Yep fishing reels are hot, but we won’t be talking about them in this article. We also won’t be discussing cool stuff like $400 swimbaits, the latest designer egg cure or full colors sonar units that stream ESPN and mow your lawn while you’re at work.

Nope this week we aren’t going to discuss anything sexy or exciting. Instead we are going to look at terminal tackle and basic skills that lack excitement, but have the ability to make your time on the water more successful and enjoyable. Let’s get started!

I’ll cut right to the meat and speak my mind. Line twist is a real bummer that invariably bites you in the butt at the least opportune time! As a general rule, line twist is more of an issue with spinning gear than it is with traditional baitcasting style gear, but rest assured the line on your baitcaster can become horribly twisted too.

With spinning gear line twist occurs if you snap the reel’s bail shut by rotating the reel handle rather than closing it manually with your fingers. It also occurs anytime you are reeling and line either isn’t coming onto the reel or is paying out of the reel against the drag. This can occur when you are fighting a big fish or when you’ve snagged the bottom. Rest assured, anytime a spinning reel is rotating and line isn’t being retrieved, twist is being introduced into the line.

With baitcasting gear, it’s harder to get twist. You can reel all day long against running fish and no twisting will occur. However a rotating trolling bait or even a rotating fish being cranked out of the depths can...

California’s recreational salmon season will open in ocean waters on Saturday, April 2, 2016, from Horse Mountain (40° 05’ 00” N. latitude) south to the U.S./Mexico border, according to a March 21 news release from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The daily bag limit is two Chinook per day and no more than two daily bag limits may be possessed when on land. On a vessel in ocean waters, no person shall possess or bring ashore more than one daily bag limit.

Between Horse Mountain and Point Arena (38° 57’ 30” N. latitude), the minimum size limit is 20 inches total length. For areas south of Point Arena, the minimum size limit is 24 inches total length. The recreational salmon season north of Horse Mountain remains closed and the season will be determined in April.

For anglers fishing north of Point Conception (34° 27’ 00” N. latitude), no more than two single-point, single-shank barbless hooks shall be used, and no more than one rod shall be used per angler when fishing for salmon or fishing from a boat with salmon on board. In addition, barbless circle hooks are required when fishing with bait by any means other than trolling.

Additional ocean salmon fishing regulations for the 2016 fishing season will be decided by the Pacific Fishery Management Council during its April 9-14 meeting in Vancouver, Washington, and by the Fish and Game Commission at its April 18 teleconference. Final sport regulations will be published in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife 2016-2017 Supplemental Sport Fishing Regulations booklet, which will be posted online in May.

Salmon abundance estimates are lower this year and there is concern that the forecasts may be overly optimistic. Ocean and river salmon anglers can expect less fishing opportunity compared to last year, especially...

Cast your line in SMUD’s annual Trout Derby April 2 and 3

Win cash prizes plus a Lowe aluminum boat, trailer and electric motor, a fishing kayak, fishing equipment and much more during the Rancho Seco Recreational Area Trout Derby set for April 2 and 3, 2016.

The 160-acre freshwater lake is also home to bass, bluegill, red-ear sunfish, crappie and catfish. So pack up the tackle box, load up the rod and reel and head out to SMUD’s Rancho Seco Recreational Area on April 2 and 3. You can win a prize for hooking the heaviest trout, and so can your kids.

Cast your line from the shore or one of six fishing piers. Fish from your small boat (electric motor only) or rent a fishing boat at the lake -- or a kayak, rowboat, or paddleboat. If you want to stay overnight, you’ll find eighteen RV sites with barbecues, fire pits, picnic tables, drinking water and electrical outlets, plus an additional 25 camping sites for those who like to sleep under the stars.

For family members not lured by fishing, the 400-acre park offers much more. You’ll find covered picnic facilities, 36,000 square feet of sandy beach, and excellent bird-watching, since the park is a winter refuge for ducks, geese, hawks, bald eagles, blue heron and migratory birds. Hikers may enjoy the seven-mile Howard Ranch Trail, which begins at the lake and meanders across beautiful grassland habitat and blue oak woodlands dotted with vernal pools and--at this time of year--an abundance of native wildflowers.

And for any non-nature lovers in the group, a Wi-Fi hotspot is available in the recreation room and office area.

The State Water Resources Control Board announced on March 29 that they are suspending the upcoming deadlines for the California Water Fix/Delta Tunnels water rights change petition in response to a request by the state and federal water agencies to extend dates and deadlines for the scheduled hearing, along with a number of other requests either to dismiss or delay the petition.

On March 28, 2016, the Water Board hearing officers for the California Water Fix water right change petition hearing received a letter from the Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation requesting a 60-day continuance of all dates and deadlines associated with the hearing.

On the same day, the hearing officers also received a request from several parties to dismiss the petition. Then on March 29, the State Water Board received additional requests to delay and stay the hearing, pending resolution of several matters, according to a letter from Tam M. Doduc and Felicia Marcus, State Water Board WaterFix Co-Hearing Officers.

In response to the various requests, the upcoming deadlines are suspended. A ruling will be issued in the near future formally addressing the requests and providing additional information about the hearing schedule, said Doduc and Marcus.

The hearing officers said they are cognizant of the inconvenience to the other parties of repeated delays to the hearing schedule.

Accordingly, to inform our consideration, Petitioners are directed to confirm by noon on Friday, April 1, 2016 that they will be prepared to proceed without further delay should the 60-day continuance be granted, the Hearing Officers concluded.

All of these documents have been or will be posted on the State Water Board’s website.

Just hours before the Water Board announced its decision, the Contra Costa Water District announced a withdrawal of their protest petition with the State...

Don't let Governor Jerry Brown and the water contractors pull your wallet out of your pocket and steal your hard-earned money.

Restore the Delta (RTD) yesterday alerted all water ratepayers throughout California to be on guard for water rate and parcel tax increases to fund Governor Brown’s controversial Delta Tunnels proposal under the California Water Fix.

The Delta Tunnels plan is based on the absurd contention that diverting more water from the Sacramento River will somehow restore the fisheries and ecosystem of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The alert was issued as California water is in complete chaos as the financial, scientific and economic justifications for the process are becoming increasingly untenable.

The San Luis Delta-Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA) is holding a joint meeting and workshop with members at the San Clara Valley Water District on April 7, 2016 in San Jose. The agenda includes a reference to CA WaterFix being discussed as a closed session item at the end of the joint meeting, according to a news release from Restore the Delta.

The group asked, Is the closed session discussion an effort to shore up financing for the Delta Tunnels?

The Delta Tunnels proposal does not have a viable financial plan, explained Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta. The water district that will benefit most from the proposal, Westlands Water District, was recently fined by the SEC for using 'a little Enron accounting' in their bond sales for Delta tunnels planning. Westlands, along with other west side San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts that make up the San Luis Delta-Mendota Water Authority, are now working to ensure that urban ratepayers will pick up the majority of the costs, benefitting San Luis Delta-Mendota water users.

On March 9, 2016, the federal Securities and Exchange Commission fined Westlands and its former...

a large coalition of over 150 conservation, fishing, recreational, and tribal organizations on April 5 sent letters to the California State Water Resources Control Board and to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding California’s failure to update Bay-Delta Water Quality Standards.

the letter was sent as Governor Jerry Brown’s California Water Fix plan to build the massive Delta Tunnels is in complete chaos while the economic, scientific and financial justifications for the project become increasingly untenable.

the San Francisco Bay Delta ecosystem is now in an unprecedented crisis as winter-run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, and other fish species draw closer and closer to the abyss of extinction under the current water quality standards.

the letter states, “There is no dispute in the scientific or resource management communities that the current water quality standards are failing to protect fish and wildlife and other beneficial uses of the estuary’s water. The record is strong and clear that insufficient freshwater flows and inadequate water quality are primary drivers of the long-term degradation of ecological conditions for the public trust resources of the Bay-Delta estuary, and this state of affairs is only growing worse. The decline of pelagic organisms that was first detected in the early 2000s has accelerated, with many native fish species at record or near-record low population levels in recent surveys.”

below are the two letters:

April 5, 2016

Felicia Marcus, Chair

State Water Resources Control Board

P.O. Box 2000

Sacramento, CA 95812-2000

RE: ADOPT NEW BAY-DELTA STANDARDS IN NEXT 12-21 MONTHS

dear Chairwoman Marcus:

our organizations are writing to urge the State Water Resources Control Board to complete its update of the 2006 Water Quality Control Plan (WQCP) for the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary and adopt new water quality standards in the next twelve to twenty-one months.

there...

Allen Vue of Sacramento experienced a great day of fishing at Rancho Seco Lake when he hooked two rainbow trout weighing 6.56 and 6.32 pounds while tossing out a Kastmaster from shore on Sunday, April 3.

He brought the first fish, the 6.32 lb. rainbow, to the scales at the SMUD office around 3 pm, putting him in first place in the April 2 -3 derby. Then he caught and brought his second big fish, the 6.56 pounder, to the weigh in about 15 minutes before the 5 pm shut off time.

Both of these fish would have allowed him to capture first place in the annual Sacramento Municipal Utility District event.

“I found a school of big trout swimming around and concentrated on catching those fish,” he said. He landed three other large rainbows also.

For his catch, he earned the Adult Grand Prize: a Lowe 14’ aluminum boat, trailer and electric motor package for the heaviest fish caught.

The second and third place winners in the adult division were Chris Donaldson of Cameron Park, with a 6.22 lb. fish, and Alyssa Delora, with her 5.34 lb. rainbow.

The prizes for adults were $100 for first place; $75 for second place; $60 for third place, $25 plus a 2 day park pass for fourth and fifth places; and $20 plus a 1 day park pass for sixth through seventh places.

Nine-year old Roree MacGregor of Elk Grove won first place in the Kids (10 and younger) Division with a 5.42 lb. rainbow. She also won the Youth and Kids Grand Prize, a fishing kayak.

Nine-year-old Maddie Plearnik placed.

Editor's Note: The day after this article went to press in the print edition of the Fish Sniffer, representatives of the state and federal governments, Klamath Basin Indian Tribes, PacifiCorp and environmental and fishery conservation groups on April 6 signed the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement that this piece discusses.

Representatives from the state, federal, Tribal and county governments, environmental and fishery conservation NGOs and the public convened in a packed meeting room in Sacramento on March 16 to discuss amendments to the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement that proposes the removal of four Klamath River dams.

The amended KHSA, a 133-page document, focuses on removing three dams in California and one in Oregon, through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission dam relicensing process. PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, owns the dams.

The parties had previously tried to pass legislation empowering the KHSA through Congress, along with two other related agreements including the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, but those efforts failed during the past two Congressional Sessions.

The States of Oregon and California, PacifiCorp and the federal government, through the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce, in February announced agreement-in-principle in February to move forward with amending the KHSA.

Under the agreement, the KHSA parties will pursue its implementation through the administrative process governed by the FERC using existing funding and on the same timeline, according to PacifiCorp.

The agreement lays out a new path while achieving the goals of the original agreement and it provides the same protections, said Sara Edmonds, Vice President and General Counsel of PacifiCorp Transmission, at the meeting.

The 4-hour long meeting featured opening comments by state, federal, Tribal and county governments, a point-by-point review of the agreement by the parties and a public comments period.

For Thomas Wilson, a member of the...

Los Vaqueros

(Byron) Spring has arrived at Los Vaqueros Reservoir with solid trout and striped bass fishing.

The water level is currently at 82,000 acre feet. Pumping in water resumed April 1 and will continue to the end of May. The water temperature is at 55 degrees and the water clarity is good.

“We will be holding a Trout Derby during the entire month of April,” said Brian Demmunik at the Los Vaqueros Marina. “There is a $5 fee to participate with tickets available for purchase at the South Kiosk and the Marina. Rules are at the Marina and on the derby ticket. It is a largest trout event with prizes for the three largest fish.”

Kristi Choi of San Jose landed a 6.2-pound trout while using PowerBait in Cox Cove on PowerBait. Another angler bagged a 6.17 lb. rainbow while soaking PowerBait in Cox Cove.

“Fishing for trout continues to be good with all the trout plants and cooler water temperatures,” said Demmunik. “Limits are also coming into the Marina and many have been seen at the fish cleaning station.”

They are being caught in South Cove and Oak Point as well as Peninsula Cove. The baits of choice for shore anglers are garlic scented PowerBaits, nightcrawlers, or Kastmasters. Trollers are employing Rapalas and other lures in the coves.

Shakers continue to dominate the striper catches. “We are still seeing many undersized fish being caught for every keeper. From shore, cut anchovies or shad are the bait of choices,” he said.

Catfish are hit or miss with decent numbers being reported out of Cowboy and South coves following the recent rains. Nightcrawlers and chicken liver are the hottest baits.

San Pablo

(El Sobrante) With the good weather, the water has started to clear and the trout bite is slowly...

Commission moves forward with plan to postpone MPA assessments

On April 13, the California Fish and Game Commission moved forward with a controversial final Marine Protected Area Master Plan that postpones environmental assessments from every 5 years, as originally promised, to every 10 years.

In what the California Sportfishing League described as a stunning admission, the Commission at its meeting in Santa Rosa introduced the possibility that recreational fishing may never return to California’s coastal waters designated as so-called marine reserves under the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act Initiative.

The three current members of the commission - President Eric Sklar, Vice President Jacque Hostler-Carmesin, and Member Anthony C. Williams - voted unanimously to approve the plan at its June meeting, in spite of the objection of California anglers and conservationists.

The Commission failed to acknowledge that the alleged Yosmites of the Sea created under the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative are in reality faux marine protected areas, crafted under the helm of a Big Oil lobbyist, that fail to protect the ocean from pollution, fracking, oil drilling, corporate aquaculture, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering.

The state’s failure to study Marine Protected Areas in a timely fashion is having a profound impact on communities that depend on recreational fishing for outdoor tourism and jobs, said Marko Mlikotin executive director of the California Sportfishing League in a news release. It is evident that Marine Protected Areas that were once viewed as marine restoration projects are becoming permanent fishing bans.

CSL, a nonprofit coalition of fresh and saltwater anglers and small business owners devoted to protecting access to recreational fishing, said that in order to assure California anglers that MPA fishing bans would not become permanent, the state promised that environmental assessments would...

Stockton Largemouth bass are moving into the banks in preparation for spawning, but there are still large females holding in slightly deeper water. The chatterbait bite has been hot for experienced anglers, but fishermen will be transitioning to Senkos as the fish move closer to the banks.

For largemouth bass, Alan Fong of the Fishermen’s Warehouse in Sacramento found great action this past week for largemouth bass with fish to 9.14 pounds. He said, “I landed an 8 and a 9 one day, followed by another 9 the next day with everything on chatterbaits off of the shoreline at depths to 10 feet. I have had one of the best springs ever with 13 bass over 7 pounds with three of these over 10-pounds, all on chatterbaits. The big fish are getting ready to move, but they are off of the shoreline, and once they move in, I will switch over to Senkos. The water is clearing, and I think it is becoming too clear.”

James Netzel of Tight Lines Guide Service has been finding great striped bass action in the normal trolling locations along Eddo’s Marina, the mouth of Three-Mile Slough, the Sounding Board, Prisoner’s Point, and the San Andreas Shoals with shallow-diving P-Line Predator Angry Eye or Yozuri Crystal Minnows in chartreuse or red/head white. “We have been averaging 40 to 50 fish per day with some larger bass at 7 and 11 pounds with most keepers in the 4-pound range. The San Joaquin has been better than the Sacramento due to clearer water,” he stated.

J.D. Richey of Richey’s Sport Fishing was on the San Joaquin during the week, and he said, “The water is clear enough to throw topwater lures and swimbaits, which is my normal program. The water is dirtier in the Mokelumne River, but...

Sacramento Spotted, smallmouth and largemouth bass offer the hottest action at Folsom Lake now as anglers enjoy the spring pre-spawn bite.

On my latest trip, three anglers – an 8-year-old boy, his dad and his dad’s friend – fished with me on Folsom, said Don Paganelli of Paganelli’s Bass Fishing Experience. The 3-year-old hooked the first fish of the day.

They started off in the morning fishing green pumpkin/red flake tubes and Aaron’s Magic Robo Worms in 10 to 20 feet of water in the main body near Granite Bay and Beals Point. We caught 6 small males in the 1-1-1/2 lb. range and lost a few also. The fish were a mixture of spotted and smallmouth bass, he disclosed.

After fishing there, we fished the North Fork, where we found larger bass up to 2-1/2 pounds, said Paganelli. We caught around 10 fish, including smallmouth, spotted and largemouth bass, also on tubes and Robo Worms.

The lake is now holding 684,358 acre-feet of water, 70 percent of capacity. The volume of water in the lake has more than quintupled since early December, when Folsom reached a record low of 14 percent of capacity.

The water level is now 437.69 feet in elevation, 28.31 feet from maximum pool. Both the Brown's Ravine and Granite Bay's ramps are in operation.

Redding The weather is great, the flows are stable and the trout bite on the upper reaches of the lower Sacramento River is pretty much red hot.

"We’ve had a great week," exclaimed Captain Kirk Portocarrero. "I’ve spent a good amount of time guiding turkey hunting clients, but when I’ve been on the river the trout fishing has been incredible. We’ve been seeing a steady stream of rainbows that average 15 and 16 inches coming to the boat and it seems like every day we are seeing rainbows in the 20 to 23 inch class."

"This week was memorable in that we picked up another big brown while working the Sacramento. The fish weighed about 6 pounds. Last season my wife got one over 10. In my more than 25 years of guiding on the river those are the only two browns I’ve seen. In both cases I thought we’d hooked into a salmon, because the fish were so big and powerful," said Portocarrero.

"Right now the fishing is pretty simple. We are getting almost all of our trout while drifting egg imitations on spinning gear. You can catch fish throughout the system, but the biggest fish are definitely holding up high in the river within Redding city limits," added Portocarrero.

