Category Archives: environment

Just when you thought it was safe to stick your toe in the water

Think again.

This isn’t one of those silly hijackers requiring you to dance around with a bottle of 409 hoping the neighbors don’t notice, this sure ain’t something you can point a finger at and bemoan it’s presence – no, this is something much better, with big sharp teeth that abducts terriers and small children.

“Frankenfish”, aka, the “Giant Snakehead” is forty seven times more deadly than a McDonald’s Big Mac, and can consume an adult human in a week or so … depending on its mood.

Toothy little morsel, photogenic too

The species easily adapts to any freshwater habitat, including ponds, lakes, reservoirs, swamps, streams and drains. Eggs are laid in a sunken nest of vegetation near the shore, and the young are fiercely guarded by the parents. Full grown specimens can cause severe injury to humans who might inadvertently step near the nest. Juveniles are striped brown and black, and travel in large shoals.

The IGFA record is a 39″ specimen weighing nearly 21 pounds. If it liked your submerged buttock, you’d sure know about it quickly.

Some poor fellow landed one in the River Witham in Britain, and the natural concern is they may have achieved a foothold on a new continent. No additional sightings have been confirmed, but a lot of ecologists are gnawing on their fingernails as a result.

Be very afraid, the Snakehead can breathe air and walks on land..

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmU7etSYYqI&feature=related[/youtube]

On a morbid personal note, (and because TC expects it) it’s about time we had a good stand up fight instead of a “bug hunt” – us or them, Baby. It may prove our finest hour.

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You Call it healthy, I call it "human dandruff"

He carries his back to the car, how come you don't? Nothing brings the problem home more than surveying the debris field that is the high water mark. The Little Stinking has been a torrent over the last couple of weeks, and I amble out there periodically to keep tabs on it. Usually I have a garbage sack in tow, as each new high in the water level leaves a new supply of plastic water bottles and similar trash. It’s become my favorite pet peeve, as I feel obligated to carry yours back to the car along with the diet soda can I brought.

I get that you’re attempting healthy, but like most new hobbies you’re still unskilled in the fine points of carrying out your trash.

They float like corks and line every major waterway we fish. Light as air they’ll fly out the back of pickup trucks, slipping out when the car door’s opened, and sprayed around the neighborhood by your kids – who get these from Mom as they’re “more healthy than soda pop.”

They aren’t really, but you bought the whole “mountain spring-double-extra-pure” advertising package, and now you’re paying more for a gallon of water than you do for gas.

You must really like tap water.

In fact, about 40 per cent of bottled water actually is tap water. The biggest-selling brands are Aquafina, which is owned by Pepsi, and Dasani, which is owned by Coke. As Pepsi was forced to admit last summer, both brands are just filtered tap water — with an outrageous markup.

Diet soda isn’t likely to set a gourmet’s tastebuds afire, but it isn’t costing $1.79 per 12 ounces either.

You ain’t as clever as you make out, now you’re looking at someone your own size

Lock and Load, Baby I got my question answered and it wasn’t the screenwriter’s what done it, just a run-of-the-mill Legal type wrote the script. This time they might’ve driven a wedge in the farming community and garnered fishermen some unlikely allies, something they’ll soon regret.

The “Water Wars” continue unabated, and last weeks suit of the State of California by the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, has escalated a bit – in my mind, a bit in our favor.

This coalition is the front for the farmers in Kern county, who are suing the Department of Fish and Game and the State of California for the promotion of a foreign species, Striped Bass, whose predatory antics (they claim) are causing the current decline in smelt, salmon, and most other fisheries.

This time they pooched it – as they’re also interesting in examining wasteful water practices from “…thousands of unchecked farm water diversions in the Delta itself.”

It’s no longer fishermen and ecologists against farmers, it’s going to be farmer on farmer. Whose crops are more important? I don’t think they want to surface that question, not with all those intertwined subsidies, corporate “farms” – and water intensive produce.

This will make one hell of a battle and will likely have some strange allies, and stranger opponents, with us “small yet vocal” fishermen prodding both 800 lb Gorillas… from a respectful distance of course.

A war on two fronts is a poor strategy, those that don’t learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

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Once upon a time on an irrigated desert far, far, away…

An Oscar winning screenwriter in the making Nothing like clever lawyers and a wealthy client to add convoluted logic to an untenable position.

The large farm interests in southern California lost the last round of law suits and were forced to make do with less – less water pumped south to irrigate desert, and less to make the lush lawns of Los Angeles bloom year round.

