Delta Fishing Report

On Tuesday 2-8 Pam Hayes at Benicia Bait reported things have been quiet since the intensity of the weekend due to the sturgeon derby. She said, “Oh my goodness, it was a bit hectic around here on Saturday morning.” She knew of one 51-inch diamondback landed on grass shrimp in the Big Cut, and a 40-inch/30-pound striped bass was caught and kept in San Pablo Bay on a pile worm/eel combination. The weather outlook calls for warm and unfortunately dry conditions for the next week or longer.
Once again, we really don’t need a change in striped bass regulations with anglers willing to keep large striped bass such as this one. There will never be future striper plants in the Delta, so the large fish need to be preserved.
B and S Bait at McAvoy’s Boat Harbor was ground zero for the sturgeon derby, and they were swamped all weekend long. There were no boats out on Tuesday in the high winds. They were able to stock up on bait over the weekend, and they have a supply of the hard to find bullheads and mudsuckers in addition to the normal sturgeon baits.

Randy Pringle, the Fishing Instructor, reported a ‘solid’ largemouth bite with anglers picking up from 7 to 15 fish with a 6-pounder being a large one at the present time. During windy periods, Pringle has been going to reaction baits including the ½ oz. Persuader spinner bait or Timber Tiger DC 8 crankbait worked on a fan cast on the outside edge of the weedlines. The water temperature has risen into the low 50’s in the afternoons, and bass are cruising the shorelines and moving up into the shallows. He has been using the 7/8^th oz. Persuader E-chip jig with a Chigger Craw trailer in black/blue or black with a tinge of red on a ‘dead stick’ presentation. The fish are holding close to current in an attempt to load up with food, as Pringle predicts that they will start spawning on the next full moon. With the high degree of water clarity in the San Joaquin River, Pringle has respooled his reels to 12-pound test fluorocarbon as opposed to the normal 17 to 20-pound test.

A good opportunity to donate to a very worthy cause is the upcoming crab feed sponsored by the California Striped Bass Association – West Delta Chapter. Once a month, four of us from Stockton make the 40 mile drive to Antioch to participate in the club’s monthly meeting, and we appreciate the goals of this chapter – catch and release striper tournaments, supporting fishing opportunities for children, and supporting the health of the Delta and fisheries. Please consider either attending the crab feed or donating a raffle prize if you are able.

California Striped Bass Association West Delta Chapter
Dedicated to the preservation, conservation and enhancement of Striped Bass

The California Striped Bass Association, West Delta Chapter is preparing for our 25th Annual Kids’ Free Fishing Derby. The C.S.B.A. is a non-profit organization working under the laws of California, Federal ID# 94-2313551. We are a group of concerned individuals who are dedicated to the preservation, conservation, and enhancement of Striped Bass. One of our primary goals is to encourage the youngsters to “Get Hooked on Fishing, not on drugs and gangs”. The 24^th Annual Kids’ Free Fishing Derby was held Oct.22, 2011, 702 boys and girls, ages 3-12, enjoyed the day with their parents or grandparents. Most of the children had never fished before, some catching their first fish. All of the food, drinks and bait were free and each child left with a marble draw prize and a goody bag. Plans for a 25^th Annual “Kids Free Fishing Derby” is already under way. A Crab Feed fund raiser is planned for February 18, 2012 at 6pm in the Brentwood Veterans Memorial Building. Money raised from this event will go towards the 2012 “Kids Free Fishing Derby” Please help make the 25^th annual Kids Free Fishing Derby an even greater success.
The members of the C.S.B.A., West Delta Chapter want you to know that your contributions, sponsorship, and participation are going to good cause. Please consider donating to our Crab Feed this year and help make our “Kids Free Fishing Derby” a success. Here is how your contribution will be recognized: 1) Sponsor board displayed at the event, 2) Sponsor list on flyers, 3) A Certificate of Appreciation from C.S.B.A Thank you

Contact:

Roger Lund, Chapter Treasurer
C.S.B.A. West Delta Chapter 925 754-3938 P.O. Box 2691
600 Wilbur Ave #2016 Antioch, Ca. 94531
Email: kids_derby@yahoo.com www.striper-csba.com

1246 anglers entered the Original Sturgeon Derby out of McAvoy’s Boat Harbor in Bay Point over the weekend, and weigh-master Tony Lopez of Benicia Bait and Tackle reported outstanding action throughout both days of the derby, saying, “I can’t remember weather like this with an absence of wind, sunshine throughout the day, and flat, calm water.” Lopez said, “There were a number of fish released as they were in the 60+ -inch length and over the target length.”The derby went off with a minimum of controversy, although 2 sturgeon were disqualified on Sunday morning for damaged tails, and 2 boats were disqualified for fishing on the restricted day of Friday. Fellow participants videoed these boats on the anchor in Grizzly Bay on Friday, but it kind of makes you wonder why they were out there in the first place. Another boat raced into the harbor on Sunday afternoon with an obviously out of the money sturgeon at 62-inches; and in their haste to make the weighin, they waked a number of boats in the harbor.

We know that things were on the up and up with Captain Jay Lopes of Right Hook Sport Fishing coming in first place for his client on Saturday with a fish right on the $$$$$

2012 Super Bowl Sturgeon Derby Results


Payout	Saturday Length	Saturday Winner	Sunday Length	Sunday Winner

1^st – $7277.00	59 -inches	Keith Orton on the Right Hook	59 and 3/16^ths	Ron Anderson (tie) $5216

2^nd - $3115.00	58 and 15/16^th	Ron Riisinger	58 and 3/16^ths	Jason Carbajal (tie) $5216

3^rd - $1557.00	58 and 7/8^ths	Bob Monckton on the Reelentess	59 and 5/16ths	Michael Monahan

4^th – $1012	58 and 11/16^thsand 59 and 5/16^th	Willie Ciaromytaro Marty Cherry (tie)	59 and 9/16ths	Joshua Johnson

5^th -			59 and 9/16ths	Stanley Siu

6^th – $623	59 and 3/8^ths	Humberto Delatorre	59 and 11/16ths	Louie Lakeman (Five –year old)

7^th - $468.00	59 ½th	Mark Peters	59 and 3/4ths	Anthony Belleci James Nichols (tie)

Jay Lopes of Right Hook Sport Fishing had an ‘epic’ day on Saturday with numbers of sturgeon caught and released so ridiculous they will leave most in disbelief. They were fishing the shallows with straight eel, and his client, Keith Orton, landed the only sturgeon right on the target length all weekend at 59-inches. Lopes said, “Bob Monckton on the Reelentless was right by me, and he put in the 3^rd place fish on Saturday to go with another close to the target on Sunday.”

Keith Orton with the $7000.00 fish on the Right Hook!

Gian Marcucci of the Deaf Anglers’ Sturgeon Challenge was on the boat that landed the 59 and 13/16^th-inch sturgeon that tied for 1^st in Sunday’s portion of the derby. The fish hit at 3 a.m. outside of Pittsburg, and Gian had to stop the floorboards and throw things at his two partners to wake up and reel in the fish. The Deaf Sturgeon Anglers Challenge is scheduled on Saturday, March 31^st in Martinez, and it is open to the first 250 participants. An important part of this 5^th annual event is a raffle fundraiser for the CalBass deaf and disabled youth fishing organization. The top prize is a 4 night, 2 days of fishing trip to Cabo San Lucas. More information will come in the weeks to follow.

John Badger of Barbarian Sport Fishing took out a group on Saturday that had limited out on New Year’s Eve, but he worked hard to put them on to a single legal fish at 61-inches working from the Fleet, to east of the Benicia/Martinez Bridge near Buoy 2, between Roe and Ryer Island, through the shallow water back to the Benicia Bridge. He said, “Sturgeon fishing was very tough, as the local fish have been pounded by the derbies and boat traffic,” adding, “I took a chance and looked for fish since quatting and rotting is not my style, and thanks to the patience of the crew and hard work from my deck hand, Zak, we took a day that didn’t seem very fishy into a challenging battle of wit and patience.”