Colfax While there have been no reports of anglers catching rainbows at Rollins Lake, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that a plant of rainbow trout took place at the lake on March 20.

This comes as great news to anglers that regularly fish the lake, since it has not been stocked in several months due to a shortage of hatchery trout.

I'm pretty excited about the prospect of catching some rainbows, disclosed Jason Pleece. I hit Rollins this week with my kayak, but I didn't even try for trout. Instead I focused on bass fishing and ended up landing 4 spots to about 2 pounds. The bass fishing wasn't great, but seems to be getting better now that the water is clearing. All of my fish came on purple or brown 4 inch worms presented on a drop shot rig.

The next time I head up to Rollins I'm going to take my daughter and we are going to soak some dough bait for trout off the bank, Pleece said.

I was thinking about hitting Scotts Flat, but my dad has been there twice in 10 days. Both times he trolled for trout and both times he got skunked. As a result I'm going to wait a couple weeks and then head up there and see if I can run into some big smallmouth bass as they get ready for the spawn, Pleece concluded.

An angler that has a basic grasp of trolling tactics both with and without downriggers will catch plenty of trout and salmon throughout the course of the season, yet there are advanced tactics and tricks that can help elevate your success rate to a whole new level, sometimes.

Many new trollers don’t realize that more than one line can be trolled off a downrigger using a method known as stacking. This means stacking multiple lines on a single downrigger cable. On the other hand, some veteran trollers are aware of the stacking approach but don’t incorporate it into their repertoire because they view it as complicated and fear tangled lines. With a little practice, stacking can be a simple and efficient way to hook more trout.

There are a couple different approaches to stacking lines. One way is to use wire clips, known as stackers. These clips are teamed with releases and connected to the downrigger cable at various points as it is lowered into the water. Most anglers fish no more than two fishing lines off a single cable, but if you have multiple people on your boat, it is possible to use three or more stackers on each downrigger, trolling a line off each of them.

As a general rule, the stackers should be placed no closer than 10 feet apart and the lines trolled off them should be no more than 25 feet long. Obviously, stacking is most useful when the fish are holding in deep water. In the extreme, you could cover a 60-foot span of the water column by spreading out a total of six lines using two downriggers.

Now while you might think that fishing six lines is sure to result in tangles when a fish strikes, that is usually not the case. You...

This weekend is a fun-filled fishing derby the whole family can do together. 100% of the proceeds will benefit the Yuba Sutter Young Life to help impact the lives of teenagers in our community. There will be a free BBQ lunch and lots of great prizes. Collins Lake will be planted with 4,000 lbs of trout this week for the event. Sign up early to save $5 off the entry fees. Entry forms can be downloaded from the Collins Lake homepage.

From the West Delta all of the way up past Colusa, the spring striped bass run is in full swing on the Sacramento River.

Bank anglers and boaters are both hooking plenty of fish, ranging from shakers to big females pushing 40 pounds.

As is always the case with the weather fronts of spring, the fishing has varied a lot on a daily basis. However, the overall fishing has been excellent, with anglers hooking lots of keepers in the 18 to 24 inch range, along with plenty of shakers.

“It’s been great season so far,” said Rob Reimers of Rustic Rob’s Guide Service when I fished with him on Saturday, April 16. “It’s definitely been our best season on the Sacramento and Feather since the drought.”

When the Sacramento River was still high and muddy, Reimers found success on the Feather River while bait fishing with pileworms. When the water started to clear up on the Feather, he started to catch more fish while drifting minnows.

Most of the fish taken on the Feather this season have been schoolie males to 7 pounds or undersize stripers, but there are some bigger fish out there. One woman recently caught a 39.5 lb. striped bass while fishing a jumbo minnow on the Feather River.

When the Department of Water Resources dropped flows on the Feather River below Oroville Dam, Reimers and other guides and anglers went over to the Sacramento as the water cleared.

The parking lot was very crowded at the Tisdale Boat ramp when I met Reimers at 5:45 am. The parking spots were filling up rapidly with boats and trailers as one boater after another launched their boats. After I packed my gear in the boat, we headed downriver.

“We had a great day for big fish on Wednesday,...

Lush green hills, a brim full lake, lots of big trout, tons of family fun, great camaraderie and a huge crowd were just a few of the highlights when the Norcal Trout Anglers Challenge tournament tour visited Collins Lake on April 9.

By California standards, Collins Lake isn’t large, featuring 1,600 surface acres and 12.5 miles of shoreline, yet despite its modest size, the lake is widely known as one of the north state’s premier trout fishing destinations.

Heavily stocked, thousands of rainbow trout are released into Collins Lake annually. A good percentage of these trout are in the 1.5 to 3 pound class, but there are also a great many trophy size fish that range from 4 to 8 pounds.

Indeed, trout flow into Collins Lake from all directions. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife stocks the lake with catchables. For each plant the lake receives from the DFW, the Collins Lake Recreation Area funds an average of three plants consisting of higher quality trout from private hatcheries. And then there are the “pen fish.”

The recreation area in partnership with volunteers, non-profit organizations, and the DFW operates a trophy trout pen-rearing project. As a result of the high volume of high quality feed the pen trout receive, many of them grow from catchable 10 inchers to quality square tail battlers that weigh 3 to 4 pounds in less than a year.

Hooking into one of these pen fish is more like hooking into a wild steelhead than your typically round tail, pan size truck trout. This is because the fish are completely acclimated to the lake prior to being released. While they enjoy a diet of commercially produced trout food, they also get to sample the natural forage in the lake. Once free of the pens, these...

How would you like to find out that a new fee was added to your groundwater bill to support Governor Jerry Brown’s legacy project, the salmon-killing Delta Tunnels, without your consent?

Well, that’s exactly what happened when ratepayers attended a public hearing of Santa Clara County Water Commission’s Board of Directors in Gilroy on April 14 to find out that their hard-earned money would go to support the California WaterFix, the state and federal government’s name for the Delta Tunnels, according to a news release from Restore the Delta.

The Commission held the hearing regarding their Annual Report on the Protection and Augmentation of Water Supplies - February 2016 and Recommended Groundwater Production and Other Water Charges for Fiscal Year 2016-2017 (FY 2016-17).

Several users of small private residential water systems at the Gilroy hearing complained bitterly about the cost of the current groundwater charges on top of the cost of pumping and maintenance of their wells, Restore the Delta noted.

They were unanimous in stating that they could not afford the proposed increase for FY 2017. The groundwater charges are also paid by the cities and passed on to customers, RTD stated.

Well owners and residential customers will now be paying to support the Delta Tunnels through their water bills. No wonder people are upset, explained Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta. This rate increase will happen, without a vote, for a project without permits, for water they will never receive.

Deirdre Des Jardins of California Water Research discovered the WaterFix charges when evaluating District documents, according to RTD. She found a significant discrepancy in the proposed WaterFix charges disclosed for Prop 218, and those presented to the Board and the County Water Commission.

For the Board, the staff estimated the WaterFix could result in a maximum...

Yuba City The Feather River continues to produce great numbers of striped bass for anglers fishing an array of offerings.

Kevin, Steven, Jeff and Sean put the hammer down on some stripers on my latest trip on the Feather River, said Manuel Saldana Jr. of MSJ Guide Service. Everyone had a blast hooking fish and yelling out. We caught limits ranging from keepers to 7 pounds.

Saldana has been using jumbo minnows, swimbaits and cut baits on the river from Yuba City to Verona. So far, the biggest fish we have caught on the Feather this season was a 12 lb. 30 inch male, he tipped.

Striper fishing is great on the Feather from Yuba City to Verona, said Bob Boucke at Johnson’s Bait and Tackle. The biggest fish we’ve weighed in the shop lately was a 39-1/2 pounder caught by a woman using a jumbo minnow. Minnows are producing the best action, but pileworms and other baits also work.

Shore fishing is very good everywhere on the Feather. Most people are getting their limits of stripers in the 20 to 28 inch range, he said. Some people are hooking 30 to 70 fish per day, but a lot of them are shakers.

Salmon and steelhead will once again ascend the upper Klamath River and its tributaries, as they did for many thousands of years before dams were built, if an agreement reached on April 6 is implemented.

At the mouth of the Klamath River at Requa in Northwest California, representatives of the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce, the States of Oregon and California, the Yurok Tribe, the Karuk Tribe and PacifiCorp signed an agreement clearing the path for dam removal on the river.

The Amendment to the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, if approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, will initiate the removal of four dams on the Klamath River. It will be one of the largest river restoration projects in the history of the U.S.

Under the agreement, dam owner PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, will transfer its license to operate the Klamath River dams to a private company. This company, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, will oversee the dam removal in 2020.

PacifiCorp will continue to operate the four dams, including Iron Gate, Copco 1 and Copco 2 in California north of Yreka and J.C. Boyle in Oregon, until they are decommissioned.

Today is a historic day where the parties who have worked for decades to restore the Klamath Basin are reaffirming their commitment to each other for the shared vision of fisheries restoration and irrigated agriculture co-existing as we move into the future. This agreement is an important initial step as we work toward a comprehensive set of actions to advance long term restoration and sustainability for tribes, fisheries, and agriculture and water users across the Klamath Basin.

Yurok Tribe Chairman Thomas O’Rourke, NOAA Administrator Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, Oregon Governor Kate Brown, California Governor Jerry Brown, PacifiCorp President and CEO Stefan Bird, Congressman Jared...

Oroville boater are hammering spotted bass at Lake Oroville, along with catching an occasional largemouth.

One customer reported catching and releasing 30 bass on his latest trip to the reservoir, reported Bob Boucke of Johnson’s Bait and Tackle. They fished Texas-rigged green pumpkin plastic worms and jigs in 10 to 20 feet of water.

The smaller king salmon in the 10 to 12 inch range continue to dominate the catches at the lake. Anglers are hooking maybe one larger fish in the 3 to 4 pound range for every little salmon they hook, said Boucke.

Trollers are working the top 15 feet first thing in the morning and then are dropping down into deeper water, said Boucke. Trollers are using hoochies, tipped with anchovy strips, behind Sling Blades and other dodgers.

The reservoir is currently holding 3,208,422 acre-feet of water, 91 percent of capacity and 116 percent of average. The lake level is 878.44 feet in elevation, 21.56 feet from maximum pool.

I was eager to get out this weekend thinking Saturday was going to be cloudy and overcast. Well, we got handed some windy, high and white puffy clouded post frontal conditions, so I didn't really have the intention on fishing until Tuesday when the winds died down and the weather stabilized.

It was my dad that actually said we should go out on Sunday evening, so off we went around 4:30, with the plan to target stripers for the first hour or so and then focus on bass in some of our older haunts.

Run and gun a lot of my favorite areas with the bigger push of the incoming tide for about 45 minutes in white capping windswept waters for nothing. Check one final area on the way to the bass grounds and I connected with a low teener sized fish on an 8 inch savage gear glider in RBT color. Fish popped off as soon as it took it down. We had a few more followers in that area, but nothing really committing to eating the glide baits.

With that, and the growing wind, we took off to harass some bass throwing big topwater and gliders, hoping to maybe find a pre-spawner or maybe some post spawn fish in the shallows.

With some stronger winds blowing in some thicker grey and black cloud cover from the coastal range, we rolled up on an area we've done well on for bass in the past right as the sun started getting sucked into the clouds. Coasted in with the strong incoming tide without the trolling motor on and started looking at my graph. I've fished this spot many times over for bass, but never really have considered just how conductive it is for stripers as well. It features 11 foot...

The California Fish and Game Commission adopted recreational ocean and inland salmon season regulations as presented by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on April 18, according to a CDFW news release issued on April 26.

The adoption took place during the same meeting in Santa Rosa where the Commission voted to move forward with a plan to postpone scientific assessments of marine protected areas created under the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act Initiative from every five years to every ten years.

Ocean salmon season dates and management measures are set to coincide with the alternatives adopted by the Pacific Fishery Management Council for federal waters off the California coast. Inland river seasons adopted by the Commission are identical to the 2015 seasons with the exception of a reduction in the allowable harvest of Klamath Basin Chinook salmon.

Reduced fishing opportunity in the ocean and inland areas are a reflection of lower abundance for some California salmon stocks as compared to recent years, likely as a result of extended drought and generally unfavorable ocean conditions for salmon survival, said Jennifer Simon, an environmental scientist with CDFW’s Marine Region Salmon Team. The 2016 seasons are intended to allow limited fishing opportunity on stocks that can support them while providing increased protection for the most vulnerable of stocks.

While extended drought and generally unfavorable ocean conditions definitely play a role in the lower salmon stock abundance, Simon failed to mention the abysmal management of Central Valley reservoirs and Delta pumping facilities during the drought by the Bureau of Reclamation and Department of Water Resources that resulted in the death of over 95 percent of the winter run Chinook and fall run Chinook salmon fry before making it downriver over the past couple of years.

Simon said an expected ocean abundance of...

the pavement.

Once safely off the freeway, I stepped out to assess the damage. The left wheel was completely missing, and the axle was bent. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the truck was miraculously unscathed. I called for roadside assistance and waited, feeling a mix of disbelief and frustration.

As I stood there, I reflected on what had gone wrong. I had always kept up with maintenance, but I realized I had overlooked the importance of inspecting the wheel itself. Tire failure can happen for a variety of reasons—poor alignment, lack of air, or even road hazards.

After the service truck arrived, the mechanic confirmed what I suspected: the wheel had simply worn out over time, and despite my efforts, it needed more attention than I had given it. Thankfully, we were able to get the trailer back on the road, and I learned an important lesson: no matter how experienced you think you are, it’s crucial to remain vigilant and thorough in your inspections.

Now, I make it a point to check the tires closely before every trip, ensuring that everything is secure and in working order. Towing can be a lot of fun, but it comes with its dangers. By being proactive and attentive, I aim to reduce those risks and enjoy the journey ahead.

Shore anglers and boaters braved sunny but windy conditions during the NorCal Trout Angler’s Challenge event at Lake Camanche on Saturday, April 22 to hook some huge rainbow trout.

Camanche, the popular East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) reservoir located on the Mokelumne River east of Lodi, is known for its fine shore fishing for trout – and it sure didn’t disappoint anglers during the event. Shore anglers swept first and second place in the event, hosted by Angler’s Press and the Fish Sniffer magazine.

“PowerBait never fails,” said Jim Cross of Milpitas, who won first place in adult division of the event with a 6.58 lb. rainbow. “I was shore fishing with rainbow Power Bait from the north shore bank about 15 feet out when I hooked the fish.”

Cross not only won first place in the Camanche event on Saturday, but he also took first place in the adult division of the NTAC event at San Pablo Reservoir in El Sobrante in February 2016 by catching a hard-fighting rainbow weighing 4.38 pounds. He hooked that fish also while fishing chartreuse PowerBait from shore.

At Camanche, Cross was fishing with Bruce Alger, also of Milpitas, who landed a 1.81 lb. trout while fishing Power Bait.

Grace Sugimoto placed second with a 6.58 lb. rainbow trout. Like Cross, she was fishing from shore with Power Bait.

Pat Vigil of Hayward finished third with his 3.76-pound rainbow. He tossed out Biohazard floating bait, laced with Pro-Cure leech scent, off his boat at 30 feet deep by the dam.

Collins Lake is one of Norcal’s best-known trout fishing destinations, but the lake also has a robust bass population that goes overlooked by many anglers.

In the past I’ve spent a good deal of time targeting bass at Collins Lake and I’ve generally found solid fishing. I’ve caught smallmouth bass in the lake’s river arm, but overall I’d describe Collins as a spotted bass lake with a strong contingent of Florida strain largemouths.

The lake record for smallmouth bass stands at just over 3 pounds, while spots over 8 pounds and largemouth over 15 pounds have been landed. While there are indeed some monster spots and largemouths in the lake, it’s the number of fish available and the intimate nature of the fishery that I enjoy.

Collins isn’t a tournament lake like Folsom or Berryessa and as a result it doesn’t get a ton of pressure. When I’m probing the coves in the river arm or checking out the structure and cover along the east shore, I’m seldom approached or bothered by other bass anglers.

These days some of the bass at Collins have spawned, some are on beds and yet others are in a post spawn mode. For me soft plastics like 4 or 6 inch Robo Worms or 4 inch Senkos and small rip baits are the top two offerings during the spring. Often times I’ll work a shoreline with rip baits and then hit the same stretch again dead sticking a Senko. This way I pick off both active and inactive fish.

I’ve experienced great topwater fishing at Collins during the months of May and June. Walking baits work fine, but I’ve had my best success working Rebel Pop Rs along the eastern shore and in the river arm.

If you’ve got your sights set on hooking...

(Stockton) The wind blew with a vengeance during the final weeks of April, but there have been brief windows with minimal wind in order to find quality striped and largemouth bass in the San Joaquin River.

The majority of stripers in the East Delta have spawned, but there are indications that there are still fresh fish moving into the system. Clyde Wands, shallow trolling expert, was out trolling on two occasions during the past week, and Thursday’s trip was much slower than his previous venture with a pair of stripers shallow on the San Joaquin along with a few more on the deep troll outside of Decker Island on the Sacramento River.

He said, “It was slower for us today, but one boat had 8 fish released and Mark Wilson also landed 6 fish. Our largest striper was 5.5 pounds, and we only kept two, and they were spawned out.”

On Thursday’s trip, they went as far as Prisoner’s Point on the San Joaquin along with outside of Decker Island for 25 stripers to 16 pounds caught and released. He said, “Everything was deep on Tuesday with P-Line Predator Minnows or Yozuri Crystal Minnows, and nearly all of the fish were spawned out.”

Randy Pringle, the Fishing Instructor, said, “The largemouth bite is to die for right now as we have landed bass from 7 to 11 pounds in the past week. We caught and released 55 fish to 5 pounds on Thursday by staying out of the wind along levees with cover. This week has been interesting with the water temperatures dropping from the 65 to 67 degrees to 63.5 degrees.”

