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QUIT MESSING WITH MOTHER
NATURE!
By: Ron Wilson
April 17, 2007.... Fishermen can change
what mother nature has made by transplanting fish and animals to places
she never designed them to be.
Right or wrong I don’t know, but lets
start with the pike in Lake Davis, this has definitely harmed the great
trout fishery. Now add on the millions of dollars DFG has spent trying
to eradicate them. All this money could have been spent to better are
hunting and fishing in California. It can really get scary as they just
have one more dam to go through and they will be in our delta waterways,
One just has to wonder what impact they will have on one of the best
black bass fisheries in the world, not to mention the salmon, stripers
and sturgeon once they reach the delta.
Closer to home years ago it was rumored
that a local bass club transported Spotted Bass to Lake Don Pedro and
turned them loose. Soon after that I started catching spotted bass
there, no large numbers, one here and one there. I ate every one I
caught as I didn’t want them cross breeding with the Florida, northern
and smallmouth bass that lived there.
Over the next few years I watched as
mullies showed up, they are crossed with spotted bass and northern or
Florida strain bass and they are aggressive and fight real good.
During tournament weigh-ins I would cull
spotted bass and take them home to eat, in my opinion they didn’t
belong there.
I recently fished a few days with
professional Bass Fisherman Norval Pimentel and got a shock as to how
the spotted bass population in Lake Don Pedro has exploded. Everyday I
took home 3 or more fish that were crossed or just pure strain spotted
bass. The fish were caught from the dam up to the flume.
It seems the biggest concentration of
spotted bass are in the Rogers Creek Arm of the lake but with there
aggressive attitudes it won’t be long before they make it all reaches of
the lake and since they usually spawn a couple weeks earlier its just a
matter of time before they become one of the dominate catches of bass
to be caught there.
A friend of mine recently reported that
he loves catching spotted bass in the Tuolumne River, which lies below
Don Pedro Dam. With Lake McClure and the spots going through that dam
and into the Merced River its just a matter of time until the spotted
bass are plentiful in the delta waterways also.
As a sportsman I wish I could stick
around another 60 years to see what changes to our hunting and fishing
has occurred but looking back at the great salmon, striper, trout
fishery, deer, waterfowling and the fantastic ocean fishing we had here
when I was a kid, I just can’t see it getting better over time. |