Mike Pipkins of Gotcha Bait in Antioch reported very good sturgeon fishing during the derby with the absence of wind all weekend stating, “I haven’t seen weather like this in more than 20 years.” He said, “They have been catching fish all over with a 60.25-incher taken at Buoy 1 and a fat 36-pound/51-incher landed at Collinsville”. Other productive areas have been the Power Lines off of Sherman Island, the Big Cut, Grizzly Bay, and Honker Bay. There have been several flounder caught by area fishermen, but striped bass remain on the small side from just legal to 4-pounds. One anglers fished Honker Bay targeting stripers with mudsuckers for 5 fish to 10-pounds on mudsuckers. Gotcha has mudsuckers in the tanks.

Jay Sorensen of Jolly Jay’s Guide Service fished the first day of the sturgeon derby in Broad Slough and the Sacramento River near the Power Lines with ghost shrimp, and they ended up with two small legal stripers to 20-inches. “We had a couple of classic sturgeon pumps; but when it set hook, there was nothing there to my surprise,” said Sorensen. He couldn’t believe the weather conditions, and he added that there were few boats in the area with most boats further down in the Pittsburg and Martinez areas.

Commission votes against pursuing striped bass eradication proposal

The California Fish and Game Commission rejects DFG's proposal to new striper regs. See Fishing News

News from Restore the Delta

Public input on canal planning

The 3-hour January 25 Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) public meeting was devoted to presentations on eight chapters of the BDCP draft by consultants ICF International. Most of the time was spent on appendices to the chapter that analyze biological effects of the plan, and on public comments and questions related to those appendices. With an audience of 40-50 people, plus call-in participants, there were a lot of comments and questions.

Without getting into important technical issues raised by Delta supporters, here are some interesting points that emerged:

The South Delta turns out not to be a very good place for habitat for "covered" (endangered) species. Anticipated temperature changes will make the water too warm. However, that area will still be useful for fish passage and food production - for fish. When the consultant mentioned food production, she didn't mean agriculture.

Consultants used 17 different models to analyze water flows. Contra Costa Water District's Greg Gartrell suggested that consultants might be failing to analyze the precision of the models. For example, one model they used assumes that the San Francisco Bay will not be affected by sea level rise. Gartrell cautioned against believing the models without thinking about what they actually mean.

Ann Spaulding of the City of Antioch noted that noted that BDCP will result in more salt in the western Delta. The consultant agreed, noting that that situation was driven by climate change (a regular scapegoat in the day's discussions), restoration, and less Sacramento River water. For the consultant, less Sacramento River water is just a given, a factor in an equation. Resources Deputy Secretary Jerry Meral, who was chairing the meeting, acknowledged the significance of Spaulding's comment. The question, he said, is What are we going to do about it? But before he could address that question, Westlands' Jason Peltier interrupted with a comment on a different issue, and Meral never got back to the issue of salinity in the western Delta.

Bill Wells of the Delta Chambers and Visitors Bureau asked whether anyone could point to other situations where a restoration effort like this has worked. Someone mentioned the channelizing of Florida's Kissimmee River, a project that is now being reversed to restore habitat. Meral hastened to point out that the situation in Florida is different. "It didn't work," he joked, "but look at the jobs it created." Even Westlands' Peltier didn't think this was funny.

George Hartmann, attorney for several Delta reclamation districts, noted that Governor Brown announced recently that he thinks we should build conveyance now and get to habitat later. (What the Governor said is, "Our obstacle [to an initial plan for the conveyance project] is not the big water bond there. It's the environmental impact report and the state and federal permits, that's what we've got to do. . . . Then at some point, we've got to have the money for the habitat restoration, but these are 50-year programs . . . .")