“The topwater bite has slowed down as a result, and our best action has been flipping or worming with the Havoc Flat Dog or Power Worms in earth...

expert in fish and wildlife policy and has been primarily focused on water-related issues.

The California Fish and Game Commission's recent decisions and appointments continue to reflect the challenges and controversies surrounding fish and wildlife management in the state. With the appointment of Russell Burns and Peter Silva, questions remain about the Commission's commitment to conservation and the importance of adhering to promises made to stakeholders, especially anglers. As the Commission moves forward, many will be watching closely to see how these appointments influence the future of fish and wildlife policy in California.

Los Vaqueros

(Byron). The water level at Los Vaqueros is currently at 90,500 acre-feet – 58 percent of capacity -- and is rising. The water temperature is at 63-64 degrees.

The water clarity is good. A fair number of trout and stripers continue to be caught both from shore and from boats.

The month-long trout derby concluded on Saturday, April 30. Here are the leaders at press time:

• 12.19 lbs Pat Parra of Campbell, South Cove with a Kastmaster

• 10.61 lbs Dave Togmi of San Jose, South Cove on a crappie jig

• 9.55 lbs Viet Phan of San Jose, Cowboy Cove with PowerBait

“There was a 1000 lb Mt. Lassen plant on April 25 and there will be a plant next week,” said Brian Demmunik of the Los Vaqueros Marina.

“Fishing for trout continues to be good with all the trout plants. The fish are being caught in South Cove, Oak Point and Peninsula Cove. The baits of choice for shore anglers are garlic-scented PowerBaits, nightcrawlers or Kastmasters,” he said.

“Shakers continue to be the main action with striped bass. We are still seeing many undersized fish being caught for every keeper. From shore, cut anchovies or shad is the bait of choice,” he added.

San Pablo

(El Sobrante) It’s been a spring festival of big, bold rainbow trout at San Pablo Reservoir.

“This week it looks like Scow Canyon, The Main Rec. Area, Oak Point, and the Pines are where people are catching fish,” said Marcellla Shoemaker at the Rocky Mountain Recreation Company. “PowerBait in chartreuse, Spring Green, Garlic, Lime Twist colors is your best bet.”

Crappie have also started to bite at the Main Rec. Area; use Mini-Jigs and other small jigs to entice them.

Drought bills sponsored by Congressman John Garamendi and Senator Dianne Feinstein pose a dire threat to imperiled salmon, steelhead and other fish of the San Francisco-Bay Delta, according to the latest action alert from Restore the Delta.

Since the beginning of the year, Restore the Delta has written about the problems with Senator Feinstein's water bill which will increase pumping out of the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary, for greater water exports to big industrial agricultural growers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

While the Senator touts that her legislation will not weaken species protection, broad consensus from large environmental groups to fishing groups, from Delta water agencies to grassroots campaigns, like Restore the Delta, all who have read the bill, is that additional pumping will place Delta fisheries in peril.

In February, after hearing that Congressman John Garamendi was supporting the legislation, Restore the Delta and a number of our colleagues reached out to Congressman Garamendi to express our concerns. Since then, we haven't heard a word back from him.

Yesterday, Garamendi introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives that is identical to his previous proposal. His bill is HR 5247.

“This legislation will accomplish three vital tasks,” claimed Garamendi. “First, it will use the latest available science and real-time monitoring of endangered fish to assure their protection while maximizing water deliveries. The operational directives within the bill remain consistent with the Endangered Species Act and existing biological opinions. Second, it will provide short-term relief to the communities hit hardest by California’s ongoing drought. And third, it will fully fund the long-term infrastructure we need to maximize our efficiency and become more resilient to California’s drier climate.”

Restore the Delta disagreed that the legislation will accomplish these three vital tasks. "We are deeply disappointed.”

The 13th Annual Kokanee Power Shasta Trout & Salmon derby was held the weekend of April 30 and May 1, 2016. I headed up Thursday afternoon with the Fish Sniffer 21’ Rogue Jet Coastal in tow. As I passed Bridge Bay north of Redding, I was greeted by a gorgeous sight – a brim full Lake Shasta shimmering in the sun.

I arrived at Tsasdi Resort in Lakehead and met Dave Barsi and Steve Fistler at our large cabin. Soon Bruce Wicks and Al Fiske of Foresthill and Rob Bundy of Auburn and Matt Behrens of Santa Clarita arrived after fishing for a few hours. They all reported the same results – lots of water and few fish. We had a wonderful barbeque in the big 3-bedroom cabin and looked forward to fishing for 3 more days.

Friday dawned clear and cool, and we all went our separate ways on the big lake to see if we could discover a pattern to the trout. I picked up my partner, John Brassfield, after his annual houseboat trip with his family and friends. He reported the same thing – the trout were all spread out and not easy to catch.

The water temperature was in the low sixties, but we were marking very few fish on the Lowrance HDS 9, and the few trout we caught were all very close to the surface. We ran all over the lake, putting the new Evinrude Fish Sniffer Staff 200 hp outboard to good use. We trolled at about 2.5 mph with the Evinrude 15 hp kicker motor, using a large variety of spoons and plugs to see what would work.

Back at the cabin at Tsasdi Resort, we all compared notes. Our group had fished all over the big lake, from the upper Sacramento...

On May 24, the Hoopa Valley Tribe from Northern California filed its objection to two bills proposed in the House of Representatives to implement the controversial San Luis Settlement Agreement, saying the agreement would “forever condemn the Tribe to poverty.”

The Tribe filed its complaint prior to a hearing on the two bills, H.R. 4366 (Rep. David Valadao) and H.R. 5217 (Rep. Jim Costa, D-CA), held by the U.S. House of Representative Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans.

“Our Tribe is an indispensable party to this settlement,” said Chairman Ryan Jackson, in a press release. “We notified Congress and the Bush and Obama Administrations on numerous occasions over the past several years of our concerns. Though we have been mostly ignored, rest assured, this legislation will not advance in absence of protection of our interests.”

The invited witnesses were John Bezdek, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior; Tom Birmingham, General Manager, Westlands Water District; Jerry Brown, General Manager, Contra Costa Water District; Steve Ellis, Vice-President, Taxpayers for Common Sense; and Dennis Falaschi, General Manager, Panoche Water District.

Notably, the Committee did not invite those most directly impacted by the deal. These include the leaders of the Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Karuk, Winnemem Wintu and other Tribes, commercial and recreational fishermen, family farmers and others whose livelihoods have been imperiled by decades of exports of Trinity, Sacramento and San Joaquin River water to corporate agribusiness interests irrigating drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

Jackson said the Settlement Agreement contains Central Valley Project (CVP) water supply assurances for 895,000 acre feet of water for the Westlands Water District that originate from the Trinity River, a watershed that the Tribe “has depended for its fishery, economy and culture since time immemorial.”

If you’re someone that loves to throw top water frogs on the California Delta in the heat of fierce competition and want to use any brand of top water frog you choose, then you certainly don’t want to miss out on an event that has captured the imagination of all top water frog aficionados throughout the west.

That’s right, the Ultimate Frog Challenge 2016, presented by Gone Fishin Marine, is coming back to the California Delta on July 30th and 31st at Russo’s Marina, and will be even more exciting than last year’s event, as more frog brands will jump into the fray and anglers will get to compete with any brand of top water frog they choose.

Imagine hundreds of teams battling it out in an exciting frog shootout that pits every brand of top water frog on the market against each other to see which frog the California Delta’s monster bass really prefer.

Optimum’s Furbit frog against River2Sea’s Bully Wa frog, or Strike King’s KVD Sexy Frog against Live Target’s Hollow Body, or SPRO’s BronzeEye frog against Snag Proof’s ever-popular Bobby’s Perfect Frog, and that’s just a few of the frog face-offs that will take place in this exciting top water frog event.

A big pre-event expo, huge raffle, a BBQ, tons of cash, prizes, and most of all fun is what you can expect at this event, so don’t delay, go to www.anglerspress.com to sign up and get ready to rumble at the 2016 Ultimate Frog Challenge!

A bill to force a public vote on Governor Jerry Brown’s controversial plan to divert water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta through two massive underground tunnels stalled in committee on Friday, May 27.

AB 1713, sponsored by Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, made it all the way to the Appropriations Committee, just one step from a vote on the Assembly floor.

A statement from Eggman’s office said the progress the bill made was unprecedented. Similar bills introduced in the past have failed to advance from even a single committee.

Eggman said that the bill was able to go so far shows how much the currents have shifted against this disastrous, bloated multibillion dollar project. And its failure in this committee shows how much those who back the Twin Tunnels fear an open, democratic process. The more people know about this project, the more they oppose it, and every day that they kept this going was another blow against the tunnels.

Eggman’s bill required approval via ballot initiative for any infrastructure project that conveys water directly from a diversion point in the Sacramento River to pumping facilities of the State Water Project or the federal Central Valley Project south of the Delta.

Eggman said her fight against the Twin Tunnels, proposed under the California Water Fix, continues on another front. She and State Senator Lois Wolk recently announced their intention to request an audit of the project by the California State Auditor, following the revelation that the Inspector General of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior had opened an investigation into aspects of the funding of the Twin Tunnels.

The bill received wide support from fishing groups, environmental organizations and county governments in the Delta region. Supporters include the CA Save Our Streams Council, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Water...

I felt a fish grab the plastic grub I had just thrown near the shoreline rocks in the early morning shadows at Jackson Meadows Reservoir. I set the hook and felt the surge of a good-sized fish as it struggled to free itself of the hook.

After it made a couple of runs towards the bottom, I slowly worked the fish toward the boat. I saw the brown and reddish colors of a trout, thinking it was a colorful male rainbow.

However, once Brett Brady of Bare Bones Guide Service got it in the net, I realized it was a Lahontan cutthroat similar to those I had fished for in Pyramid Lake back in October. It measured 22 inches long.

"That's on the lower end of the size of the cutthroats we've caught lately," he said. "These fish go up to 5 pounds."

It was one of two cutthroats we hooked the lake that day; the other fish I lost right at the boat.

Located on the Middle Fork of the Yuba River in Nevada County at 6040 feet above sea level, Jackson Meadows is known for its robust and abundant rainbow trout and its wary browns, but it also features bonus Lahontan cutthroat, as I discovered that day.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) now plants both catchable and fingerling rainbows and fingerlings in this forage-rich reservoir located in a former mountain meadow.

In 2014, the CDFW stocked 50,000 rainbow trout fingerlings, 20,000 catchable rainbows (about 10,000 pounds), and 22,700 fingerling browns, according to Kyle Murphy, CDFW environmental scientist.

In 2015, the Department stocked 31,000 rainbow trout fingerlings, 8600 catchable rainbows (about 2500 pounds) and 22,000 brown trout fingerlings.

"At least over the past 15 years, we don’t"

It’s been a good thirty years since I took a dedicated American Shad fishing trip from a boat. Year after year, “We should go shad fishing…” never seems to pan out. However, this year I finally dropped the hammer and set up a shad fishing trip with my dad.

On May 22nd, I launched at dawn on the Sacramento River with my dad and two kids. We motored upstream to a bend in the river known locally as ‘The Minnow Hole’. I have a lot of family history at this location, as my dad grew up in nearby Land Park and fished there often.

My Grandpa used to make and sell shad darts at The Minnow Hole after he retired back in the ‘60s. Located in Sacramento, it’s several miles upstream of Garcia Bend off of 43rd Avenue. It’s a popular spot for both shad and salmon anglers because of its easy bank access.

I anchored in about eighteen feet of water a few hundred yards downstream from the bank fishing area. The fact that nobody was lined up casting for shad had me kind of worried. Classic fishing quotes like, “They went through last week” and “It’s a late run” started churning through my head.

Before hitting the water, I did some research and learned some new techniques I wanted to try out. Back in the day, we would just cast and retrieve small lures called ‘shad darts’ three feet behind a half-ounce barrel sinker. I learned that nowadays, many folks vertically lower rock-fishing style rigs into the current and wait for schools of shad to pass by.

During our trip, we employed dropper loop surf leaders similar to what would normally be used for catfishing or ocean bottom fishing. There is a sinker clipped to the very end...

Following the submission of documents on May 31 by the state and federal governments regarding the Delta Tunnels plan, environmental and fishing groups, along with San Joaquin County, requested that the State Water Resources Control Board allow more time for them to file objections.

Three separate request letters were filed: one by AquAlliance, California Sportfishing Alliance, and other groups; a second by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and the Institute for Fishery Resources; and a third by San Joaquin County and Mokelumne River WPA.

The Department of Water Resources and Bureau of Reclamation submitted their testimony and evidence as required for upcoming public Water Board hearings regarding their request to add three new points of diversion on the Sacramento River for the California WaterFix. This plan involves building two tunnels under the Delta to export water to agribusiness interests in the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California water agencies.

AquaAlliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Environmental Water Caucus, Friends of the River, Planning and Conservation League, Restore the Delta, and Sierra Club California requested a 27-day extension for all parties involved in the Hearing on the California Waterfix Change Petition to file and serve any written procedural or evidentiary objections concerning the petitioners’ case.

If granted, this request would extend the deadline for written objections from 12:00 noon on June 15, 2016, to 12:00 noon on July 12, 2016.

The groups argued that since the State Water Board notified the petition on October 30, 2015, there have been changes in the documents, including modeling that petitioners claimed to rely on, and they have been granted continuances totaling 90 days before the Hearing. The Hearing is scheduled to commence on July 26, 2016. Granting the extension would provide the necessary time...

One of the least discussed issues in California environmental politics and one of the most crucial to understanding Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels plan is the clear connection between the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative and the California WaterFix, formerly called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.

The privately-funded MLPA Initiative and the California WaterFix to build the peripheral tunnels at first may appear to be entirely different processes.

The MLPA Initiative, a process begun in 2004 under the Schwarzenegger administration, purported to create a network of marine protected areas along the California coast. The network was supposedly completed on December 19, 2012, with the imposition of contested marine protected areas along the North Coast.

On the other hand, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan process began under the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations to achieve the so-called co-equal goals of water supply reliability and Delta ecosystem restoration. In 2015, the state and federal governments divided the BDCP into two projects, the California WaterFix, the conveyance component, and the California EcoRestore, the habitat restoration component.

But in spite of some superficial differences, the two processes are united by their leadership, funding, numerous conflicts of interest, greenwashing goals, racism and denial of tribal rights, and junk science. When people educate themselves on the links between the two processes, they can more effectively wage a successful campaign against the Delta Tunnels and to restore our imperiled salmon and San Francisco Bay-Delta fisheries.

Mike Carpenter, a sea urchin diver and organizer of a fundraiser for the California Fisheries Coalition in Albion on the Mendocino coast, made the vital connection between the MLPA Initiative and Schwarzenegger's campaign to build a peripheral canal back in 2009 when the battle against the creation of questionable marine protected areas on the North Coast was amping up.

Carpenter emphasized that the MLPA...

Contributed by Gordon Hough, Captain, Morning Star

As we headed out Tuesday (May 31) with primo tides, primo anglers and smallish though usable bait we found ourselves engulfed in pea soup fog and an ever increasing SW wind howling through the Gate. First stop Alcatraz for the last trickle of the incoming tide.

In a rare moment of understatement the t Deck Meteorologist noted This weather is most unpleasant. Yes indeed. Even though the tide was slack the drift was nearly too fast because of the wind.

TG, rumored to be the best striped bass fisher person on earth, proved he’s no One Trick Pony by being first to hook up a nice halibut. Another halibut soon followed to the right of Tom G, followed by a hook up and Alcatraz escapee to the left of Tom G.

Shortly thereafter TG, aka Bass Whisperer, was hooked up again, and this was no mamsy pamsy halibut. It took awhile, but he finally muscled the 32 pound jackpot winner into the waiting Deck Athlete’s monstrous net.

We lost as many halibut as we caught, and when the nasty cold weather drove us away we had only managed four halibut for the 13 anglers aboard.

Next stop; The tranquil waters of Raccoon Straits. There was a steady pick of bass (we caught 8), but this was a halibut trip. Off to Paradise Cove for the outgoing tide.

The weather was beautiful, but the fishing was dreary. A couple shaker halibut and one beauty was all we could manage. Bottom Line; 5 halibut and 8 bass for 13 anglers.

Right here at the beginning I admit that I’m not an expert lingcod fisherman. While I do catch my share of lings ranging from small to large, I’m still learning and still experimenting to determine what works, what doesn’t work and what works best.

I’ve been on this case for most of my life. In the balance of this column I’ll share what I’ve learned and I think my conclusions will help you catch more and bigger lingcod.

Working jigs and swimbaits, that’s the iconic way to catch lings and that’s how most of us avid ling anglers want to catch our fish. Pitch that sexy jig up drift, let it sink, start yo yoing it along the bottom and when Mr. Ophiodon Elongatus comes knocking he’ll do his best to rip the rod from your hands.

There’s no doubt about it, nothing in the world of bottom fishing compares to the excitement of jigging for lings, but the problem is that jigs don’t always work. If the water temperature has dropped or is too chilly, if there has been a lot of fishing pressure or if you are fishing shallow water hooking lingcod on artificial baits can be an uphill climb.

I read a study conducted in British Columbia, where the lingcod get a lot bigger than they do here in Northern California, but they behave in much the same way as our fish do. Using rods and reels and baits and lures teamed with underwater cameras, the researchers observed how lingcod react to various fishing methods.

What the researchers found was that lingcod are the most curious fish living on the rocky reefs. When they lowered a bait, lure or even sinker to the bottom one or more lingcod quickly surrounded the alien visitor. Most of time the...

the Delta" and ensures that water supplies remain reliable for various users. He emphasized that the new diversion points are designed to operate without harming existing water rights or environmental conditions.

