If there was ever an alarm bell to demonstrate the absolute folly of the state and federal government’s plans to export more water from the Delta, this year’s survey of juvenile striped bass is it.

The 2006 Summer Townet Survey index for young-of-the-year striped bass, released on August 18, is 0.5. This is the lowest juvenile index, a relative scientific measure of fish abundance, on record in the survey’s 47 years.

Early information from the Summer Townet Survey indicated a stronger year class, but protracted spawning and the apparent mortality to several of the cohort year classes led to the low index, according to John Beuttler, conservation director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. The previous low striped bass index, measured during the 2004 Summer Townet Survey, was 0.8.

The declining striped bass index occurs in the context of Pelagic Organism Decline (POD) that the state and federal governments are currently studying. Populations of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad and striped bass, all open water pelagic species, have declined to record levels over the past four years along with the zooplankton that sustain the Delta food chain.

The state-federal POD team has pinpointed three causes of the decline (1) changes in water exports (2) toxics and pesticides and (3) the proliferation of exotic species. To date, the state and federal governments continue to press plans to export more water, not less, through the South Delta Improvement Program (SDIP) and Intertie Projects that will redesign the hydrology of the Delta.

The Central Valley Regional Water Resources Control Board recently lost an historic opportunity to impose stronger regulations on the greatest source of toxic and pesticide pollution in the Delta – subsidized corporate agriculture – when it bowed to agribusiness and allowed them to continue dumping polluted irrigation water into the Delta.

Despite the best efforts of CSPA and other fishing and conservation organizations, the striped bass fishery “continues its decline with oblivion not to far off in the distance,” emphasized Beuttler.

“This continues the trend of such low survival that there will not be a year class again this year,” said Beuttler. “The fishery is composed of mostly young fish and lacks the larger more fecund female fish that could return this resource to self-sustaining levels. It appears that we will need an average striped bass index between 40 to 60 if we want to restore the fishery to a healthy self-sustaining population.

“Clearly, this fishery – like others in the estuary – is a victim of the water wars and excessive Delta water exports,” said Beuttler. “CSPA has been working closely with NCC - FFF and CSBA to obtain a striped bass management plan and strategy to restore this fishery to at least a shadow of its former self.”

Unfortunately, the DFG ran into huge fiscal problems under the Governor's 2004-5 budget and virtually terminated their striped bass program after falling some $20 million dollars down to their slashed budget, according to Beuttler.

Jim Crenshaw, CSPA’s President, the chairman of Striped Bass Stamp Advisory Committee and the Bay-Delta Sportfishing Enhancement Stamp Advisory Committee is extremely concerned about the future of this fishery.

“Even though the striped bass stamp has more than $1 million in it, the committee has not met in more than a year,” added Beuttler. “As you may know, the Bay-Delta Stamp Committee just received significant spending authority for the first time this July after two years of the stamp being in effect.”

Beuttler emphasized how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the East Coast has largely restored the striped bass fishery by developing a management plan including a moratorium on fishing until the fishery started to recover. The East Coast fishery suffered from some of the same problems as the West Coast fishery, such as declining water quality, but had a big commercial fishery that Bay-Delta estuary hasn’t had since the fishery became a purely recreational one in 1935.

“We don’t have a management plan in place for striped bass in California like they did on the East Coast,” he said. “We have a state that lacks a responsible water policy as well as sustainable fishery management. As long as each year class is swallowed up by the Black Hole of Death caused by Delta exports, we won’t have a sustainable striped bass fishery.”

In fact, Beuttler says the fact that we even have a recreational striped bass fishery in the Bay-Delta estuary now is largely because of the success of the Fishery Foundation’s of California’s net pen rearing project. The project raised wild salvaged striped bass from the delta pump screens in pens until they were large enough size to evade predators.

“During the last three years of the project, the pen program raised fish to be two and three years old until NMFS allowed us to release them,” said Beuttler.’

In one of the most bizarre stories in conservation history, the National Marine Fisheries Service determined that striped bass posed a “threat” to the winter run chinook that it was trying to restore. This decision violated all known biological science, since the two species had coexisted without problems for 130 years, but the federal government ruled against striped bass restoration after the DFG had determined that the numbers of stripers had risen to around 1.5 million adult fish.

The future doesn’t bode well for striped bass, especially as long as the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations continue to push for massive fishery closures while railroading through plans to export more water from the Delta.

Fishing groups have been instrumental in the battle against the SDIP, Intertie and other plans to stop more water from the Delta, but some angling groups are also supporting a proposal to establish a slot limit of 17 to 30 inches for striped bass. The Federation of Fly Fishers is supporting the slot limit, while the California Striped Bass Association is opposing it. The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance hasn’t made a decision yet regarding the slot limit.

Compared to the existing 18 inch minimum regulation for striped bass, the 17 to 30 inch slot will provide a similar total abundance of striped bass, with significantly fewer 17 to 18 inch fish and slightly more 30-inch plus fish, according to Doug Lovell, Chairman of the Bay Delta Committee of the Federation of Fly Fishers. Anglers would continue to keep two stripers, just as they can now.

Lovell said that although he would like to bring back the striped bass pen rearing or stocking programs of the DFG, he doesn’t believe that will occur because federal fishery agencies and DFG won’t allow fishing groups to take actions that will cause deliberate increases in the overall population because of their concerns that stripers prey on salmon and delta smelt.

“They won’t tolerate regulation changes that boost the numbers of fish. What we want from this regulation change is a better distribution of size and year classes. A number of fecund spawners portend a greater viability and sustainability in the fishery,” said Lovell.

He emphasized. “The biggest problems aren’t recreational anglers and harvest, there is no question about that. All of the organizations are working to decrease exports, but with the Intertie and SDIP plans proceeding, the long-term prognosis is questionable. If as anglers we do not do what we can when we can, we will lose the chance to preserve this fishery for ourselves and out children.”

He contended that under the slot limit, “angler satisfaction” would be enhanced for two important classes of anglers. First, shore anglers, pier anglers, youth and less experienced anglers will be afforded better opportunity for harvest by lowering the minimum size from 18 to 17 inches. Second, catch and release anglers will be afforded better opportunity to catch trophy fish by requiring release of 30 inch plus fish.

In addition, he noted, “public health will be better protected” by encouraging harvest of smaller striped bass and encouraging release of large striped bass. Existing advisories by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment say that that striped bass over 27 inches should not be consumed by sensitive populations and striped bass over 35 inches should not be consumed by normal healthy individuals. The advisories result from bioaccumulation of toxins, including mercury, PCB’s and pesticides in the flesh of the stripers.

On the other hand, all nine chapters of the California Striped Bass Association have gone on record as strongly opposed to the slot limit.

“The slot limit is a terrible idea,” said Barry Canevaro of the Fish Hookers Sportfishing and chair of the Striper Committee of the California Striped Bass Association’s State Board. “First, the number one reason for the decline of striped bass is water exports and pollution, not anglers.”

Second, Canevaro believes the mortality of the fish released will be high, particularly among those anglers that use bullheads and shad.

“If somebody catches a fish and doesn’t know how to cut off the hook and release the fish properly, the fish will bleed and die. I believe that 9 out of 10 anglers don’t know how to release fish correctly and the result of this slot limit will be increased mortality,” said Canevaro.

Keith Fraser, owner of Loch Lomond Bait and Tackle and former president of United Anglers, is also against the proposal because he thinks it doesn’t address the real problem on the Delta – water exports. “If you want to do something regarding changing the regulations for striped bass, close night fishing on the Delta and Sacramento River at spawning time rather than imposing a slot limit,” he explained.