Meral had a complicated and not very reassuring answer to that, winding up with Brown meaning that you wouldn't want to do habitat all at once because you might get it wrong. A federal fish representative noted that there would have to be a clear schedule for habitat restoration in order for the take permits to be valid. "Do you really believe," asked Hartmann, "that the permits wouldn't be amended [to allow project operations to continue]?"

Anyone who has been following water projects operations for the last 40 years knows that the permits would certainly be amended to enable exporters to get the water they wanted.

As for implementing the BDCP, Deirdre Des Jardins of California Water Research Associates wanted to know what entity - the Delta Stewardship Council? the Department of Water Resources? the Legislature? - would enact governance changes. Meral said that the Implementation Board would consist of DWR, the Bureau of Reclamation, and permitted agencies. That appears to give the water contractors quite a lot of authority over a plan that is supposed to govern their activities. How concerned can we expect them to be about the public trust?

At this point, nobody seems to know who's going to be in charge.

This month's smoke and mirrors

If you are having trouble keeping track of what's going on here, you're in good company. We have the BDCP going forward with a plan that the 2009 legislation said was supposed to be incorporated into the Delta Plan. But the Delta Stewardship Council plowed on ahead to produce a draft Delta Plan WITHOUT the BDCP and has done a draft EIR (environmental impact report), on which interested parties are hurrying to comment before February 2. They're commenting on a Delta Plan that is missing its most controversial constituent. In fact, despite the fact that the Delta Plan Draft EIR is thousands of pages long, there is no actual project in it at all.

Meanwhile, the 2009 legislation directed the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to develop flow criteria to determine appropriate water diversion amounts associated with BDCP. The SWRCB did that in 2010. But a coalition of water contractors has asked the SWRCB to delay setting Delta outflow objectives until AFTER the BDCP is complete. They're concerned that the Board's 2010 Delta Flow Criteria would interfere with other beneficial uses of water.

In other words, they want to wait to set outflow objectives until AFTER they've completed their plan for diverting Sacramento River water away from the Delta.

You can read the letter here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/78877062/SWRCB-Water-Power-Letter

Next up is the EIR for the BDCP, which will have to analyze alternative sizes of diversions. But all the analysis so far is predicated on a conveyance capacity of 15,000 cfs.

Where there's a will, there's a way to pay?

Natural Resources Secretary John Laird has added his voice to those who want to slow down on flow studies and determinations for the Delta. He's also asking outside groups not to engage in discussions with legislators about water conveyance, Delta levees, or financing, saying that such discussions are premature.

It looks like problems with financing high speed rail may be spilling over into the peripheral canal debate.

The Governor doesn't want to talk about the water bond. In this economy, an $11.14 billion general obligation bond is going to be a hard sell, and he is more interested in taking a new tax plan to California voters.

Besides, the bond explicitly does not provide funding for the design, construction, operation, or maintenance of Delta conveyance facilities.

So where is the money supposed to come from? A potential financing solution is buried in the Fifth Draft of the Delta Plan, discovered by Deirdre Des Jardins: The Delta Stewardship Council wants revenue bond authority to implement the Delta Plan, which is understood to include conveyance once the BDCP is incorporated.

Revenue bonds are bonds repaid solely from revenues generated by a specific revenue generating entity. The DSC doesn't generate revenues, so they would have to find a fiscal partner who does generate revenues. Presumably, that would be the water contractors, who will be collecting revenues from beneficiaries of the project. But with or without a fiscal partner, it isn't clear that the DSC even has revenue bonding authority.

Meanwhile, the flaws in the "beneficiary pays" plan for paying for Delta conveyance are becoming clear. Most farmers won't be able to afford the water, and urban water agencies are finding their ratepayers are increasingly reluctant to pay more for imported water.

A cost/benefit analysis of the BDCP and Delta conveyance would clarify some of those issues. We expect to see a bill calling for such a cost/benefit analysis introduced in the legislature shortly.