Critics, including Restore the Delta, argue that the plan prioritizes agribusiness interests over ecological sustainability and that the long-term effects could be detrimental to fish populations and water quality. They stress the need for transparent assessments and thorough consideration of the environmental impacts.

As the hearings approach, stakeholders from various sectors are preparing to voice their concerns and support. The outcome of this debate could shape California's water policies and environmental management for years to come, highlighting the ongoing tension between development and conservation in the state's complex water landscape.

An angler brought in a 27 inch shad to Broadway Bait Rod & Gun that he just caught on a dart from shore on the Sacramento River at Miller Park. However, he never weighed the fish in on the store’s certified scale, so we’ll never know how much it weighed.

“He didn’t want to weigh in the fish or give his name,” said Will Pfingst at the shop. “He just wanted to buy some more shad jigs and get back out fishing.”

“The fish was massive,” said Pfingst. “It was definitely impressive, but I couldn’t estimate the fish’s weight.”

The current state shad record is 7 pounds, 5 ounces, set by Craig Stillwell on the West Branch of the Feather River on May 9, 1985.

Striper fishing has slowed down in the Sacramento River locally, but a few patient anglers continue to hook some quality stripers. Tee Chann landed a 42-inch striper weighing over 30 pounds while fishing a cut sardine at Miller Park.

Curtis Fong also nailed a 10 lb. largemouth bass while fishing a white spinnerbait from his kayak in Eight Mile Slough near Stockton.

“Striper fishing has slowed down on the Sacramento River,” said Craig Kamikawa of Fisherman’s Warehouse. “Most of the fish being hooked now are shakers in the 16 to 17 inch range. However, shad fishing is really good on the American; anglers are hooking big numbers up and down the river while using 1/32 oz. jigheads with pink grub tails with two size 7 split shot.”

Drew caught the trout of a lifetime on June 3 when he pulled this incredible 10 lb. brown out of Lake Tahoe.

South Lake Tahoe June is shaping up to be quite a month for the Tahoe Sportfishing Team. They’ve been going large with double digit mackinaw and browns in addition to plenty of “pansize” and larger eating size macks!

For example, on June 3, first mate Drew battled a monster 10-pound brown. On June 6 anglers boated multiple handsome browns and a mackinaw well over the 10-pound mark.

When anglers fishing with Tahoe Sportfishing aren’t landing big fish they’ve been racking up lots of macks in the 3 to 5 pound range. These are great eating fish that just can’t seem to lay off rigged minnows trolled behind a set of flashers.

Flashers and dodgers teamed with rigged minnows have been the ticket for Gene St. Denis while trolling deep water off the Tahoe City Shelf and Cal Neva Point. Gene’s anglers are scoring steady limits of 1 to 6 pound macks and larger fish in the 8 to 19 pound range are showing up too.

Mickey Daniels of Mickey’s Big Mack Charters is doing what he does best…putting visiting anglers on mackinaw action at the north end of Lake Tahoe!

Mickey is pulling a combination of lures for fish to 7 pounds. Anglers are keeping some fish for the table and the rest are being tagged and set free.

Amador

Caden hit Lake Amador with his Mom and Dad this spring and busted this impressive 4 lb. rainbow trout!

(Ione) The trout plants are over at Lake Amador until the water temperature cools down in October, but the lake management did plant 500 pounds of catfish, ranging from 2 to 5 pounds each, on Tuesday, June 7.

Anglers are still catching rainbow trout, but they are showing in deeper water at 20 to 25 feet deep in the main body. Fishermen are bait fishing with PowerBait and crawlers or are trolling with nightcrawlers, spoons, spinners and minnow imitation lures.

Bass are in post-spawn mode, and anglers are hooking them on a mixture of plastic worms, Senkos, and jigs, as well as on top water lures early and late in the day. One angler landed a 7.8 lb. largemouth bass while fishing a plastic worm on the rocky points past the spillway.

Crappie and bluegill are also offering solid action for anglers fishing crappie jigs, nightcrawlers, and minnows in shade or brush or off the docks.

The lake is currently 1-1/2 to 2 feet from full. The launch ramp is all pavement and wide-open for launching and has both docks in the water.

Meanwhile, anglers are gearing up for the Carp Cull Bow and Spear Fishing Tournament at Amador on Saturday, June 18. Registration starts at 6 am and the event ends at 2 pm. There is a $10 entry fee that covers the fishing and/or boat launch.

There is also a $10 big fish side pot. For more information, contact Lake Amador at 209-274-4739.

Tribe Files 60 Day Notice Under the Endangered Species Act

Happy Camp, CA – Citing a disease infection rate of 90% of sampled juvenile salmon in 2015, today the Karuk Tribe presented the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) with a 60 day notice of intent to sue over violations of the Endangered Species Act.

“We cannot allow mismanagement by federal agencies to destroy what little remains of our fisheries,” said Karuk Chairman Russell ‘Buster’ Attebery.

Earlier this year, the Karuk celebrated when the Obama Administration, California, Oregon, the Yurok Tribe, dam owner PacifiCorp and others agreed on a plan to expedite the removal of the lower four Klamath dams by filing a dam removal plan with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The dam removal agreement calls on signatories to continue efforts to negotiate a long term solution to the water woes that have long plagued Klamath fisheries. Dam removal is planned to take place in 2020.

“Our action today in no way diminishes our commitment to work with Klamath irrigators to develop a long term solution that works for fish and farm dependent communities. But until we have a solution in place, we cannot sit idly by while 90% of our fish die from disease. This problem could be managed in part by releasing more water at critical times of year,” said Attebery.

Flows on the Klamath River are a function of how BOR diverts water to the 225,000 Klamath Irrigation Project from Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River to grow alfalfa, potatoes and other crops. Because of the ESA listing of coho salmon, the BOR irrigation plan must be reviewed by NMFS to ensure that diversions don’t jeopardize the survival of the species. NMFS then issues a document known as a Biological...

It was as if someone had thrown a switch. For over an hour the scene was quiet and there wasn’t much sign of life, but then mayflies began hatching and swirls started to appear here and there. Clearly the fish had become active.

Gene had yet to get his fishing license, but he’d agreed to come along to act as my camera man. At the moment he was cold, bored and sitting on a rock. The video camera that hung around his neck was zipped inside of his jacket.

Grabbing my second rod that was armed with a 1-¾ inch rainbow pattern Yo-Zuri L Minnow I stepped to the edge of the water.

“The next time a fish breaks the surface within casting range, I’m going to show him this minnow plug,” I said.

When I’m fishing and the fish aren’t cooperating I’m always running around saying this and saying that, basically thinking out loud. So I wasn’t too surprised when Gene didn’t respond.

Heck, for all I knew he was in the grips of hypothermia sitting there on a cold slab of granite, but hypothermia was the least of my concerns. After all I knew the sun would be on us soon and I could thaw Gene out before any serious damage occurred.

I only had to wait a minute or so for a trout to swirl once, twice, three times in a row off to the left side of the point we’d occupied. It would be a longish cast, but doable.

The spinning rod cut the air with a sharp swoosh, a thin cloud of mist momentarily enveloped the reel’s spool and the plug was on its way arching to intercept the surface feeding trout’s suspected line of travel.

Since L Minnows sink about 1 foot per second...

Not only did Paul troll from his 21-foot Rogue Jet Coastal while visiting Hell Hole Reservoir, but he also used it to access the back country camping area at the upper end of the lake.

Hell Hole? Who would ever want to go camping at a place with a name like that! However, Hell Hole Reservoir is one of my favorite places on earth, and one I have been fishing for over 40 years! It is one of those places that is difficult to get into, but once you are there, it is absolutely worth it!

Bridget Looney and I left Colfax on Friday afternoon with the 21’ Rogue Jet Coastal in tow and headed up the mountain from Foresthill. Actually, we had to go down the mountain to the bottom of the middle fork of the American River before we could head back up the mountain. The well-paved, but very windy 50 miles from Auburn to Hell Hole takes right at 2 hours towing a boat.

We arrived at the lake in mid-afternoon to see the beautiful reservoir, approximately 25 feet from full pool. The launch ramp is fully operational and we had the Coastal in the water in short order. We ran up the lake through the Narrows and found a beautiful campsite on the north side of the lake.

We set up the tent on a shady point that was nice and flat and open to the breeze. Looking to the east, we were dwarfed by the granite snow-covered ridge that separated us from Lake Tahoe by only a few miles.

We soon noticed one of the drawbacks to camping out – thousands of mosquitos! A liberal basting for each of us with repellent kept them off our skin, but they still buzzed around our ears!

We...

Ever since California voters overwhelmingly rejected the peripheral canal in November 1982, the state and federal governments and regional water agencies have developed a number of schemes to fund this unpopular water diversion plan without a vote of the taxpayers.

In the latest scheme, documents released under the California Public Records Act reveal that the Zone 7 Water Agency of Alameda County has been using property taxes to pay for Delta Tunnels planning costs before even one shovel of dirt has been turned, according to a statement from Restore the Delta.

The Delta Tunnels plan, developed under the Delta Vision and Bay Delta Conservation Plan processes and now under the California Water Fix, is the latest version of the peripheral canal backed by Governor Jerry Brown in his first two administrations.

If there's one thing that Jerry Brown and Delta Tunnels advocates do not like, it's openness and transparency in government, as seen in these documents. That's why Livermore area property owners have been paying for Delta Tunnels planning efforts without their consent and without their knowledge.

Fees for the tunnels, designed to ship northern California water to Southern California water agencies and corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, were supposed to come from water ratepayers, not property taxes.

California Department of Water Resources, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Santa Clara Valley Water District, and Zone 7 officials have said for years in public that the tunnels would cost just five dollars a month for urban water users. Yet these taxes were buried deep in agency records in at least two water districts.

The public is unaware that their property taxes are being used to pay for the planning of a project that will have negative impacts on the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary,...

Poulsen Cascade is a Pacific Northwest tackle company that is unfamiliar to a lot of California anglers. Poulsen offers a full lineup of gear and accessories that will help you land trout, kokanee, kings, and more. Let’s take a look at a handful of Poulsen offerings that should prove to be useful here in the Golden State.

Arrow Flash Dodgers

Arrow Flash Dodgers combine maximum flash, including UV, with a wide wash action that not only draws fish into the strike zone, but also adds an enticing action to the bait or lure itself. Arrow Flash Dodgers work well even at the slowest trolling speeds or river currents.

These quality dodgers are 4.25 inches long by almost 3 inches wide and sport American made swivels and stainless steel split rings. They are great for most game fish but are especially effective for kokanee. Hook on an Arrow Flash and hook up with fish.

Cousin Carl T-Flash Flashers

The Cousin Carl T-Flash is a totally new concept in flashers. Its uniquely curved blade spins at almost any trolling speed, producing a distinctive ‘thump’ while the brightly polished metal and reflective decal create an eye-popping flash that fish can see from great distances.

The genuine Bead Chain swivel at one end and the Rosco swivel at the other significantly reduce annoying line twist. The round bead and the last T-Bead work together to form the Scent-Check scent dispensing chamber. Tie this Made-in-America original ahead of your favorite lure or bait and hang on.

Cousin Carl Lake Trolls

Kevin Smith headed down to New Melones Reservoir hoping to find big kokanee and he got several trout and salmon including this impressive 17.25 inch kokanee.

Amador

(Ione) Shore anglers are hooking good numbers of channel catfish in the 2 to 5 lb. range while fishing chicken liver, mackerel, anchovies and other cut baits in the coves on Lake Amador.

“The best fishing is available near the old launch ramp in the dry camp area,” said Lee Lockhart of Lake Amador Resort. “We planted the lake last with 500 pounds of channel cats on June 24.”

Bass fishing has been tough for most, but one savvy angler reported great action on a recent trip to the reservoir.

“He reported landing 30 fish while fishing a Big Swim swimbait on black dart head in the middle of the coves,” said Lockhart. “He targeted bass that were chasing schools of shad. He reported catching a 6 pounder, along with two 4 pounders.”

Bluegill and redear sunfish are showing in good numbers around trees, brush and structure. “My daughter caught a bunch of hand-size bluegill while fishing redworms around the blue docks,” he said. “Other guys have reported landing redear sunfish averaging a half pound and going up to 1 pound while bait fishing with worms on the north side of the spillway.”

The lake level is only 4 feet from full and the boat launching facilities are in full operation.

Pardee

(Ione) As usual this time of year, the kokanee salmon are doing great at Lake Pardee. Boaters are catching limits of landlocked sockeyes averaging 13 to 14 inches and going up to 16 inches by as early as 10 a.m., reported Robert of Pardee Lake Recreation.

“If you are out early in the morning you will find them a little closer...

The following action alert is compiled from letters from Roger Mammon, President of the California Striped Bass Association (CSBA), West Delta Chapter, and Jim Cox, President of the CSBA State Board.

Please forward to everyone you know. Urge them to send a letter to the Fish and Game Commission to stop the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, Stewart Resnick's Astroturf group, from succeeding in passing their striper eradication plan through the Commission.

We have just learned that letters in opposition to changing regulations on striped bass and black bass must be received by the California Fish and Game Commission by July 27, 2016. If you have been procrastinating about sending a letter, now is the time to do it if you want to save our fisheries.

The Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, funded by Beverly Hills agribusiness tycoons Stewart and Lynda Resnick, is asking the Commission to increase bag limits and reduce size limits for striped bass and black bass.

The letter can be simple and to the point. Just two or three sentences to get your point across and the investment on one sheet of paper, envelope, and a .47¢ stamp. How much do you have invested in your rods, reels, tackle boxes or possibly a boat? They won’t mean a thing if there is nothing to fish for.

We must also show strong opposition to the water contractors' petition by attending the Fish and Game Commission meeting on Aug 24-25 at the Lake Natoma Inn and Conference Center, 702 Gold Lake Dr. Folsom CA 95630.

The agenda for the meeting has not been posted yet, but will be posted soon at: http://fgc.ca.gov/meetings/2016/index.aspx

Unfortunately, the Commission will not allow a panel type presentation like they did with the lawsuit settlement hearing in 2011 and 2012. They will allow the...

The California Supreme Court on July 21 overturned a Court of Appeal decision that favored Delta landowners in their legal battle against the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), eliminating one of the many hurdles faced by the Brown administration in its campaign to build the Delta Tunnels.

The court ruled that state officials are not required to pay landowners to access their land to conduct surveys needed for planning the construction of Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels, renamed the California WaterFix in 2015. Tunnels opponents consider the WaterFix to be the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history.

The court said they reject the landowner’s claim that the Department of Water Resources overreached its authority in entering private land to drill test borings for the twin tunnels.

“We conclude that the current pre-condemnation entry and testing statutes are properly interpreted to encompass the type and degree of pre-condemnation environmental and geological testing at issue here,” the court ruled. “Accordingly, we reject the landowners' claim that the Department overreached in invoking the pre-condemnation entry and testing statutes in order to obtain authority to conduct the pre-condemnation activities proposed in this case.”

Tom Keeling of the Freeman Firm in Stockton, representing dozens of landowners, said the court did hand Delta landowners a “limited victory” in the case by “reforming” the statute at issue to allow the landowners the right of a jury trial.

DWR had requested court orders that would allow DWR agents to enter Delta properties to conduct investigations in support of the Governor’s controversial twin tunnels project. “The proposed investigations included geological, biological and cultural surveys DWR said were essential for the twin tunnel project to continue,” according to a statement from Keeling’s office.

Keeling focused on the fact that DWR did not offer to pay for...

Hearings before the California State Water Resources Control Board regarding Governor Jerry Brown's Delta Tunnels will begin on Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 9:00 AM at the Joe Serna Cal EPA Building in Sacramento, 1001 I Street, Sacramento.

The hearings regarding the controversial project, renamed the California WaterFix last year, will start with policy statements on Tuesday. The hearing is expected to last for weeks.

In 2015, the California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation requested permits for new water diversion intakes on the Sacramento River and water quality certification under the Clean Water Act, essential permits required before construction of the Delta Tunnels.

Why is this important? The Board is obligated under state and federal law to ensure a project that prevents harm to local water users, protects the public interest, and protects public trust resources while preventing an unreasonable method of diversion of water, according to a statement from Restore the Delta.

This will be the first chance for Northern California stakeholders to publicly state their concerns before a decision-making body. Hundreds of groups, individuals, and interests are scheduled to address the board, RTD stated.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, said, “It is now up to the backers of the Delta Tunnels to prove their project would not violate state and federal laws that protect the estuary, the fish that live there, and all the communities who depend on a healthy estuary for their water. The burden of proof is on the tunnels proponents. We believe they cannot meet that burden of proof.”

The 2015 report “A Sustainable Water Plan for California” outlines alternatives to the Delta Tunnels that would create long-lasting jobs and develop regional water sustainability in a changing climate.

Final minutes of the trip… The bite was slow and the fishing was methodical, yet there were big fish around. We had a pair in the box and we’d seen a few dandies landed around us. After spending the entire morning shooting video it was my turn on the rods, but it was late in the morning and the bite window was rapidly closing.

Over the years last minute success has become a hallmark of mine, dating all the way back to 1979, my first deer season as an actual rifle packing hunter, when I hammered a big three point buck on the final morning of the season.

Since then there have been more closing day bucks, jackpot winning lingcod and stripers on the final drift of the day and more than one big trout hooked in waning light of the day that wouldn’t actually be landed until after dark. Once I’d beached a 22 inch brown trout on the last cast of the last day of the stream trout season in fading light on a creek that seldom booted out a fish over 12 inches.

Some days I get a little psychic shimmer that tells me I won’t score no matter how good the conditions. And there are other days when I just know I’m going to score big no matter how long the odds. That’s the feeling I had at Lake Almanor on the morning of July 8.

