Dick Thompson

In

In

In

Ok Part 2. In 2005 AB7 was passed into legislation. This is the law which states that 33.3 percent of all our license money must be "spent" on trout stocking. In this legislation it states "goals" of stocking 2.75lbs of trout for every license sold. Annual license sales number around 2 million per year. 2 mill X 2.75lbs = 5.5mil lbs of trout per year to be stocked. The annual coffer for this is about 32 million dollars. So to us fisherman, this sound great. Except for one fact, these are only goals for the program. The only law is the amount of money to be spent on stocking trout. Further research reveals that the bill was co authored by members of Cal-trout and the Fish hatchery workers union. So there you have it. The fish hatchery union basically got themselves 32 million dollars a year to pad their pockets. Cal-Trout, also has their fingers in the pie. But that is a whole other story. In August of Last year Cal-Trout helped to co-author the Senate Bill SB 1148 which upgraded AB7. It maintains the "Goals" stated in AB7, but now states how funds the must be spent. Basically money has to be spent on facilities and developing native and heritage fish programs. It also created 8 new positions within the trout stocking program. It also states that Triploid fish must be stocked wherever necessary, and now says the DFG may "look" to outside sources to meet stocking "goals". So basically they did nothing to make the amount of trout stocked a law, but only the amount of money spent on trout stocking. So as we speak, DFG has less lakes to plant, 32 million dollars to burn, and right now they are meeting about 60 percent of the goals stated in the Bills. I live 9 miles from Fillmore fish hatchery. Currently not one single body of water in Ventura county gets stocked. So you would think that the one lake that could get stocked (Upper Castaic) would get a larger amount of fish to make up for the lack of plants for the other places. But right now it gets less. DFG will not state the amount of trout being planted to people who ask. It is absolutely unacceptable to be giving them that amount of money and not know how its being spent. I have seen the arguing going on elsewhere because DVL gets huge amount of trout stocked while everyplace else is getting the shaft. I think Perris this year was getting the shaft. I saw it at the lagoon in late 2009 when the trout truck would show up and the guy would take a net and make about 5 scoops of 20 fish then leave and say the place was stocked. So right now if you ask DFG they claim poverty. They don't have the facilities, the staff, the gas money, etc, etc, etc. Typical Govt program. In the late 80's they had no problems stocking almost every stream and lake here in Ventura county, now they can't even Stock one. They whole thing gives me a headache. I am an engineer, not a biologist, so I lack some common knowledge of the basics of fisheries. I do understand, and have seen the impacts of taking the trout away from these big trophy bass. I know that stocking program is not intended to feed the bass, but it is by product of the trout stocking. It makes me sick to see the kids fishing off the fishing pier or the shoreline, knowing they don't have a snowballs chance of catching a fish. At this point I am past giving a crap what happens. I don't have the room in my life to try and make sense of this. Maybe some of you will read this and we can all get together and make a difference. And remember, this is the interpretation of the facts from a biased guy who likes to stick big bass. Maybe I am seeing things wrong. But please take the time to research these things on your own. Don't take my word for it. Maybe someone else can provide some constructive advice for us all.

There are 2 huge issues right now about trout stocking here in California. The first is the fact that DFG was sued by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and other groups because their trout stocking program never had a Environmental Impact Report (EIR) done. According to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) any state agency must perform and EIR for any project it performs. I will post another long winded reply about the second issue. Please bear with me on this. A little background on this. CBD and other environmentalist groups make a huge living by suing state agencies over the placement of species on the endangered species list. For example, they petition DFG to place spotted salamanders on the endangered species list, DFG refuses, because (for the lack of a better term) it is a pain in everyones ass to deal with a species on the endangered species list. So if DFG refuses, CBD will sue them, and if victorious, generally a judge will award legal fees to them. Generally they are represented Pro Bono. For instance, Stanford law students represented them when they sued over the trout stocking issue. The endangered Species act is a loosely worded outdated piece of legislation being exploited by environmentalist all over the United States. It is being used in ways never intended by its authors. So back to the trout stocking. DFG reluctantly performed the EIR which was approved in January of 2010. According to the EIR, any body of water that is to be stocked must pass a pre-stocking evaluation. This is performed by DFG biologist. They check for any negative effects of planted trout on the body of water being stocked. Many lakes easily pass these and trout stocking in a large amount of California waters was not interupted for very long. I live between 2 of what used to be some of California's premier Trophy Bass Fisheries (Casitas and Castaic). We thought little of worrying about endangered species or frogs or any other thing. Little did we know that DFG would consider these lakes access to waters which have So Cal Steelhead (which are endangered). DFG informed us they would not be able to approve these waters for stocking because a stocked trout could wash over the dam and interact with a steelhead!!!! DFG said a steelhead could try and breed with a stocked trout and therefore it would destroy the genetic pool of the steelheads. In March of 2010, I appeared before the DFG commission and spoke about the destruction of our local fisheries and opportunities to fish for trout in Ventura County. Currently no bodies of water are stocked. All of our streams have been destroyed because of this issue with steelhead. As most of you know it is nearly impossible for a trout to swim from Lake castaic and reach the ocean. But somehow Environmentalist groups can argue a stocked trout can wash over the lagoon spillway and screw up a steelhead! At that meeting I met with DFG biologist who said their plan was to raise Triploid fish to eliminate the chance of the stocked trout breeding with a steelhead. They assured me the triploids would be ready in a year. I thought at the time, "ok these big fish can hang in a year without trout then they can start stocking again." Nope, hasn't happened. Every year starts with me sending an email to DFG asking how the Triploids are coming and it always ends in the same reply "still waiting on (insert here) to approve this and it will be another year. They have destroyed Casitas. Castaic Lagoon is now about the same. Both pathetic shells of themselves. Long skinny big headed fish that were teeners now weigh 8 pounds. Casitas completely died off. I cant remember the last 10 pounder that came out of there. The lagoon is not far behind. So right now DFG is awaiting the completion of a Biological assessment of stocking triploid fish in our waters down here. Many other lakes are also on the same boat because of red legged frogs or whatever the hell else they can think of. If anybody else can comment or correct any errors I might have stated please feel free to do so. I will post another reply on the second issue (Assembly bill 7 and senate Bill 1128)

In

Dude!!!! Thats bad ass!!!! If we had those out here I'd never fish for largemouth again!

In!

For anyone looking I still have this boathttp:// http:// 1,500 obo. Socal.

In

[/img] 13 ftr. The best thing about this boat is rolling up to someone in a $60,000 boat and asking if they can take a picture then pulling a toad outta the livewell. And when you hook a fish the boat turns:-))) Its all electric for fishing the lagoon. Just got a Champion though. It was a little sketchy fishing deep off shore structure or main lake points on the weekends. I put a 10 hp on it and it hauled ass. I hate to see it sit outside so if anyone in socal is looking, its a sweet little rig.

In

Oh snap!!!!!! Gonna take a 10 pounder now:-)))) great job!!!! Catch her again in march.

In

In

Ben, that 14.8 has a monster frame! Wow! So how bad did you crap when that fish got its head out

Yep! Thats what a 15 looks like amazing how big they really are. Great job. Yep those hudds proven to be a hell of a bait. Great fish!

Holy crap! I just ran the mud run there and was Eye f@&king that lake the whole time. Great job brother. Beautiful fish