Marcus,

You make a good point that the black bass community has (as far as I can tell) not done much about anything lately. There's a lot of opportunity there. I think people would like to fight but don't necessarily know how. I'm going to learn how to fight on this Shadow Cliffs issue. Maybe CSPA can help.

I hope nothing I've said gave you the impression that I thought CSPA was out to close the back ponds at Shadow Cliffs to fishing. My guess is that many of the groups involved in this process did not even consider the black bass fishing in those ponds when this decision was made. The CSPA was mentioned in the Alameda Creek Alliance press release which gave the impression that they were involved. It is a confusing implication there.

I do think that some of the groups involved in the Alameda Creek reg changes would be very happy if all the bass in those ponds could be eradicated. I think other groups involved are ambivalent, and some would be appalled at the idea. It's good to hear that you think CSPA would fall toward the latter end of that spectrum.

Unfortunately today when I got in touch with the commission people they advised that the Alameda creek closures went to notice in August, 2009 and were adopted by the commission December 2009. This means the 45 day public comment period has passed. Now the only way to make a change is to submit a recommendation for change to the DFG Commission.

I plan to do that, but it will make the road much longer. What is really sad here is that no one anywhere in the fishing community raised any sort of flag that these regs to close down the back ponds were going to go through. I am disappointed that the fishermen and fishing groups that were involved didn't seem to recognize the fact that people like to fish for bass in the back ponds at Shadow Cliffs. Probably an innocent oversight but still frustrating because so much more could have been done back in August and September.

Back to the point at hand, I did some research as to the suitability of Arroyo Del Valle creek for steelhead runs. This has been studied by at least three separate groups, and the results are published on the DFG web site and on the Center for Ecosystem Management and Restoration website. The results are varied and conflicting. Try this on for size and see what level of confidence you feel in these assessments:

From the Published 2005 on Page 71 (pdf page number)

"Portions of Arroyo Valle were surveyed in September 1999 as part of a steelhead restoration feasibility study. No O. mykiss were observed in two reaches downstream from Lake del Valle and the survey report noted: “No habitat offering good potential as spawning or rearing habitat was observed” (Gunther et al. 2000, pp. 73-74)."

On that same page a different study is quoted. It says:

"Survey work, including electroshocking, in September 1983 and May 1985 was performed at Arroyo Valle below Lake del Valle to document the potential for steelhead habitat. The survey report indicated that there was potential for establishing populations of O. mykiss in the creek downstream of Del Valle dam (Gray 1986b). Unpublished studies by Hanson Environmental in 2002-2003 also documented areas of suitable habitat downstream of the dam."

In the more recent study titled it says:

"The northern and more inland half of the watershed, above the Arroyo del Valle confluence with Arroyo de la Laguna, was considerably drier and variable (inter- and intra-annually). Over-summering in these headwater tributaries under very low flows and warm air temperatures required thermally stratified pools. The temporal windows for spawning success would have been much wider and more frequent (inter- and intra-annually) for adult steelhead migrating into the southern Alameda Creek watershed, than into the northern watershed."

Loosely translated to English what they are saying is that in dry years for a steelhead to live in this section would require deep enough pools for "thermal stratification" however you want to define that. Later they highlight that notion again by saying:

The Dam Population Strategy is a contemporary strategy that attempts to mimic these three primary headwater functions within a much shorter segment of tributary channel below each of the three existing dams. Capacity for 1+ steelhead juvenile production below dams on San Antonio Creek, Arroyo del Valle, and Calaveras Creek will depend almost entirely on instream flow releases. Because cold hypolimnial dam releases rapidly warm downstream, much of the habitat created will hinge as much, or more, on avoiding thermal thresholds and their timing, than on the abundance of physical habitat created (i.e., creating lots of warm habitat is not recovery). Instream flows will need to sustain over-summer juvenile rearing to
implement the Dam Population Recovery Strategy.

To translate again, what they are saying is that if you want steelhead living below the dam at Del Valle you have to let more water out of the dam than you do now. If you just leave it like it is now, it's not much of a steelhead habitat.