The trip had actually sparked to life weeks before with a series of telephone calls back and forth with Captain Bryan Roccucci of Big Daddy’s Guide Service. In the spring Bryan starts out chasing big trout at Lake Almanor and then slowly switches over to chasing a mixed menu of kokanee, trout and macks at Bucks Lake once summer rolls...

Every time we make a determination to set aside a seashore for the use of future generations, every time we build these great projects, we develop the water resources, we set aside recreational areas, we can be sure they are going to be used. Three hundred and fifty million Americans will live in this country of ours in the short space of less than 40 years, where now there are 180 million. What will they do? What kind of a country will they find? How much recreation will be possible for them? I think if we make the right decisions now they will be as grateful to us as we were and are to Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt for the things they did 45 and 50 years ago.

We witness today the completion of a project which symbolizes the goals to which we are committed. The Whiskeytown Reservoir is not the largest structure on the Trinity River, but its completion is significant because this is the last of the Trinity project dams.

With the Trinity division completed and the upper reaches of the Sacramento now harnessed, Shasta County and its neighbors are assured of water and power. They can enjoy new chances for recreational use, and new access to open space. - President John F. Kennedy, September 28, 1963.

Those were the words of our 35th President at the dedication of Whiskeytown Reservoir, a mere 7 weeks and 6 days before he was cut down by a sniper’s or snipers’ bullets in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

When I visited Whiskeytown on the afternoon of July 7 and heard a recording of these remarks at the Kennedy Memorial on the corner of Whiskeytown Dam they seemed at once poignant and tragic, because through the lens of history we...

of the Brown administration, he may overlook the legitimate concerns of Delta communities and water users. The Delta Tunnels project has faced significant opposition, and many believe that it does not adequately address the water needs of the region’s residents.”

Babbitt's appointment reflects the urgency surrounding California's water crisis, particularly as instances of drought and water scarcity continue to challenge the state. Stakeholders are watching closely as Babbitt steps into this role, anticipating the potential implications for both environmental sustainability and local economies.

The conversations surrounding California WaterFix are critical, with various interest groups advocating for balanced water management that recognizes both human and ecological needs. As Babbitt begins his tenure, his approach and decisions will likely shape the future of water policy in California for years to come.

Two fishing groups won a major legal victory last week against the federal government and agribusiness interests when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Delta water contracts. Below is the press release from the law offices of Stephan C. Volker:

On July 25, 2016 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) and the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association in their longstanding battle with the United States Bureau of Reclamation and San Joaquin Valley agribusinesses that divert millions of acre feet of water annually from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Following four years of court proceedings, the Court of Appeals ruled that the Bureau of Reclamation had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to consider reducing the quantity of water diverted from the Delta for farming uses and increasing the Delta’s fresh water flows to San Francisco Bay to restore its imperiled salmon and wildlife.

The Court held that in approving eight 2-year contracts for the delivery of up to 1.2 million acre feet of water annually from the Delta to Central Valley water districts, Reclamation had failed to consider the alternatives of reducing the quantity of water delivered, or terminating the contracts altogether and delivering no water.

The Court stated that “Reclamation’s decision not to give full and meaningful consideration to the alternative of a reduction in maximum interim contract water quantities was an abuse of discretion.” The Court “rejected Reclamation’s argument that the contracts themselves mandated renewal,” pointing out that “NEPA imposes obligations on agencies” to consider less impactful alternatives, and Reclamation “may not evade these obligations by contracting around them.”

The Court also rejected Reclamation’s arguments that reducing the quantity of water delivered under the contracts was infeasible, and agreed with the Fishing...

Coast, where the water was deep and the current was strong. The crew set up the lines, and soon we were reeling in several small kingfish.

Once we had enough bait, we headed out further along the coast to our lingcod spot. The excitement among the anglers was palpable as we dropped our lines into the water. It wasn’t long before the first bites came, and the atmosphere on the boat transformed into one of shared enthusiasm and friendly competition.

Throughout the day, we caught a variety of rockfish along with a few lingcod. The thrill of feeling a tug on the line and the team effort to bring in the catch made for an unforgettable experience.

After a productive day of fishing, we turned our sights back to San Francisco Bay to try our luck with striped bass. As the sun began to set, we reflected on the day’s adventures and the beauty of the Marin County coast.

Fishing here not only offers great catches but also a stunning backdrop that reminds us why we love the outdoors in California. Whether you are a seasoned angler or a novice, the Marin Coast provides ample opportunities to connect with nature and enjoy the bounties of the ocean.

On July 9th, a group of Cub Scouts from Fair Oaks Pack 215 boarded the Sea Wolf with aspirations of fishing the San Francisco Bay for striped bass, bottom fish, halibut and maybe a shark or two. As the boys and their parents, accompanied by Sniffer Staffers Darren Butler and Sean O’Rourke, piled onto the 50-foot boat, excitement and anticipation were high. After a brief safety meeting, Captain Jon Yokomizo gave the order, and we were off.

Last year, the fishing in the bay was excellent, so we didn’t venture out of the Golden Gate. This year, however, is a different story. The striped bass bite had been inconsistent at best, and the bait remains scattered throughout the bay, making for tough fishing. Captain Jon suggested that we consider making the long run to the Farallon Islands.

On any other day, I would have immediately jumped on the opportunity to head out there, but the decision is a bit more complicated with a boat full of 8-10 year old kids, many of whom have never been on a boat before, much less a 2 hour run on the open ocean. After a quick conference with a few of the parents, the prospect of putting the Scouts on big rockfish and solid lingcod action outweighed the risk of poor fishing in the bay, so we powered West out of the Golden Gate.

Other than a lingering fog on upper reaches of the Golden Gate Bridge, it was a fantastic, sunny morning. The kids and their parents enjoyed the views of the city as we approached Alcatraz.

While one of the parents pointed out the notable landmarks of San Francisco, the water began to swirl 50 yards off the boat as a whale surfaced right beside us. Everyone on the boat stared...

Agribusiness interests and Southern California water agencies this spring launched a new attack in their campaign to eradicate striped bass as they scapegoat the popular gamefish for salmon and Delta smelt declines caused by decades of water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, the Astroturf group bankrolled by Beverly Hills agribusiness tycoon Stewart Resnick, on June 9 submitted a new petition to the California Fish and Game Commission to raise the bag limit and reduce the size limit on striped bass in an attempt to reduce their population. This time they’ve added black bass as a so-called predator to their petition.

The Coalition is joined by a who’s who of the state’s agribusiness, water agency and corporate interests, including the California Chamber of Commerce, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, San Joaquin Tributaries Authority, Southern California Water Committee, State Water Contractors, Western Growers Association, California Farm Bureau Federation, Northern California Water Association and Kern County Water Agency.

The petition will be addressed in a hearing at the California Fish and Game Commission meeting on Aug 25 at the Lake Natoma Inn and Conference Center, 702 Gold Lake Dr. Folsom Ca 95630. Everybody who cares about the future of San Francisco Bay-Delta fish populations should be there.

The agenda for the meeting is available on the Fish and Game Commission website.

The California Striped Bass Association has posted an online petition to the Fish and Game Commission opposing the Coalition’s proposal. Their petition can be found online.

You can also take action to save striped bass and black bass by sending a letter through the Water4Fish website.

When the water contractors last tried to

As normally happens every year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will reduce releases from Nimbus Dam just before the fall-run Chinook salmon begin to move into the lower American River.

The flows will be ramped down from 3,250 cfs on Friday, August 19, to 2,000 cubic feet per second on August 21. The reason? Storage conservation, said Randi Field, Reclamation spokesperson.

The reduction in releases comes after Reclamation has all summer released high flows up to 5,000 cfs for export from the Delta by San Joaquin corporate agribusiness interests and Southern California water agencies. As the Bureau continues to reduce releases into the river this fall, you can expect the river’s struggling fall-run Chinook salmon and steelhead to be imperiled by low, warm water conditions spurred by agribusiness and water contractor greed.

To make things more complicated, the Bureau on Thursday will temporarily decrease flows in the lower American River below Nimbus Dam from 3,750 cubic feet per second to 1,000 cfs to prepare the Nimbus Fish Hatchery weir foundation for picket installation.

The fish weir structure is installed annually to guide spawning Chinook salmon into the hatchery fish ladder, according to a Reclamation news release.

Then Reclamation will incrementally ramp up flows by approximately 1,000 cfs per hour back up to 3,250 cfs until the water agency begins to draw down the releases again Friday.

Confusing? That’s the way water is managed in the Big Ag and Big Money state of California. The Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources manage the flows of Central Valley rivers to the benefit of big agribusiness barons and to the detriment of fish and wildlife, including many endangered species.

To make things even worse, Governor Jerry Brown is rushing the completion of the planning for his Delta Tunnels project before...

Spicer Reservoir, located on the North Fork of the Stanislaus River, is unique among Central Sierra Nevada reservoirs as it offers anglers a chance to catch square-tailed rainbows grown out from fingerlings or naturally spawned in Hobart Creek, the lake's main tributary.

The rainbow trout fishery has significantly improved after recovering from a tapeworm infestation that affected the lake’s fish in the late 1990s.

When the lake first filled in 1990, the influx of nutrients into the reservoir created a rich food chain, allowing rainbows to grow to large sizes, including fish in the 3 to 5 pound class. However, over recent years, the lake’s nutrients have declined, resulting in smaller, yet still healthy fish.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife stocks the reservoir with 50,000 rainbow trout fingerlings each year, a mix of Eagle Lake-strain rainbows and Kamloops trout.

Every spring, large numbers of rainbows migrate into Hobart Creek, located near the boat ramp, to spawn. To protect the naturally spawning population, fishing in the creek is closed each year until July 1.

Wild brook trout, brown trout, and brown bullhead catfish are also available, but 99 percent of the fish caught at the lake are rainbows, according to Bill Reynolds at Ebbetts Pass Sporting Goods.

Located at an elevation of 6,620 feet in the Stanislaus National Forest, Spicer straddles the border between Tuolumne County and Alpine County. The reservoir is situated on Highland Creek, a tributary of the North Fork of the Stanislaus River. The recreation area is 8 miles southwest of Highway 4 on Spicer Reservoir Road, about a 45-minute drive from Arnold.

A few years ago I put a video on YouTube about trout fishing at Folsom Lake. Almost immediately someone commented, “Thanks for burning my spot.”

Really? Folsom Lake? Are you serious? It’s a big widely known reservoir a stone's throw away from the state capital!

While I don’t feel I have a duty to maintain a shroud of secrecy about the bass and trout fishing that occurs at Folsom Lake, the striper fishing along the West Bank of Decker Island or the halibut action that takes place on the Berkeley Flats, there are some destinations that are so small and unique that I do believe putting an X on the map for the thousands of anglers that read my material might have a detrimental effect on them, and that brings us to the fishing trip I took yesterday with Fish Sniffer contributor Tom O’Brien and pro photographer Dylan Meffan.

Tom is a high Sierra hunter, angler, and backpacker. He doesn’t know every part of the Sierras, but the parts he’s familiar with he knows intimately. For a long while Tom had been relating stories about a small high country lake where he’d been catching brook trout.

That in itself isn’t a surprise, since brook trout are fairly widespread in lakes above 6,000 feet in elevation. Of the 1,404 lakes in the Sierras considered to be high country fisheries, 16% of them hold brook trout, while 68% of them boast rainbows and 16% support browns.

What makes Tom’s fishing hole unique is the size of the brook trout. I’ve caught a lot of high Sierra brookies over the years, and the average size of the fish has been around 8 inches in lakes and a teeny 6 inches in streams. The fish in Tom’s lake average about 12 inches and range...

The Bureau of Reclamation will reduce water releases from Nimbus Dam into the American River from 1,750 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 1,500 cfs today, September 6, much to the consternation of anglers and conservationists concerned about the low water conditions that fall-run Chinook salmon will face as they enter the river this autumn.

The reason? Storage conservation, claimed Randi Field, Reclamation spokesperson.

The ramping down in releases follows a previous reduction from Nimbus Dam, which was decreased from 3,250 cfs to 2,000 cfs by August 21 and then cut from 2,000 to 1,750 cfs on August 26.

Folsom Lake is currently holding 341,611 acre-feet of water, 35 percent of capacity and 57 percent of average.

The reduction in releases comes as Reclamation has dumped high releases of up to 5,000 cfs into the river for export by San Joaquin corporate agribusiness interests and Southern California water agencies.

Big water releases from Keswick and Oroville dams continue as the state and federal governments export massive quantities of water to agribusiness and Southern California water agencies.

Releases to the Sacramento River below Shasta Dam are now 9,500 cfs and releases to the Feather River below Oroville Dam are 6,100 cfs. The State Water Project's Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant is exporting 7,029 cfs and the federal Tracy Pumping plant is exporting 4,220 cfs, amounting to total combined water exports of 11,249 cfs.

That has resulted in Delta outflows of only 5,165 cfs while Delta inflows are 18,970 cfs.

The American River fall Chinook run is a significant contributor to the ocean and river salmon fisheries. From 1996 to 2015, the American has provided 19 percent of the fall Chinook salmon returning to the Sacramento River system, the driver of West Coast salmon fisheries.

A total of 19,013 adult salmon and

Do you want to go to a low elevation lake that features catfish or go to a high mountain lake that holds trout?

You don’t have to make that choice at Lake Valley Reservoir, situated on the North Fork of the American River near Yuba Gap. That’s because quality fishing for both rainbow trout and brown bullhead catfish is available amidst solitude and stunning northern Sierra Nevada scenery.

Set amidst a boulder-strewn shoreline surrounded by a thick conifer forest, the lake is a haven for bank anglers, kayak fishermen and trollers. Unlike many reservoirs, motorized fishing boats are restricted to a 10-mph limit, so you won’t find any water skiers or personal watercraft users speeding around the lake. It is one of my favorite reservoirs in the Sierra Nevada and its proximity to Interstate 80 makes it an ideal location to fish when I want to get away for an afternoon of fishing.

On Labor Day weekend, 2016, the fishing wasn’t hot, but anglers still caught holdover rainbows and some feisty brown bullheads during a short afternoon trip that I made to Lake Valley. I caught and released a fat and healthy catfish weighing over 1 pound while soaking a gob of nightcrawler near the boat ramp.

Meanwhile, Joshua of Sacramento and his two fishing buddies landed two holdover rainbows and lost a larger fish while soaking PowerBait near the dam. Two trollers also reported catching and releasing two catfish.

Earlier this summer, Brian Garcia found excellent catfish action while shore fishing with nightcrawlers on the lake. He said he wanted to see if he could get trout but ended up catching 7 catfish up to 13 inches. He also lost some other fish and missed numerous bites.

Rainbow trout are the only species of fish that the California Department...

The California Fish and Game Commission on Wednesday, August 24, adopted the controversial Master Plan for Marine Protected Areas in California that delays regional scientific reviews of MPAs, as originally promised, from every five years to every ten years.

After a very short discussion and hearing public comment, the Commission by a 4-0 vote approved text related to traditional ecological knowledge and then adopted the proposed final Master Plan for Marine Protected Areas and the Marine Life Protection Program pursuant to the Marine Life Protection Act (Pursuant to Section 2850, et seq., Fish and Game Code).

The Commission had already voted to support the plan with the 10-year reviews in previous meetings, in spite of hearing considerable testimony from anglers opposing it. The approval of the plan, with the addition of Traditional Ecological Text, was a mere formality.

I made five points in my testimony before Commission President Eric Sklar, Vice President Jaque Hostler-Carmesin, Commissioner Anthony C Williams, and Commissioner Peter Silva regarding the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the Master Plan:

The Good: First, I strongly support the inclusion of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) from California Indians in the Master Plan. This is long overdue, considering that the marine protected areas were completed in December 2012 without one single Tribal scientist ever being allowed to serve on the Science Advisory Teams for the MLPA Initiative.

The Bad: Second, the proposal breaks the original promise given to anglers by officials that regional reviews of the alleged marine protected areas created under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative would be conducted every five years. The new plan changes the regional reviews to once every ten years, a move that anglers and public trust advocates, including myself, strongly oppose because it results in less frequent scientific monitoring of the...

Rancho Cordova A 4 lb. female sockeye salmon, an apparent fish from a Pacific Northwest river that made a wrong turn on its spawning journey, made an unlikely appearance at Nimbus Fish Hatchery on Thursday, September 8.

Staff doing weir maintenance that day found the fish on the upstream side of the fish weir, said Gary Novak, manager of the Nimbus Fish Hatchery. The fish was weak and about to die.

Interestingly enough, we found a male sockeye salmon at the exact same spot on the weir last season, said Novak.

Although it's not uncommon for salmon to take the wrong fork on their journey back to their home stream to spawn, this fellow was WAY off course, according to the Nimbus Hatchery Facebook Page. Sockeye are occasionally spotted on the Klamath River but generally occur from the Columbia River in Oregon northward.

It’s also possible that the fish could have been a kokanee from upstream reservoirs that made it downriver and made it out to sea.

These two fish are the first sockeyes reported in recent years at Nimbus Hatchery. Ten years ago a chum salmon was observed at the hatchery, according to Novak.

Pink salmon are very rarely caught on the American River; one angler weighed in two pinks that he caught the same day below Nimbus Dam about 25 years ago at Fran and Eddy’s Sports Den in Rancho Cordova.

Historically, some sockeye, as well as pink (humpback), coho and chum salmon, ran up the Sacramento, American and their tributaries, but nowhere in the numbers found on Pacific Northwest rivers. Dams, water export pumping facilities in the Delta and decades of habitat degradation have resulted in Chinook salmon and steelhead being the only two salmon species that are currently found in significant numbers in the Sacramento River...

If you’re a long time Fish Sniffer reader, you know that when it comes to fishing success I lean toward streaks rather than consistency. At times I can do no wrong. I catch big fish and big numbers of fish regardless of how the fishing is overall or how the anglers are doing fishing right beside me. I live for these hot streaks.