The declining “Delta Smelt” was the root cause, protected by the endangered species act. Not content with this setback, the water districts are suing the Department of Fish and Game and the State of California for allowing a foreign species (Striped Bass) to predate on the smelt population, which likely is the real cause of the declining population.

As proof of this horrible crime, the document points to the DFG’s attempt to restore the Striped Bass population to its historic norm via planting.

I give them an “A” for creativity, and my extended index finger for environmental conscientiousness. Not only are the evil stripers the bane of delta smelt, but it could be they’re destroying the salmon population at the same time.

No mention that the striper fishery has gone to hell roughly at the same rate as the smelt and salmon, but that’s consistent with a good Hollywood script, omit the details that’ll make the story sordid.

I’m not sure who orchestrated the plan, an out of work screenwriter on a binge, or an astute legal beagle that has a helluva future in movies…

Stay tuned, there has to be a partially clad heroine emerging from the underbrush momentarily…

Missing "Whale Food" means your grill remains cold

May want to release them if you get lucky I can’t imagine any two words with worse repercussions, but “unprecedented collapse” would have to rank right up there. Statistics on the 2007 winter Chinook estimates this year’s run has dwindled to only 90,000 fish.

These are the fish returning to California and Oregon waterways, likely to curtail fishing in more ways than just slim numbers, it may prompt fisheries managers and legislators to intervene.

There appears to be “an unprecedented collapse” in the number of chinook salmon that returned to spawn in the Central Valley last fall, according to an internal memo from the head of a fisheries agency who warned of sharp fishing restrictions when the commercial season opens in May.

Considering the 2003 run was 804,000, 2006 estimated at 277,000 fish, a one year decline of 66% has everyone shrugging their shoulders.

Salmon that spawn in Central Valley rivers form the backbone of the West Coast’s commercial and recreational salmon fishery and are caught by fisherman as far north as British Columbia.

Many possibilities exist to account for the sudden decline, crucial information that hasn’t been released, but most mention the lack of “krill” required to feed juvenile salmon. There’s little doubt we’ll hear more on this shortly, especially when they kill the commercial salmon season altogether.

What is particularly ominous is the lack of two year old “Jacks” – only 2000 have been seen to date among the current 90,000 returnees. The Jack count is viewed as an indicator of next year’s potential harvest, based on this count there won’t be a next year.

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Tracking the wily Queen of Waters – or is she merely a Pig with Fins?

Melt my reel and I'll call you Noble Nothing like a rainy weekend to catch up on all those tasks held in abeyance. The lack of fish available since the creek was blown out in early January, reminded me of my need to learn more of the lifecycle of the common carp.

It’s a big mystery, one day the creek has them available, a couple weeks later there aren’t any. I guessed food source or spawning migration, but didn’t know enough about either to be certain of the answer.

The Hideous Jabbering Head of Izaak Walton has been on sabbatical of late, so I was forced to go to his original tome.

The Carp is the Queen of Rivers: a stately, good and very subtle fish. The Carp, if he have water-room and good feed, will grow to a very great bigness and length; I have heard, to be much above a yard long.

He is a very subtle fish, and hard to be caught. If you will fish for a Carp, you must put on a very large measure of patience, especially to fish for a River-Carp.

The food angle is doubtful as I could only find them in a single pool despite searching for them over nearly eight miles of creek. The weeds remained after the fish left, so best guess is a spawning migration.

They’re eating machines,” says Win Taylor, a fisheries biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. He’s talking about the grass carp. In the summer of 2002, 21,000 of the vegetarian fish were turned loose in Lake James. By that time, hydrilla had claimed 500 acres of the lake; but since the carp’s arrival, there’s been little sign of the territorial weed. In certain circles, the grass carp’s savage eating habits have earned it the nickname “H-Bomb.

The only puzzle remaining is which direction they came from; the creek runs 40 miles north and ends at the dam face of Clear Lake, I assume they can’t get past the dam. South of me is a similar morass that may only connect to the Sacramento River in wet years.

A study in South Carolina with radio tagged fish suggests the average yearly movement of Grass Carp is around 9 miles, the maximum observed was 27 miles. The fish I caught weren’t overachievers and the statistics suggest I walk another mile and I should find them. Normally I would pack additional water and an extra sandwich, but there’s nothing like an election year to remind me statistics are often an overly optimistic guess…

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A long line release would be prudent but you’d miss the Big Payday

Big payday for a fisherman We keep hearing how the most dangerous occupation is Alaskan crab fisherman, I browse a lot of fishing news  and I’m starting to wonder about that statistic.

