Facing overwhelming opposition from the fishing community, the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta—aka, a group of irrigators hoping to divert more water—this week revoked its controversial petition for regulation changes on striped and black bass in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta.
The proposal would have increased the bag limit on stripers from 2 to 6 fish while decreasing their size limit from 18 to 12 inches. Additionally, it would have increased the black bass bag limit from 5 to 10 while decreasing their size limit from 12 to 8 inches.
“This petition was yet another attempt from the irrigators to divide the fishing community and make introduced fish species the scapegoat for the demise of Delta smelt and winter-run chinook salmon,” says California-based Simms rep/bass activist John Sherman.
The coalition represents Kern County farming interests who for years have blamed nonnative bass for eating endangered Delta smelt and Chinook.
“In reality, all the science shows a direct link between increased exports of water and the decline of all fish species that live in and travel through the California Delta and its tributaries,” Sherman adds.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.