But alas every hot streak has to come to an end. Sometimes I just cool off and the fishing seems to go lukewarm, but then there are other times when I descend into a full-blown slump. These times test my patience, because it seems like no matter where I travel, which guides I fish with or how good the bite is for others, I simply can’t hook up.

A few weeks ago I had a pretty hot hand. I’d nailed a 20 plus pound lingcod outside the Golden Gate, a four plus pound brown at Lake Almanor, some quality kokanee at Whiskeytown and more, but now I can’t seem to hook anything.

My late summer slump started about 14 days ago when I hit the Sacramento River for an evening trout fishing and filming trip on the Sacramento River with Captain Kirk Portocarrero. I’d caught a bunch of quality rainbows on Lake Shasta that morning, but in the afternoon I couldn’t get so much as a bite despite the fact that several big wild rainbows were caught aboard the boat. Of course right then I just thought it was the luck of the draw and didn’t see it as the onset of a slump. Slumps creep up on you quietly.

My next trip came together several days later when Captain Cameron Beck of American River Charters called me up and asked if I’d like to take a...

Last time we looked at how to tempt river run kings with roe. If employing roe is finesse fishing, plugs definitely represent power fishing and that’s what we are going to focus on this week.

To understand plug fishing, it’s helpful to take a step back and ponder things from a broad perspective. River run salmon are typically doing one of two things. They are either pushing up river or they are resting. The salmon like to rest in specific locations and travel in specific lanes and they tend to be aggressive.

Okay, so there we have Mr. or Mrs. Salmon. Suddenly here comes a big bombastic plug vibrating and gyrating. The salmon are aware of the plug before they see it, but then it comes into sight. The plug gets closer and closer and pretty soon it’s right in the salmon’s face. The next thing you know that salmon lashes out, the hooks on the plug sink home and you’re glad you stocked up on chips for the smoker, because there is going to be some smoking going on.

The first thing we should do is define what a salmon plug is. Salmon might hit just about any sort of plugs some of the time, be it a Wiggle Wart intended to draw a strike from steelhead or a Rat-L-Trap tossed into the Sacramento River in hopes of tempting a striper.

For our purposes when I say salmon plug I’m talking about big banana shaped lures like Flatfish, Kwikfish and Brad’s Killerfish. There are several different variations to these kinds of lures. Some have rattles, some don’t. Some are designed to dive deep, some dive moderately. Yet they all have things in common. They all wobble violently and they all have a thick robust shape.

Just because you’ve got...

One day after Governor Jerry Brown once again posed as a green governor and climate leader while delivering the opening remarks at the 26th Annual Conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, a coalition of fishing, conservation and public interest groups sent a letter to the state and federal agencies overseeing the proposed Delta Tunnels urging them to either drop the plan or develop a new Draft EIR/EIS for the project that includes newly released information.

The letter concludes that approving the project as proposed threatens to tarnish President Obama’s environmental legacy.

Groups signing the letter include AquAlliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Water Impact Network, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Environmental Water Caucus, Friends of the River, Planning and Conservation League, Restore the Delta, and Sierra Club California.

Delta advocates consider the two 35-mile long Delta Tunnels - Governor Jerry Brown’s California WaterFix - to be the most destructive public works project proposed in California history. The tunnels will hasten the extinction of Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species, as well as imperiling the salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers.

The letter, written by Robert Wright, senior counsel at Friends of the River, is addressed to the California Natural Resources Agency, the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and the Council on Environmental Quality at the White House.

The letter focuses on new information discovered by Restore the Delta through the California Public Records Act that revealed an unreleased economic analysis showing the Tunnels would require taxpayer subsidies and would export far more water from the San Francisco Bay-Delta than has been disclosed to the public. Without a...

Allen Kenneth Bonslett, the former publisher of the Fish Sniffer magazine and a resident of Galt, passed away at the age of 56 on September 8, 2016.

Allen was born in Sacramento on May 24, 1960, to Hal and Winnie Bonslett, who founded the Fish Sniffer magazine on their kitchen table in Woodland, California, in 1982.

Allen worked with the family business from 1984 to 2008. He held a variety of roles, including computer specialist, writer, and route driver, but spent the longest time coordinating the production of the publication.

In 1986, Allen spearheaded the transition of the publication from paper to desktop publishing. The Fish Sniffer magazine became the first-ever fishing publication—and one of the first publications in the Sacramento region—to be produced entirely on a computer, the Apple Macintosh.

He was a loving husband to Nicki Bonslett and the father of Elizabeth and Derek. He married Nicki in 1987. His dad, Hal, preceded him in death in September 2000.

I knew Allen for over 32 years as a good friend and co-worker. When I saw him in recent years, Allen would smile and say, “I love ya, man. Good to see you.”

Allen was one of the most thoughtful and insightful people I have ever known, particularly when it comes to politics and music. We would spend hours on the drive to and from fishing trips talking about music, as both of us had been trained in music and its appreciation in school.

Allen also had a deep understanding of political issues; we often discussed the ramifications of what was happening in the State Capitol and DC, especially the impacts of decisions on fish, the environment, and the outdoor community.

Two of the best concerts I ever attended were with Allen, a Rush concert and a Jackson Browne...

The transitional period between summer and fall can be an uncertain time to fish in Northern California. Salmon are just starting to show up in the river systems. Kokanee are turning into sockeye spawners. Sturgeon are active, but winds usually keep anglers from sitting on anchor in deep water. Have you ever struggled with the idea of what to fish for this time of year?

Striped bass typically start to move into the delta in late August or early September. If you can beat the winds, there are usually enough stripers around to make a trip worth your while. Are you one of those people who thinks that successful delta anglers have some secret bait or lure?

In my opinion, mastering the delta comes down to understanding a few key components, and one of them is the wind. Menacing winds blowing in the opposite direction of the current will stir up rolling swells topped with white caps.

These conditions are great for kitesurfing but make fishing both unpleasant and unsafe when fishing from a boat. I have driven my boat with the swells and measured them moving at over 12 miles per hour. If you are unfamiliar with the delta, stick to the smaller sloughs with high levees to avoid the chop.

On unprotected waters, one strategy when dealing with the wind is to anchor in a spot where the wind will be at your back. The swells won’t be nearly as large, and if you have a windshield or top on your boat, you will be mostly protected. Checking the wind and tide forecasts before you leave the house will make for a much more pleasurable trip if you plan accordingly.

The tides not only affect the current direction but they also help to predict when the fish will...

Let's take a break from the presidential debates and non-stop media coverage of the November 2016 election and deal with a particularly urgent matter — whether or not it’s legal to hunt for the elusive Bigfoot.

Don’t try Bigfoot hunting in California – it could result in your arrest and conviction, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW).

On May 11, 2012, the CDFW issued a statement in response to media reports about a Texas wildlife official proclaiming that bigfoot hunting is legal in the longhorn state.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department says that in theory, it would be legal to hunt Bigfoot in their state. Not so in California.

The lack of confirmation of this alleged animal’s existence brings into question whether or not it occurs naturally in California, according to the agency. If Bigfoot occurs naturally in the state, then it would be defined as a non-game mammal pursuant to California Fish and Game Code Section 415.

In order to take a non-game mammal legally in California, it must be listed in the California Code of Regulations, which Bigfoot is not.

If Bigfoot does not occur naturally in California, then it would not be defined as a non-game mammal and could not be taken legally, unless the Bigfoot was causing property damage (in which case it could be depredated) or if a Bigfoot was considered a public safety threat (in which case the animal could be taken).

If the existence of only one Bigfoot was confirmed, then it could be considered threatened and endangered and could potentially be listed as a protected species under the state or federal Endangered Species Acts, according to the agency.

But if a healthy and growing population of Bigfoot was confirmed, a hunting season for the creature might be...

It looks like the politically powerful Westlands Water District, one of the main backers of Governor Jerry Brown's Delta Tunnels and Congressional legislation to eviscerate protections for Sacramento River Chinook salmon and Delta smelt, is in more financial trouble.

Fitch Ratings downgraded the scheduled October 26 bond sale by Westlands from 'AA-' to 'A+'.

Among the issues facing Westlands Water District, Fitch cites shrinking irrigated acreage, previous financial obligations, and the potential for increased leveraging to pay for the Delta Tunnels, according to Restore the Delta.

The downgrade reflects Fitch's view that district operations face increased pressure over time. Despite improvements to the district's debt profile following this transaction and potentially lower leveraging related to a drainage settlement with the U.S. than previous estimates, the prospect of ongoing escalation in district charges coupled with probable declines in irrigated acreage heightens concentration risk and affordability concern.

The statement includes a warning that overcommitting to the California WaterFix could push the rating even lower.

Public reports now estimate the district's share of future costs of the California Fix at $2.5 billion. Significant further leverage by the district in support of the California Fix could apply downward pressure to the ratings.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta executive director, quipped that bond ratings agencies are like Mom and Dad. Westlands is asking to raise the limit on their credit card again, despite questionable earnings potential. At some point, Mom and Dad get out the scissors.

Tunnel proponents cannot demonstrate how $17 billion, before cost overruns, will be raised to build the Delta Tunnels. The public does not have a completed and vetted finance plan for the project to examine. When asked who commits to paying the bill, all the water districts point to someone else.

What is clear is that ‘someone else’ includes federal...

The area of the Feather River below the Thermalito Afterbay Outlet is legendary for the great steelhead and salmon fishing it has provided to anglers over the years.

It also became legendary for the crowds of anglers, including those prone not to obey regulations of any sort. For many years, there was a virtual shantytown of questionable folks located below the outlet, with lots of trash, drug use and drinking accompanying the fishing festivities.

The CDFW once referred in a press release to the poaching community located on the Feather below the outlet. The release inspired me to write an article about the concept of a poaching community with their mayor and board of directors.

I remember going up the Feather to the outlet from Gridley with Jim Zanocco to salmon fish at an Outdoor Writers of California conference in the fall 1996. Welcome to the gates of hell, Zanocco quipped.

However, the scene at the outlet has changed a lot at the outlet since I first went fishing there back in 1996. As we fished the Sacramento River at the Barge Hole, guide Jason Thatcher told Robert Weese of Northern California Guide Service. I heard it’s getting medieval up there at the outlet.

Weese replied, I’m going up there tomorrow. It’s a lot better, a lot less crowded than it used to be.

After I heard about the great action on Weese’s first trip the following day to the Feather River at Oroville, with early limits of kings, he invited me to come in the morning.

The next day, I fished with a hard-fishing family of four, including Jeff Bosshard, his wife Regina, 12-year-old Greyson and 10-year-old Vivica for one of the best salmon fishing trips I’ve been on anywhere in recent years.

East Delta

Striper And Salmon Fishing Expected To Improve

by Dave Hurley

Stockton Striped bass are rapidly moving into the San Joaquin side of the California Delta, and the best action is yet to come as the water temperatures continue to cool. The first cold spell and rain of the season will only improve conditions for migrating striped bass and salmon. The inclement weather will contribute to the shad balling up into tighter groupings.

Randy Pringle, the Fishing Instructor, was the tournament director of the Best Bass Tournament’s Tournament of Champions over the weekend out of Russo’s Marina. He said, “We had 192 participants, and the team of Ron Howell and Bob Miller took home the top prize of $20,000 out of the $51,000.00 in prize money distributed. The shad population is thick in the San Joaquin River, and the ima Little Stick in bone or ‘All About Shad’ is on fire. We had 50 keeper stripers out of 132 caught and released on Monday using P-Line Laser Minnow spoons, the Optimum Bubba shad swimbaits, or the Little Stick on topwater. The important thing to do is keep the topwater lure in the strike zone longer. Twitch it and let it sit.”

Numbers of bass are good, but the weights are down with the water temperature needing to drop in order to the reaction bite to improve. Dan Mathisen of Dan’s Delta Outdoors in Oakley said, “There are lots of small stripers in the system, and a big one will run 12 pounds. The bass bite is ‘iffy’, but there is a wakebait bite in moving water along points as well as swim jigs and chatterbaits. The Bobby D’s Golden Shiner spinnerbait is in high demand as it is working when the wind is blowing. There is also an emerging...

One of the most difficult ideas to get state and federal officials to acknowledge is that fish and marine life in our bay and ocean waters need fresh water flows to thrive and that diverting massive quantities of water to corporate agribusiness has caused major ecosystem collapses on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River and San Francisco Bay.

A major new study by the Bay Institute, "San Francisco Bay: The Freshwater – Starved Estuary," documents how the ecological health of San Francisco Bay and the nearby ocean is at high risk because large-scale water diversion in the Bay’s watershed severely limits the amount of fresh water that reaches the Bay and alters the timing of that flow.

Inflow to the Bay from its Central Valley watershed now averages less than half of what it would be without diversions; in some years just one-third of the runoff makes it to the Bay. The result is a nearly permanent drought for the Bay’s fish, wildlife, and their habitats. This radical alteration creates severe consequences for the Bay and marine ecosystems, and Bay Area residents pay the price, according to The Bay Institute.

The San Francisco Bay Estuary is created by the mixing of fresh water from the Central Valley’s rivers with salt water from the Pacific Ocean. Dramatically reducing the inflow of fresh water generates cascading effects in the Bay’s watershed, the Bay itself, and coastal ocean waters, the group stated.

The study shows how unsustainable diversion of the Bay’s freshwater inflow:

• Dramatically cuts production of fish and shrimp that are the food source for marine mammals, like Orca Whales, and birds.

• Allows pollutants to accumulate to dangerous levels and encourages blooms of toxic algae.

• Reduces sediment supply to Bay Area wetlands and beaches.

• Makes it easier for undesirable non-native...

Ryan Reynolds of San Mateo set a new largemouth bass record for the East Bay's Lake Chabot, catching a 19-pounder, one of the largest bass ever landed in northern California, on October 28.

Reynolds was fishing with a jig at Alder Point on Lake Chabot at 10 a.m. when he hooked his monster fish. He then released the lunker back into Chabot, one of the lakes that has benefitted from habitat projects initiated by former tackle shop owner John Walton and the East Bay Regional Park District over 20 years ago.

“We’re used to seeing big bass here in late autumn and winter,” said Stan Wong, manager of the Lake Chabot Marina & Café, “Though, Ryan’s fish was truly a pole bender. It obliterated the previous record by a full two pounds.”

The previous record largemouth caught at Lake Chabot was reeled in by Louis Vasquez in 2002 and weighed 17 pounds, reported Wong.

The state record for largemouth bass is 22 pounds, 0.5 ounces set by Bob Crupi on Castaic Lake in 1991. The world largemouth bass record is held jointly by George Perry (Montgomery Lake, Georgia – 1932) and by Manabu Kurita (Biwa Lake, Japan – 2009) at 22 pounds, 5 ounces, as determined by the International Game Fish Association.

Lake Chabot was rated seventh by TakeMeFishing.org as one of America’s Top 100 Family-friendly Places to Boat and Fish. Located in Castro Valley, Lake Chabot is a unit of the East Bay Regional Park District.

Governor Jerry Brown and other state officials have constantly claimed the Delta Tunnels project will restore the Delta ecosystem, but they revealed their real plans on October 7 when the administration applied for a permit to kill winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt and other endangered species with the project.

The California Department of Water Resources submitted an incidental intake application for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in alleged compliance with the California Endangered Species Act in order to build the Delta Tunnels, also known as the California WaterFix. In other words, they are applying for a permit to kill endangered species in the construction and operation of the three new water intakes on the Sacramento River and other facilities planned as part of the multi-billion dollar project.

The state and federal water export pumps on the South Delta that deliver subsidized water to corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley have killed hundreds of millions of fish over the past several decades. These fish include Sacramento splittail, a native minnow; endangered species such as winter-run Chinook, spring-run Chinook, Central Valley steelhead and Delta and longfin smelt; and introduced fish including striped bass, threadfin shad, American shad, black bass and white catfish.

The California WaterFix website announced that, consistent with the federal Endangered Species Act process where DWR and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation recently submitted the California WaterFix biological assessment addressing incidental take of federally-listed species, DWR has submitted this application to DFW in compliance with Section 2081(b) of CESA to address incidental take of state-listed species for the California WaterFix.

As identified in CESA, projects that may cause take (translate: killing) of a state-listed species must obtain authorization from DFW prior to implementing the action, California WaterFix officials...

Western States Petroleum Association Finishes Second in 7th Quarter CA Lobbyist Expenses

The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) usually captures the top spot in the quarterly lobbying expenses listed on the California Secretary of State’s website, but Tom Steyer’s Next Generation Climate Action, a campaign committee, actually beat the oil industry trade association in spending in the seventh quarter of the 2015-2016 Legislative Session.

WSPA dumped $2.6 million into lobbying legislators and state officials in the seventh quarter, while Steyer’s group spent an unprecedented $7.3 million, almost 3 times the oil industry group’s expenses.

In spite of WSPA finishing second in lobbying expenditures last quarter, the California Oil Lobby remains the biggest spender in the 2015-16 legislative session, spending an amazing $32.4 million so far. That’s the equivalent of dropping $50,750 every day since January 1, 2015, reported Stop Fooling California.

$32,400,000 is enough money to get Netflix and chill for 270,000 years, buy 648 refurbished DeLoreans, give away 81 thousand iPad airs, get 92,571 goats, see Beyonce’s Formation World Tour 11,571 times, buy 16,200 Portuguese Water Dogs and go tandem skydiving 155,024 times, the group noted.

If you were to have $32.4 million in 1 dollar bills, end to end they’d stretch the distance of 50 marathons. Stacked, they would reach the height of 50 marathons. That’s a ton of money, the group stated. Actually it’s 35 tons of money, if you’re weighing it.

WSPA has spent a total of $16,619,272 in the first seven quarters of the 2015-2016 session, the most of any lobbying organization.

