Posted by Dave Hurley
on 5/2/2009, 11:37 am
75.144.97.157
A 40-pound/49-inch female striper was caught and
kept off the banks from Brannan Island on a pile worm recently. When questioned why he kept the big fish, the angler said, “Well, it was my biggest striper ever.”
Take now, and our next generation won't have fish like this in which to look forward. All you have to do is ask any of our living veteran fishermen about what things were like on the Delta in the 50’s and 60’s to realize that striped bass are rapidly disappearing from the river system. I had the advantage of
getting to fish as a child with my grandfather whose father was a commercial fisherman in the Delta since before the turn of the century. My grandfather, who passed away in 1989 at age 84, always said, “Dave, I have seen the best of the Delta, things just aren't the same.” He would only shake his head at the conditions today.
Given all of the past water wars, and the prospect of more and more water battles to come, as fishermen, we are our own worst enemy when it come to keeping the big female stripers. There are those who want to eliminate the entire species, and as a group, anglers throughout the state collectively met to fight this obvious smoke screen or easier access to the state’s water. But if we asked several members of this group about keeping a big striper, there would be those who would adamantly defend the right to keep the fish.
We have to change our thinking because we can't have it both ways.
If the fish is in the Aqueduct, San Luis or Millerton, it is different story because this fish will never breed, but large stripers from the bay/delta are the lifeblood of future generations. As members of CSBA, we have to rethink our participation in any Delta fishing derby that doesn't have a target length. It is incomprehensible that any chapter can run a derby in the Delta without a target length - a battle that I have expressed my concerns about regarding my own chapter of membership - Stockton. There are some things that we can to as an organization:
1) Target length derbies only in the bay/Delta.
2) Boycott magazines and publications that promote pictures of anglers with large stripers from the bay/Delta.
3) Promote catch/release of all fish larger than 10-pounds, especially females.
I am aware that many members will disagree with these comments, but we are so limited in what we actually have control over. Water, habitat degradation, pollution and invasive species are all areas of minimal control. The only thing we have any real control over is the message that we promote and practice as members of CSBA.
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