Marcus, like you I am all for steelhead restoration, but I am interested in achieving that goal through effective means. I don't think closing the back ponds at Shadow Cliffs his an effective way to get steelhead back in Arroyo Del Valle creek.

If I were to assign percentages to the causes of steelhead decline in the creek, I would do it as follows:

Calaveras, San Antonio, and Del Valle Dams - 70%
Barriers to upstream migration (BART weir, etc) - 25%
Normal predation by native animals/birds/fish - 0% (because this is built to any normal population in and can't be changed)
Predation by non-native fishes - 2%
Catch and keep steelhead fishing (including poaching) - 2%
Catch and release steelhead fishing resulting in mortality - .5%

If this assessment is right, the only logical conclusion is that banning all fishing on Alameda creek and its tributaries is going after the smallest possible cause. It might make people feel good about what they are doing, but it's not fixing the problem.

Now, if the situation changed in the future and flows were restored from the 3 lakes, and those flows didn't harm the endangered amphibians (this has been studied as well) and the barriers along the creek were removed, and catch and keep fishing were allowed, and the steelhead population recovered to a reasonable level, then maybe the assignment of negative factors for steelhead would look like this:

Calaveras, San Antonio, and Del Valle Dams - 50% (because the flows would still never be what they once were)
Normal predation by native animals/birds/fish - 0%
Predation by non-native fishes - 20%
Legal catch and keep steelhead fishing - 20%
Steelhead Poaching - 7%
Catch and release steelhead fishing resulting in mortality - 3%

In either case, these negative factors can be evaluated one at a time to see if it is reasonable to do something about them.

1. Calaveras, San Antonio, and Del Valle Dams: Even if some flows are allowed from the dams and we say to the water consumers (that's us) that they need to share the water with fish and risk whatever consequences, these 3 dams will continue to be the largest factor and there is nothing to be done about that short of magically shrinking the population.

2. Barriers to upstream migration: This is the best target for remediation and all groups should support removal of any barriers (like the BART weir).

3. Normal predation by native animals/birds/fish: Any biologist with a brain knows that predation is normal, natural, and in most every case good. It's a function of natural selection. Let's leave it at that. Nothing to be done about it.

4. Predation by non-native fishes: There are bass and stripers in Del Valle and the Shinn Ponds. There are bass in Calaveras, San Antonio, and the Quarry Lakes. Therefore there will always be bass in Alameda creek itself even if you eradicate them from the creek at one point in time. Short of conducting the most massive rotenone operation in the world's history I view this as a factor that can't be changed and should be ignored.

5. Legal catch and keep steelhead fishing: Assuming flows are restored and a reasonable population resumes, this is something that could be considered on a reasonable basis. But given that steelhead runs will never return to what they were before the 3 dams it might not be the best idea to ever resume catch and keep steelhead fishing. Time would have to allocated for evaluation.

6. Steelhead poaching: Should obviously be policed and enforced against as much as possible. I once met a field biologist on the Santa Ynez who told me about the frustration of surveying ponds on the lower river and seeing adult fish, then finding that those fish were gone weeks later with obvious signs that people had poached them. Poachers are scum and deserve to trip on a stick and fall in the river.

7. Catch and release steelhead fishing resulting in morality: A real concern, but probably overblown. If you need an example of how much impact c-n-r fishing has on salmonids (that means trout) go to Hot Creek in the Eastern Sierras. You will see so many brown trout your eyes will pop. They're smart as heck and very hard to catch. Some certainly die each year from being mishandled but nothing to put a meaningful dent in the population.

So, we've evaluated the factors and should consider now whether closing all fishing on Arroyo Del Valle creek is really going to do much to save steelhead. I hope you can see that it will not. The next step is to package and refine this post, learn the DFG commission regulation process and propose the change.

My initial thought was to ask for catch and release bass fishing on the back ponds (measured as between Isabel and Bernal Ave.) Having thought on it more, I think a more reasonable thing to ask for is simply a zero take on any trout or salmon species in this stretch.

If anyone has experience pushing through reg changes with the commission, this is when I am interested to learn more. swimbait at gmail dot com.