Collins Lake, one of the premier trout fisheries for family-style fishing in Northern California, hosted the NorCal Trout Angler’s Challenge Championship on the weekend of November 5 and 6.

The derby began just two weeks after the first fall plants of rainbow trout from Mount Lassen Fish Farm went into the popular fishing and camping lake in the Sierra Nevada foothills northwest of Yuba City. The Collins Lake management has stocked 4600 pounds of big, bold rainbows this autumn and will stock another 4600 pounds before the Thanksgiving weekend.

These trout plants are in addition to the 36,000 pounds of rainbows already stocked in the lake this spring, according to Lincoln Young, manager of the Collins Lake Recreation Area.

Approximately 1,800 pounds of CDFW trout that were originally slated for the spring’s allotment will be put in the lake’s floating pen rearing program that is now in its tenth year. The trout will be released into the lake next year when they are 1-1/2 to 2 pounds.

Although the plants included a good number of 3 to 6 pound trout, none of these larger fish were biting during the event. Instead, square-tailed holdovers in the 1 to 2-1/2 pound range dominated the championship.

"We are extremely pleased with the following this series has seen over the past 3 years, and are happy that it provides a low-cost venue for families that love to fish,” said Vince Harris of Anglers Press, the organization that sponsored the series with the Fish Sniffer. “Next year will be our biggest year ever, as we will have more sponsors and more prizes to give out to our participants."

Tom Billmaier won first place in the event with a 2.85 lb. rainbow. He caught his fish while using PowerBait in the first hour of the derby...

In northern California, trout anglers can find action at one location or another all year long, but the fishing during the winter to spring and fall to winter transition periods often provides the best action of the entire year. Since fall is about to give way to winter, let’s take a closer look at the late season transition.

During the fall, shorter days and cool nights drop the surface temperature at mountain and foothill lakes and reservoirs. At many destinations, cooler water marks the beginning of fall trout planting routines. In addition to planters, holdover and wild trout that spent the summer lurking in deep water feeding on baitfish move back to the surface, putting them in the crosshairs of both boaters and bank anglers.

During the fall to winter transition period, the weather can be cold and wet, but the trout fishing can be hot and exciting. During this period, the trout move into shallow water and feed heavily in preparation for the lean winter months ahead.

At this time, instinct directs the trout to feed heavily in preparation for the tough winter months ahead, resulting in aggressive trout that hit just as well during the middle of the day as they do early and late.

As a general rule, both trout and threadfin shad enjoy water temperatures that range from about 54 to 60 degrees. When surface temperatures initially drop, it’s common for both trout and baitfish to scatter, simply because there is so much water available that falls within this temperature range. At this time, bank anglers can often catch trout right next to shore, while trollers hook up well off the bank.

As the fall season continues and the winter transition occurs, surface temperatures continue to decline. Once the temperature drops below the comfort zone of...

Berkeley/Emeryville

Rockfish And Crab Combo Action Red Hot For East Bay Anglers

(Berkeley) The crab season kicked off for Bay Area saltwater anglers on November 5 and since then it’s been limits all around with anglers scoring limits of big crabs and husky rockfish. As if that weren’t exciting enough, there have also been solid numbers of lingcod in the mix.

Operating out of the Berkeley Marina, anglers aboard Captain James Smith’s California Dawn rounded up full limits of 280 rockfish and full limits of 280 crabs on the boat’s most recent foray outside the gate.

James is planning to run combo trips until the rockfish season closes at the end of December.

Captain Chris Smith of Captain Hook Sportfishing started off the combo season with a bang. His six anglers rounded up 45 crabs on a short soak and added full limits of rockfish and 10 lingcod to 20 pounds.

Captain Jim Smith of Happy Hooker Sportfishing is offering both crab only and crab combo trips. On the opener, the Hooker scored 410 crabs and full limits of quality rockfish including some impressive vermilions.

In Emeryville, several boats including the New Huck Finn operating out of the Emeryville Sportfishing Center are offering crab combo trips. As with boats running out of Berkeley, full limits of both crabs and rockfish have been the norm along with some quality lings for anglers that concentrate on working the bottom with large baits and jigs.

Bodega Bay

Sport Crabs and Rockfish On Fire

by Dave Hurley

(Bodega Bay) Bodega Bay was crowded as expected on the opener, and both sides of the north and south jetties at the opening were loaded with fishermen hanging from the rocks in the middle of the evening after the 12:01 a.m. opening on Saturday morning.

In addition...

Action Alert from Restore the Delta:

Please call Governor Jerry Brown, Senator Barbara Boxer, and your Congressional Representative today, and ask them to oppose bill H.R 4366 (Valadao) to affirm an agreement between the United States and Westlands Water District (dated September 15, 2015) for the "San Luis Unit Drainage Act Resolution."

Governor Jerry Brown: (916) 445-2841

Senator Barbara Boxer: (202) 224-3553

Find Your Congressional Rep: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

We need California leaders to stop this destructive legacy where about 350 industrial irrigators will receive close to a million acre-feet of a guaranteed water supply contract with no acreage limitations courtesy of the American taxpayer, and at the expense of needed flows to protect the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary.

What does the American taxpayer get for paying Westlands Water District's water bills forever at a cost of more than a quarter billion dollars? Some vague assurances that Westlands will keep millions of gallons of polluted water within their boundaries, and not belch it back into groundwater supplies, the San Joaquin River, and the Delta, when the Federal Government could not solve the same problem for decades.

Governor Brown, Senator Boxer, and our Congressional Representatives should be insisting on better water quality protections for communities in the San Joaquin Valley, the Delta, and the San Joaquin River. Tell them that they should not sully their own environmental legacies by failing to act to curtail this bad deal for Californians and Federal taxpayers. Tell Governor Brown that he must defend water quality in the San Joaquin Valley and Delta from legacy projects.

Salmon continue to enter Trinity River Hatchery at the slow pace CDFW biologists were anticipating for this season. While both Chinook and coho salmon numbers are significantly down from last season, the number of hatchery steelhead showing has improved.

The hatchery has trapped a total of 1,126 fall-run Chinooks to date, a total of 982 adults and 144 grilse. That is less than half of the 2,476 Chinooks trapped to date in 2015.

The coho count is only 91, including 65 adults and 26 grilse, to date. That compares to 1,574 coho total to date in 2015.

The steelhead count is 381 to date. That compares to 283 to date in 2015.

The Willow Creek Weir counted 452 Chinooks this season, compared to 711 fish at the same time last year. The coho salmon numbers were only 2 total, compared to 454 in 2015.

The steelhead counts were 523 total, compared to 1,122 in 2015. However, the CDFW staff hasn’t been able to count fish because of river conditions since October 14.

Steelhead fishing remains tough. There’s no one section of river that’s particularly productive and no one thing that’s working better than another, said Tim Brady of Trinity Outdoors in Weaverville.

Leave it to our wild and wacky California Department of Fish and Wildlife to be always on top of what's going on in the Department.

At 5:54 pm on Friday, December 2, I received an email with two conflicting press releases. The first, posted on their website at 10:45 am, said the CDFW license sales counters will be closed on December 5.

The second release, posted on their website at 3:45 pm, retracted the earlier news release, stating that the counters would be actually open that day.

The first press release, CDFW License Sales Counters will be Closed Dec. 5, stated:

CDFW License Sales Counters will be Closed Dec. 5

DECEMBER 2, 2016

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is notifying the public that department license sales offices will be closed Monday, Dec. 5.

Due to staffing uncertainties, all CDFW hunting and fishing license sales counters will be closed for the day. Sales counters will re-open during regular business hours on Tuesday, Dec. 6.

Sport fishing and hunting licenses will continue to be available from more than 1,400 license sales agents statewide and online. Commercial fishing license renewals will be available online, or at select license agents. CDFW customers can find their nearest license agent by using this online tool.

Media Contact: Clark Blanchard, CDFW Education and Outreach, (916) 651-7824

The second release, CDFW License Sales Offices Will Be Open Monday, stated:

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is retracting an earlier news release notifying the public of department license sales office closures on Monday, Dec. 5. All CDFW license sales counters will be open during regular business hours that day.

Media Contact

You have to love it when a plan comes together. You look at the tides, look at the weather forecast, and head to the water to see what really happens. In most cases, Mother Nature throws some curveballs into your game plan. This fall, I was able to put my fish planning skills on the line, with both stripers and sturgeon as the intended targets.

I hit the West Delta with RJ Sanchez of Oakland. We had been arranging to go trolling, but I was really onto a hot bait bite, so we decided to change plans.

In fact, I can honestly say that several of my early-November bait fishing trips in 2016 were the best striped bass fishing I have ever seen. There were days where we couldn’t bait our rods up fast enough, with double and even triple hookups on quality stripers to fourteen pounds.

I knew that the red-hot action wouldn’t last, but I was hoping to at least get RJ onto some decent stripers and maybe even a bonus sturgeon if we were lucky. I had a pretty good game plan in the back of my mind, and I was pretty confident that we would get some nice fish.

I met RJ at the launching facility at a quarter to six in the morning. We motored the boat towards a spot between Sherman Island and Pittsburg on the Sacramento River in 22 feet of water. As we anchored, the incoming tide was pushing against the southeast winds, creating rolling swells. The rollers weren’t massive whitecaps like I’ve seen in the past, but they were enough to keep the boat pitching in a mild fashion.

The incoming tide was predicted to go slack around 10:30 am that day. My plan was to fish for sturgeon during the...

Berkeley/Emeryville

Crab Combo Action Remains Solid When Weather Cooperates

(East Bay) When the weather is decent, crab and rockfish combo trips beyond the Golden Gate have been yielding fantastic results.

The best rockfish results have been coming from the Farallon Islands, while the north and south bars are both producing solid numbers of crab.

At the Emeryville Sportfishing Center boats like the New Huck Finn and Sea Wolf have been putting their clients on limit style rockfish and crab action.

In Berkeley the story has been the same for Captain Chris Smith of the California Dawn, Captain Quan Vo of the Golden Eye 2000 and Captain Jim Smith of the Happy Hooker. All three boats have been pulling in full limits of 10 crabs each for their anglers along with limits of rockfish and good numbers of lingcod.

The rockfish and lingcod season is slated to run through the end of December, so if you want to score some fillets and crab now is the time to hit the water!

Bodega Bay

Party Boats Still Loading Up With Limits Of Big Dungeness Crabs And Rockfish

(Bodega Bay) The commercial crab season opened north of Point Reyes to the Sonoma County line at the beginning of December after a delay of a few weeks due to high domoic acid levels, but the commercial pressure hasn’t slowed down the sport action for party boats.

Captain Rick Powers of Bodega Bay Sport Fishing said, “We are just coming back in with 34 limits of rockfish, 34 limits of crab, and a few lingcod on Wednesday, December 7th, and the crabbing is still spectacular. Anglers are leaving our boat with a gunny sack loaded with 10-crab limits and a big bag of fillets, so they are ‘as happy as they could be.’”

The swell...

On November 28, a coalition of California conservation, fishing and public interest organizations urged the Obama Administration to terminate Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels plan, the California WaterFix, before Donald Trump is inaugurated in January.

“It is time now to make the right decision,” the groups said in a letter to federal officials. “The California Water Fix-- Delta Water Tunnels-- represent a financial as well as an environmental nightmare. This administration should terminate this project. Otherwise, down the road, when the obvious financial and environmental catastrophe is recognized by all, the blame will be placed on this administration.”

The organizations addressed the letter to Sally Jewell, the Secretary of Interior; Gina McCarthy, the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Christina Goldfuss, Managing Director of the Council on Environmental Quality; David Murillo, Regional Director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and other officials.

Groups signing the letter include Friends of the River, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Restore the Delta, Environmental Water Caucus, Center for Biological Diversity, California Water Impact Network, AqAlliance, Sierra Club California, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water and Planning and Conservation League.

"When it takes fraud, cover-ups, hiding your own economic analysis and absurdly low estimates to keep a project proposal afloat, that is a red flag that the project is a bad one that should not go forward," summed up Bob Wright, senior counsel of Friends of the River.

The groups call the Delta Tunnels plan a “classic corporate welfare public subsidy,” stating, “Every day people would be forking over their hard-earned tax dollars to very wealthy special interests to subsidize the Water Tunnels. And, there will be a disparate impact on low-income communities, both rural and urban, that will bear a disproportional burden through higher water costs for this project.”

The coalition documents how the costs...

As a big Pacific storm was slated to drench northern California, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced today it will increase water releases to the American River below Nimbus Dam on Dec. 15 at 9 a.m. from 15,000 cubic feet per second to reach 35,000 cfs by 1 p.m.

This is the largest increase in releases in one day in many years, at least since 2011. Peggy Manza of Reclamation said the purpose of the increased releases was for storage management and flood control.

Shane Hunt, public affairs officer for Reclamation’s mid Pacific region, said increased releases are based on changing conditions and are necessary to maintain space in Folsom Reservoir for projected Sierra runoff. Current storage in the reservoir is around 158 percent of its 15-year average for December.

Should inflows continue at current levels or increase, additional releases may be required, said Hunt. We haven’t made a final decision when other flow changes will be made and when the high flows will go down. The updated forecast and real-time conditions will dictate when we make another operational change.

He advised people recreating in or along the lower American River downstream of Folsom Dam to the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers can expect river levels to increase and should take appropriate safety precautions. Some inundation along the American River’s recreational trails and at Discovery Park are expected.

This release occurs at a critical time for struggling fall-run Chinook salmon and steelhead on the American. The salmon run is near its end as fish spawn in the river or have already spawned. The winter run of steelhead, listed as an endangered species, is starting to move into the river.

Bureau biologists believe that overall, the flows will be beneficial to salmon and steelhead. The releases will help clean...

The Chinook and coho salmon spawning are complete for the season at Trinity River Hatchery in Lewiston, while the spawning of steelhead will continue into the New Year.

Numbers of Chinooks, coho, and steelhead both seen at the hatchery and in the river are much lower than they have been over the past four years.

“We had some big flows in Julian week 50, up to 51,400 cfs, according to the USGS gage at Hoopa,” said Mary Claire Kier, CDFW biologist. “Hopefully we’ll get some good snow pack this winter and we can get the drought behind us.”

The Trinity River Fish Hatchery trapped a total of 1,509 fall-run Chinooks, including 1,311 adults and 198 grilse, this season. By contrast, the fall Chinook totals were 3,353 in 2015, 7,196 in 2014, 6,631 in 2013, and 17,595 in 2012.

The facility trapped 524 coho salmon, including 477 adults and 47 grilse, this fall. That compares to 3,337 fish in 2015, 3,274 in 2014, and 8,238 in 2012.

Steelhead numbers are also down at the hatchery, with only 582 counted to date. That compares to 3,272 in 2015, 2,550 in 2014, 2,302 in 2013, and 5,736 in 2012.

Fishing pressure for steelhead is very light, with few anglers getting out on the river lately. “Nobody’s coming in either bragging or whining about the fishing,” said Tim Brady of Trinity Outdoors.

Trinity Lake is holding 1,231,986 acre-feet of water, 50 percent of capacity and 76 percent of average. Releases to the Trinity River below Lewiston Dam continue to be 300 cfs.

The salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity River, the largest tributary of the Klamath River, are currently imperiled by Governor Jerry Brown's Delta Tunnels plan. The project

California Governor Jerry Brown yesterday lauded the release of the final environmental documents for the controversial Delta Tunnels, a plan that fishermen, Tribal leaders, conservationists, family farmers and environmental justice advocates consider to be the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history.

Brown touted the California WaterFix, his proposal to build two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, as California’s effort to modernize the state’s water infrastructure.

This project has been subjected to 10 years of detailed analysis and more environmental review than any other project in the history of the world, said Brown in a statement. It is absolutely essential if California is to maintain a reliable water supply.

Brown also made his case for the tunnels in an article in the Sacramento Bee, Jerry Brown plunges ahead on twin tunnels, written by Dan Morain, the Bee’s Editorial Page Editor.

We’ve put everything we have into it, Brown told Morain in an interview. The best scientific thinking says California needs the project.

The decision to grant the permits for the Delta Tunnels won’t be made until next year after President-Elect Donald Trump enters office, so you can bet that Brown, in spite of his posing as the alleged resistance to Trump's environmental policies, will be doing everything he can to convince Trump to support his legacy project.

Referring to Trump, Brown told Morain, I don’t think the president wants to destroy the economy of California. It’s not about being conservative or liberal. It’s about having the plumbing that meets the needs of the 21st century.

In a statement, Restore the Delta, a coalition opposed to the Delta Tunnels, contested Governor Brown’s claim that the tunnels plan is backed up by the best scientific thinking.

Governor Jerry Brown told the Sacramento Bee that Delta Tunnels proposal...

In the biggest release of water since 2006, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on December 16 increased releases to the American River below Nimbus Dam from 15,000 cubic feet per second to 35,000 cfs.

It was awesome to see these massive flows rushing from below the dam into Nimbus Basin, flooding the trees and brush along the river, the day after the release. As I walked along the river, I was surprised to see three anglers wading at the edge of the inundated road to the basin in an area of slack current between trees.

“Are you catching any fish today?” I asked them.

James Lovejoy of Folsom responded, “Yes, I just caught a nice hen.”

He showed me the salmon on his stringer, a 16 lb. hen that was surprisingly bright. “It was kind of lethargic coming in,” he noted. “I caught it on a red and orange bead.”

“The fishing was even better yesterday when I got on the river,” said Lovejoy. “I caught my limit of two kings weighing 20 and 12 pounds.”

His fishing partner, Alvin Bulloda of Sacramento, also experienced great fishing the day before. “I caught a limit of salmon weighing 23 and 16 pounds, and an 18 inch steelhead on beads yesterday,” said Pulloda.

Fishing high water can be dangerous, as evidenced by the number of anglers and homeless people that had to be rescued during the recent high releases.

