Upcoming Events:
USAFishing proudly supports the many fishery and wildlife organizations that benefit anglers and hunters throughout Northern California. Does your organization have an upcoming event? Contact us at fishsite@aol.com and we will gladly post your group's information on our reports pages.

SalmonAid is a two day music and informational festival to be held on May 31 and June 1 at Jack London Square in Oakland. It is being hosted by one of the largest coalitions of salmon advocates across the West – commercial and recreational fishermen, conservationists, tribes, scientist and restaurateurs. Please join up for this fun event. 
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A Job Well Done!!!
Our governor and government agencies sure are doing a great job managing our fisheries and water resources. Just ask them..... and they will tell you in their press releases about all the great things that are happening. We would tell you that........
Coastal port businesses are going to be decimated by this year's salmon closure. The ripple effect is not just the 100s millions of dollars lost by businesses directly related to fishing. It's all the other related businesses from hotels to campgrounds to boat manufactures to repair shops to seafood wholesalers and retailers to tourism to airlines ect ect ect....
The ripple effect will be huge and 1000s of people will lose their jobs and businesses because of it. If you think that the 2002 Klamath salmon kill had an effect on our coastal communities just wait until this debacle blows through port.
This is certainly Cal Fish and Game's finest hour. They along with the PFMC closed deep water rockfishing putting all the pressure on the nearshore stocks and then take most of that away due to over fishing. DUH.... when you take away 80 percent of the fishable area, others are going to see an increase in pressure. I say open up some deeper waters to fishing. Yes, a few canary rockfish will be lost in the process but some early studies are showing that populations are bouncing back decades quicker than anticipated on the south coast and can likely take the impact and still continue to recover.

For several years F&G  has turned a blind eye to huge water diversions out of the delta that have destroyed our salmon striper and  fisheries. All the while never stepping up and doing their job which is to protect and manage our fisheries and wildlife.
In their Feather river hatchery alone they have cut production back from 25 million to just 12 million salmon fry and then release most without the use of acclimation pens and the majority are eaten by predators within the first day. They have said that they will have multiple releases sites and pens at each this year but only after that story got out to the media. We need to be INCREASING hatchery production right now not decreasing the numbers to mitigate for the lack of spawning habitat due to dams and water diversions.

Pictured above Fish and Game's new logo.

F&G never reviewed a BOR fish salvage plan on Prospect Island and then threaten volunteers with citations or arrest when they moved in to rescue 1000s of stranded sport fish (again, they relented once the story got into  the mainstream media).  Other than a warden and a biologist "overseeing" they didn't have anyone from the department on site assisting in the rescue. "It was a holiday weekend and there was no one who could respond" was their answer to critics. That's the equivalent of the fire department standing by while civilians put out a four alarm fire.

F&G has patrol boats, some worth well over a million dollars tied up in berths for months, sometimes years because they don't have enough wardens to staff them or they are broken down due to lack of maintenance and being run unprofessionally. Their budget almost certainly includes the purchase of more boats this year but who is going to run them? Sell a couple of boats and hire a few more wardens. Why are the boats staffed with mostly wardens? Hire a couple of out of work party boat skippers to run them for you. At the very least you won't be blowing up engines that cost over$100K to replace.

And now the Terminator is trying to push through a canal that will surely decimate all fisheries connected to the Delta and Fish and Game managers say nothing. Why? If they did the Terminator would certainly put them on the same list as Sara Conner. I would bet that not one manager at Fish and Game, the Department of Water Resources or The Bureau of Reclamation loses their job for any of the above debacles. So long as they keep their mouths shut they will be on the fast track to a promotion. Open it and you will be in charge of the state line check station in Truckee looking for quagga mussels in a blizzard.

We simply can not continue pulling this much water out of the Delta and expect fish to survive. The Fish and Game Commission has adopted a new water flow plan and while State will have to reduce pumping its not binding on the BOR pumps unless they sign off on it. Agriculture is a very important component of the California economy. It's water hungry subsidized cotton that we must stop growing as nearly 25% of the water being pumped out of the Delta goes to grow cotton in the desert.

My next question is when are some if these incompetent managers going to be fired?  If you or I were responsible for the death of a few dozen fish (say due to an industrial spill or a few canary or salmon hidden in the boat) we would be put on trial and get a free pass to our very own the Fish and Game dog and pony show. Why aren't the managers of BOR, BWR and F&G held to the same standard and laws as the public? Surely their decisions have killed millions of sport fish in just the past few years. They get "rewarded with six figure salaries and are never held responsible to do their "job" which certainly looks to be the complete MIS-management of our fisheries and water resources. In that regard they are doing a great job.