English trawlers have pulled in two WWII torpedoes recently, a third recovered in Australia, and yesterday the fourth was trawled up off of the Spanish coast. The “pucker factor” associated with the sight of that unstable ordinance has to qualify as an Extreme sport somewhere…

The “Mother of All Ordinance” was recovered by a Spanish fisherman, Francisco Simo Orts, a name never uttered in dry fly circles, but worthy of inclusion into someone’s angling hall of fame.

January 17th, 1966 – a mid air collision between a B-52 and KC-130 refueling tanker drops four H-Bombs onto the Spanish fishing village of Palomares. Recovery of the three on dry land proceeds swimmingly, but the fourth falls into the ocean.

The bomb that landed in the sea went missing for 80 days and became the object of an intensive search by the United States, which was afraid the Soviets might try to recover it.

A local fisherman, Francisco Simo Orts, had seen it hit the water and was enlisted to help the U.S. Navy establish the basis for its search operation. When the bomb was finally found, Simo Orts turned up in New York with an attorney, demanding the salvage award he claimed was due him in accordance with maritime law.

The U.S. secretary of defense said the bomb was worth $2 billion. Simo Orts asked for $20 million, or 1 percent of the bomb’s value, again in accordance with the custom of maritime law. The Air Force eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Instinct suggests Senor Ort’s fishing was recreational after collecting on the reward.

It’s a source of amusement for me, aside from the threat of thermonuclear devastation, if the nuke had been found by a bird watcher it’s likely they would have returned it for free. Like Senor Orts, someone drops a nuke in my favorite riffle – I’m likely to take it personal.

…and here I am worried about whether my lead split shot will screw up the environment…

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Fish populations show continued decline in the Sacramento Delta

New information released today suggest efforts to revive the delta fisheries have largely failed. The Sacramento Bee reports that this years trawl by the Department of Fish and Game, shows record low numbers of smelt, American Shad, and Sacramento Splittail, with two others, delta smelt and striped bass at near record lows.

Sacramento Bee's chart on delta fish population

The article suggests that multiple factors are at work, most are man made.

“..including excessive water diversions from the Delta, poor water quality caused by urban and farm runoff, and competition for food from invasive species.”

As we’ve reported earlier, environmental groups successfully sued to stop the pumping of water from the Delta to feed the thirsty maw of Southern California. As of December 29th, 2007 – deliveries will be limited by as much as 30% to customers in the southern end of the state.

State officials are attempting to address the restrictions by developing a comprehensive management plan for the Delta, but that may be too little too late.

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The Before and After – The Rise of the Big Muddy

Sleepy and Pastoral

The “Little Stinking” in it’s August benevolence, quiet, peaceful, scenic, and odiferous.

Swollen and unmanagable, damn near the same color

The “Big Muddy” from the same vantage point, 6″ of rain later. The color is damn near the same, so I’ll be fishing it by lunch today – via jetboat..

As both photos were taken from the same spot, it looks like about a 3 foot increase in flows. I make it 10 extra turns of lead wire, or a 4mm tungsten bead should do it…

Thanks, we needed that..

Gifts from the Wind God I’m still surveying the landscape changes from yesterday’s storm. I had the day off and a ringside seat to the festivities. I’m minus two fences, lost power for 14 hours, and received 3 new garbage cans from the Wind God, so I may have broken even.

Most of yesterday we received about 0.25 to 0.3 inches of rain per hour, and it was sorely needed as this winter has been as dry as any I can remember – delivered horizontal, due to the wind ranging from 40 to 60 mph, but we’re not going to quibble.

I’m guessing we may have to dig the Trout Underground out of a snowbank, if he received anything similar to what the valley got, we’ll have to locate him by his avalanche transponder.

I took a quick run out to the Little Stinking, and it’s now the Big Muddy. Swollen to about 4 times it’s normal size, and purging all of the instream debris into the Sacramento River. I guess if we’re going to see any salmon this year, it’ll be soon. Traditionally it runs at about 400 cfs,  yesterday it peaked at 12,000 cfs, and is running at about 1400 cfs now.

Naturally the camera batteries were played out, I’ll make another run later just to record the high water mark. We got somewhere between 4″ and 6″ of rain yesterday, and the effects are obvious.

I think I’ll have to add 6 or 8 more turns of lead on my flies..

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