I have found excellent action several times during high flows. On a February afternoon in 1999 when flows were still 35,000 cfs from storms, I caught and released two steelhead, along with releasing a bright king salmon, while tossing out a silver/blue Little Cleo for only an hour.

Shane Hunt, public affairs officer for Reclamation’s mid Pacific region, said the increased releases to...

From the time he was five years old, Cody Meyer of Auburn wanted to be a professional bass fisherman. Not only has the angler fulfilled his dream of becoming a full-time professional bass fisherman, but at the age of 33, he recently caught a fish that may set a new world record for spotted bass.

On December 16, Meyer was fishing at Bullards Bar Reservoir with his fishing partner, JR Wright, when he hooked a gigantic 10.8 lb. spotted bass.

“On the previous weekend, Wright and I had fished a tournament at Lake Oroville,” said Meyer. “With a five fish limit weighing 9.6 pounds, we placed 4th out of 50 boats. We decided to go fishing at Bullards Bar where we had a possibility of catching big bass after the water had come up from recent storms.”

After launching their boat on the rapidly filling reservoir near the dam, they went to their first spot towards the river arm.

“That first spot produced two spotted bass weighing 6-3/4 and 8 pounds,” he said. “We left and went to our next spot. The fish were suspended at 20 feet over 100 feet of water. Wright caught his biggest spotted bass ever, a 7-1/2 pounder, there. I threw out a Strike King weightless stick bait.”

“When I hooked the big fish,” he noted, “I freaked out. I realized the fish could be a world record or at least a line class record. The fish took five minutes to get in with the 6 lb. test line I was using, but it seemed like five hours since the fish fought like crazy all of the way to the boat. Finally, my fishing partner netted it and we high-fived one another.”

He then called his CDFW game warden friend, Tim Little, who holds the...

Conventional wisdom asserts that surf fishing is one of the least productive angling approaches you can choose. It is said that when you divide the number of hours saltwater bank anglers spend fishing by the number of fish caught, you find that surf anglers land less than a quarter fish per hour.

For some folks, these assertions and statistics might hold true, but not in my experience. I’ve been bank fishing the Pacific coast for decades and I’ve enjoyed really good action over the years for both saltwater panfish like surfperch and rockfish, as well as for big game species such as lingcod, cabezon, and even halibut.

For me, success has always come down to location and presentation. If I make the correct presentation in the right location, I catch fish.

Before I get into specifics, let me start off with a short rant. I’m not fond of the term surf fishing, because the iconic image of an angler standing on the sand tossing baits into the surf zone using a long heavy rod only represents a small portion of the fishing available.

I much prefer the term coastal bank fishing. Sure, at certain times and when targeting certain species, you’ll do fine when working the sand and surf zone, but truth be told, oftentimes the best fishing takes place around rocks, along jetties, and in coastal bays.

Now there are a lot of different ways to approach the subject of coastal bank fishing from the perspective of location, tackle, and even seasonally. Yet the approach that makes the most sense to me is in terms of size and species. Let’s warm up with a discussion of saltwater panfish, namely fishing for perch and rockfish before wading into the big game arena.

Surfperch encompass a long list of species. To...

trolling depth, I use weighted flies or add weights to the line in front of the fly. Additionally, adjusting the speed of the troll can also make a difference in how effective the fly is.

Slow Trolling with Dough Bait

When the fish are not responsive to flies, switching to dough bait can save the day. I like to use a garlic-flavored dough bait that stays on the hook well and releases a scent that attracts trout. A slip sinker rig works well for this. Just make sure to keep the bait off the bottom and let it drift naturally with the current.

Flatfish and Spoon Trolling

When the situation calls for a different approach, I often turn to Flatfish lures or spoons. Flatfish can be fished at a variety of depths, and I love their wobbling action to draw strikes. You can experiment with color patterns to see what works best on any given day. Spoons, on the other hand, can be effective when slow-trolled just below the surface, allowing them to mimic injured baitfish.

Remember, when the trout aren't biting aggressively, changing tactics can totally revitalize your day on the water.

The Fish Sniffer has the best incentives at the Sacramento ISE Show. That’s a bold statement, but it’s true. Better still, our incentives come with a subscription to the Fish Sniffer, the hardest hitting, most in-depth fishing magazine on the West Coast.

So what do we have to offer? Since you are reading this, you already know that the Fish Sniffer is published every other week, 26 times a year, covering both the freshwater and saltwater fishing scenes in the Golden State and beyond. We provide a long list of location-specific fishing reports in addition to fishing features, map features, how-to articles, conservation articles, and product reviews.

All this is a given, and you can get it all by buying a subscription over the phone, through the mail, or online. You can also buy the magazine one issue at a time at one of our hundreds of retail outlets. However, if you buy your subscription at this year’s ISE Show, you’ll receive all this great information and share in all the great incentives we GIVE AWAY with subscriptions purchased at the show.

This year, we’ve got a bunch of fishing rods to give away to our supporters. Anyone who has stopped by our ISE booth will attest that our rods are not low-end bargain models.

This year, we’ll supply our subscribers with saltwater and freshwater rods from a variety of top manufacturers such as Fenwick, Cousins, Okuma, and Daiwa.

For the past several years, Vance Staplin Signature Series kokanee and trout trolling rods from Vance’s Tackle have been a popular staple in our booth, and we’ve been blowing through hundreds of them every January at Cal Expo. This year will be a little different, a little more exciting perhaps. We will have a supply of Vance’s hyper-popular spiral wrapped trout...

Rejecting the call by fishermen, Tribes, conservationists, family farmers and environmental justice advocates to terminate the Delta Tunnels plan before Donald Trump's inauguration, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on January 4 issued a Secretarial Order that will mandate the completion of Governor Jerry Brown’s controversial California WaterFix process in a timely manner.

The final Biological Opinion will be issued by April 2017 and the decision to sign a Record of Decision will be made by the next Secretary under the Trump administration, according to the order.

The Obama administration order directs the Department of Interior and its agencies to take timely actions to help address the effects of drought and climate change on California’s water supply and imperiled wildlife.

Regarding the Delta Tunnels project, the order directs Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allocate available resources, as necessary, to complete in a timely manner the Biological Opinions under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act and a Record of Decision on the environmental documents for California WaterFix.

The Secretarial Order directs the Fish and Wildlife Service to take all necessary actions to issue an initial Draft Biological Opinion in January 2017 and a final Draft Biological Opinion by March 2017 after incorporating the results of independent scientific peer reviews. Following these reviews, a final Biological Opinion will be issued by April 2017.

The order also specifies that the Department, working with the State and others, will promptly review and consider any information received after publication of the Final EIR/EIS and issuance of the Biological Opinions, and will then be prepared to sign a Record of Decision. This decision will be made by the next Secretary.

In a press release, Deputy Secretary Michael L. Connor claimed this Secretarial Order is a practical and broad-based strategy to help...

The Sand Crab Classic Perch Tournament, based out of Santa Cruz, is now taking sign-ups. I have been to this derby virtually every year except for one since the event started in 2005 and I have enjoyed myself thoroughly every time.

An all-volunteer crew puts on the derby each year. The event has raised thousands of dollars to fund the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project, a model fish restoration project, over the past twelve years.

On that first day, a big Pacific storm hit the coast, with lots of rain and wind. Yet anglers still caught numerous quality perch all around Monterey Bay.

While I was on the Santa Cruz Wharf that inaugural day alone, I witnessed anglers catch seven varieties of surfperch, including barred, black, rainbow, striped, shiner, walleye and rubberlipped perch.

Since that inaugural event, nothing including a Tsunami one year and torrential rain another, have stopped the organizers and anglers from enjoying the tournament.

It is one of my favorite fishing happenings of the year because it is so grassroots, low key and different from any other event I attend.

This is year #13 and it will be the biggest and the best, said Allen Bushnell and Mike Baxter, event organizers. We hope you can make it to the derby this year. Get your entry in quick, we are limiting to the first 300 entries due to space constrictions at the Portuguese Hall, and we WILL sell out this year!

While many saltwater derbies focus on boat-based anglers, this is a surfcasting derby designed for shore, perch and pier anglers. The biggest perch in each category wins. There are equal prizes and trophies for barred surfperch and other colorful perch as well.

There is a 1pm weigh-in deadline that the tournament organizers observe religiously. Entries for...

Here we are in the midst of one of the wettest winters in recent years, and I am writing about techniques that work best in low and clear river conditions. Timely, to say the least. I don't know what got me thinking about swinging spoons and spinners for steelhead, but here's some musings on the matter from a mediocre fisherman.

When I think of ideal conditions for spoons and spinners, I think of rivers running low and clear. The key with either form of hardware is for the fish to be able to see it. There is no smell or taste factor involved unlike fishing a juicy glob of roe or a shrimp.

On the plus side, steelhead aren't going to move very far to hunt down a nickel sized piece of roe innocuously drifting along with the current, but if a big flashy spoon goes wobbling overhead, the fish very well may track it down.

If you are new to spoon fishing, the bite is unequaled by anything other than a northern pike chasing down a minnow plug or a striper caught on the troll. I can recall a few times reeling in a spoon where I could feel the telltale wobble of the spoon telegraphed through the line and into the rod, and then there would be a feeling of complete slack followed by a violent yank.

Sometimes they will hit so hard that they pull line off the reel, and the drag will wail in protest. It's one of those things that all fishermen should feel at least once. If you get the hang of it, you can actually reel down the slack after the initial grab and really cross the fish's eyes with a hookset.

Of course, that's also how you break even the strongest of...

Amador

Lake Amador continues to go over the spillway into Jackson Creek, due to the latest big storms that moved through the Mother Lode.

The access road to the lake has reopened after being closed, due to flooding, for a few days. Fishing pressure has been light and the lake water has been muddy. Trout action is tough, as can be expected.

“If you want to catch rainbow trout, the key is to use something that is scented,” advised Elyse Lockhart at the Lake Amador Resort. PowerBait, nightcrawlers, spinners and spoons, doused with lots of Pro-Cure scents, are recommended for anglers looking to hook trout.

The lake management suspended trout plants for two weeks during the recent storms, but the lake was planted again with 1200 pounds of rainbows on January 19. The annual Tagged Trout Derby continues until March 19.

When boating on the lake, watch out for wood and debris washed in from the big storms.

Camanche

(Burson) “Lake Camanche hasn’t seen much sunshine since the heavy storms of last week, but at least the fishing has been great,” according to the Camanche Recreation Company.

Lake Camanche is currently at 79% of capacity and the water level continues to rise. The California Dept. of Water Resources is estimating that Lake Camanche is receiving 5,123 cubic feet per second of water flowing from Pardee and releasing 4,960 CFS.

Mt. Lassen Fish Farm released 3,000 lbs. of trout with 1,000 lbs. planted to the pond and 1,000 lbs. to both shores at the boat ramps prior to the ML

The following is a news release regarding the protection of juvenile coho salmon on the Klamath River.

SAN FRANCISCO—Today, a U.S. District Court judge ordered federal agencies to immediately take steps to protect juvenile coho salmon after several years of deadly disease outbreaks in the Klamath River.

Klamath River coho salmon are listed as threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. These fish are central to the cultural identity and survival of tribal nations along the river, and commercial fishermen rely on California’s second largest salmon producer for their livelihoods.

The Yurok Tribe, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Klamath Riverkeeper, and the Hoopa Valley Tribe sought a court order to compel federal agencies to manage river flows to protect juvenile coho salmon. Mismanagement of Klamath River flows below four major dams led to an outbreak of disease from a parasite called C. shasta in more than 90 percent of sampled juvenile salmon in 2015 and nearly that many in 2014. During the course of the case, the Bureau of Reclamation and National Marine Fisheries Service acknowledged their obligation to engage in consultation to develop mitigation measures to prevent future disease outbreaks.

In today’s order, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick found that the Bureau’s operation of the Klamath Project is causing irreparable harm to the salmon and the Yurok Tribe and fishing families and that water levels appear favorable this year for the mitigation flows needed to reduce that harm. He found that, based on the best available science, "Plaintiffs have demonstrated that flushing flows and emergency dilution flows would reduce C. shasta rates among Coho salmon. There is no meaningful dispute among the parties on this point." He rejected pleas for delay to consider more evidence, stating "Where plaintiffs have shown a threat...

As the cavity in the Oroville Dam spillway continued to erode, California Department of Water Resources (DWR) staff today ramped up flows down the concrete spillway to 35,000 cubic feet per second after conferring with state and federal dam safety officials.

“There is no imminent or expected threat to public safety or the integrity of Oroville Dam,” DWR Director Bill Croyle and other officials have repeatedly said.

However, with inflows into the lake more than anticipated, it’s likely that DWR will increase flows to 55,000 cfs to avoid the use of the dam’s never-used emergency spillway.

Overnight flows of 20,000 cfs caused additional lower spillway erosion, as expected, officials said. The staff halted spillway flows again for a few hours this morning to evaluate the integrity of the structure.

DWR staff first noticed erosion on the spillway Tuesday morning and shut off flows to investigate.

“More erosion is expected, but the releases will help operators absorb the inflow of the storm expected today and tomorrow,” the agency stated.

After posting online a news release about the spillway rupture, DWR sent out a notice for today’s noon media phone briefing on the Oroville Dam spillway rupture at 12:07 p.m, seven minutes after it was supposed to have begun. This apparently haphazard approach to media outreach during a dam spillway failure has baffled a number of reporters at a time when the state agency should be clearly communicating with the press and the public.

There were also some technical problems with the call, including music suddenly intruding into the call and the line going mute for no apparent reason. It was also difficult to understand officials speaking and answering questions without identifying themselves.

Nonetheless, the Department reported it is releasing 35,000 cubic feet a second of water around the clock using the...

I just received this update on the Oroville Dam spillway hole from the Department of Water Resources:

SACRAMENTO – While there is still a chance the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville may be used this weekend, reservoir operators say that if current releases from the nearly full reservoir can be maintained, it is less likely the lake will rise to the point where water flows into the emergency spillway channel.

Whether the emergency spillway is used or not, Oroville Dam itself is sound and there is no imminent threat to the public, said California Department of Water Resources Acting Director William Croyle.

"We're ready to use the emergency spillway if needed," he said. "But we're trying to avoid it because there will be sediment and debris impacts downstream."

As storm runoff into Lake Oroville began to wane late Thursday, operators boosted releases from 40,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 65,000 cfs. Releases from the nearly full reservoir are hampered by erosion damage to the main spillway, but DWR officials said Friday that if the 65,000 cfs discharge can be maintained, use of the emergency spillway may be avoided.

If the reservoir does rise enough to tip overflow into the emergency spillway channel, that likely would happen Saturday. In that event, DWR will give the public as much notice as possible. DWR does not expect any emergency spillway discharge from the reservoir to exceed the capacity of any channel downstream as the water flows through the Feather River, into the Sacramento River, and into the San Francisco Bay.

The emergency spillway has not been used in Oroville Dam's 48-year history, but Lake Oroville came within a foot of spilling into it in January 1997.

Reservoir operators were using the main, gated spillway at the dam on Tuesday when the lower...

Water from Lake Oroville flowed over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam for the first time in the reservoir's 48-year history after the water level exceeded 901 feet in elevation shortly after 8 a.m. today.

The water slowly began to flow over the concrete weir of the auxiliary spillway, down a hillside and into the Feather River, a major tributary of the Sacramento River, the state’s largest river.

The flow over the auxiliary spillway has been between 6,000 and 12,000 cubic feet per second, according to an update from the California Department of Water Resources at 10:14 am on February 11.

Agency officials expect these flows to go into the auxiliary spillway for 32 to 58 hours, based on the latest modeling of weather, reservoir inflow, and other factors. There is no danger to the dam or people from the flows, according to the Department of Water Resources.

In a news briefing today, DWR Acting Director William Croyle said dealing with the damage caused by the growing hole in the dam's primary spillway could cost 100 to 200 million dollars.

Croyle said the damaged spillway will need complete replacement, noting that the current structure is not viable.

The flows we’re seeing are extremely low compared to the design of the structure, said Croyle. Based on our current situation, there is no threat.

In a statement earlier today, DWR said the volume of water is expected to pose no flood threat downstream and should remain well within the capacity of the Feather River and other channels to handle. Oroville Dam itself remains safe, and there is no imminent threat to the public.

The emergency spillway has not been used since the dam was finished in 1968, but DWR has anticipated and prepared for its use since Tuesday, when erosion opened a...

Three separate strains of fish – the Eel River strain of American River steelhead, the Coleman Hatchery steelhead strain, and Central Valley hatchery steelhead of undetermined origin – are returning to the American River this year, as evidenced in a trip that I made to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery on January 30.

The hatchery staff sorted through the fish as I watched them and took photos. The only fish the staff spawned during the season or put in the holding ponds for spawning over the next couple of weeks were the Eel River strain fish, characterized by their big silvery sides and slender bullet shapes.

The staff released both Eel River strain and the Central Valley fish back into the river. Meanwhile, they killed the Coleman strain fish, obtained from Battle Creek at Coleman National Fish hatchery, as part of a study to see how the fish fare in the American.

The reason for the current study of the Coleman fish goes back to 2008, when NOAA Fisheries issued a biological opinion requiring that fishery managers look at appropriate local Central Valley stocks for possible introduction into the American River, in order to reduce straying.

The biological opinion also urged fishery managers to explore reintroducing steelhead and salmon above rim dams into the headwaters where the fish used to spawn, including on the American River below Nimbus.

Before Folsom Dam, salmon and steelhead ascended into North, Middle, and South Forks of the American to spawn. As late as 1944, 1945, and 1946, the Department documented spring run Chinook salmon ascending the fish ladder at the old Folsom Powerhouse, according to Dr. Robert Titus, fishery scientist, in a presentation for the Save the American River Association in December 2013.

Jay Rowan, Acting Senior Hatchery Supervisor for CDFW's North Central Region, emphasized,...