I have run the raffle for the Dan Blanton Striperfest for the last 9 years... for the last 3 years we have been focused on this issue. Last year we raised $28,000 for legal fees to help DFG fight the striper lawsuit (this reg change proposal is the fall-out from that lawsuit settlement). 2 nights ago we raised around $35,000 which will almost entirely be used for legal fees associated with this effort.

The issue is we have well funded private interest groups (namely a single billionaire pistachio farmer and owner of Fiji Water - S. Resnick, operating under the guise of a deliberately misnamed group The Coalition for a Sustainable Delta) pushing the anglers and DFG around with well funded legal/political antics.

Their basic strategy seems to be to de-fish the delta, then there won't be any more angler opposition to southerly water exports. The striper fly fishing community which I'm a a part of is one of the more active groups with fighting the delta water exports, so it seems we have become a target.

Step 1 is they go after stripers to set a precedent for non-native specie eradication, then largemouth and smallmouth will be next. This is classic Karl Rove style politics... extremely aggressive attacks and confuse the public with propaganda, distract from the real issues at hand, etc... all the while your private agenda is marching forward.

Remember that ALL of our basses are non-native to California, and so are most of our trout! Brown trout are not even native to North America! Almost ALL freshwater species of angler interest are non-native!!!

There are a million reasons why this is totally ridiculous, an outrage, and totally disgusting!! But the reality is that it's very real, and we need to really rally here to make sure the DFG COMMISSION does not approve this proposal.

The meeting tomorrow night in Rio Vista it will be important to have some bodies showing. While it is highly unlikely the proposal will change one iota based on angler or biologist commentary or input, as they have already ignored most of the available science and basic common sense. Perhaps more important are MANY MANY letters written to the DFG COMMISSION explaining clearly and calmly why not only does loosening striper regs not bring back or help native species, but that it destroys the 3rd most popular angler fishery in a State that already has dwindling fishing opportunities.

There are many sound and obvious biological arguments to shove up their keisters, but mesopredator release hypothesis is an obvious problem that could make things much worse for native species - essentially you remove a top predator and many mid level predators fill in to take their place.

There will be example letters to send to the Commission posted all over the place soon.

The most important meeting to attend will be the actual DFG Commission meeting (currently scheduled for December in San Diego (???!!!), they are working on moving this to Northern California).

This is a very important battle for the future of California fishing!!! Even if you don't fish stripers the potential future impacts to largemouth to smallmouth are scary!!! If anything we can't let private interest groups continue to drive Fish and Game policy!

Marcus