Friends, if you frequent many of the fishing forums you have probably already caught the buzz regarding trout stocking in the state of California. I have been watching this issue with a casual nonchalance for quite some time. I am here to publicly apologize for that! This issue is not something to shy away from. At this time we have systematically lost stocked trout in the state of California! The long-term effects on trout fishing, bass fishing, the California fishing industry, as well as small trout fishing communities remains to be seen.

 Though some of us have failed to act prior to this moment,  a select group of anglers has already begun to step up and take action. They have been working diligently behind the scenes and will continue to do so in the future. I encourage each of you to join this group of anglers! An action plan has been set in place, we are not too late, there is much to be done! Rob Belloni is currently heading the organization and his email is available is available at the bottom of this post.

I have re-produced the following with the permission of Rob Belloni.

Writing to bring you news about what is going on with trout stocking in California. It's a confusing thing so I'm writing this to break it all down and help everyone understand what is happening.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is an environmental group. Their goal is to protect native species. In 2007 they sued the California Dept. of Fish and Game (DFG). They said that stocking trout in California is bad for native species. They said that stocked trout eat native frogs. They said stocked trout eat insects that native birds could have eaten instead. They said that stocked trout could breed with native trout/steelhead and mess up the gene pool.

They sued under an act called the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This act says that any time the state government does a project, they have to take in to account the environment. In 2007, the CBD didn't win outright but they won a lot. They made the DFG go and evaluate trout stocking through a formal process. They also got a judge to rule that certain places where trout are stocked shouldn't be stocked any more while DFG went and did their evaluation. That's why a lot of places haven't gotten stocked with trout for the last few years.

This year DFG finished their evaluation. They put out a new set of rules to determine if a place gets stocked with trout or not. I've reviewed these rules and talked with the important people at DFG about how these rules will work in real life. These are pretty good rules. They're pretty reasonable. They're not perfect, but they're a great start. Most people at the DFG want to stock trout, but they also want to protect native species where it's reasonable.

The CBD looked at these new rules the DFG put out and they said they are bad. They said the rules are too vague. They said the rules don't provide enough protection. They didn't sue again, but they filed something with the judge in the case called a Writ of Mandate. That's a fancy way of telling the judge that the DFG did such a bad job that the judge should give the DFG a big slap on the wrist and send them back to do their evaluation over again and make new rules – rules that the CBD likes.

The judge has to look at this Writ of Mandate and decide what to do. I am working hard to see how we can convince the judge that the DFG has done their job already and shouldn't have to do it again. I don't have all the answers yet, but I'm forming a group to keep the CBD from going too far. A rough draft of what we believe in is below.

There are a lot of reasons why trout stocking is important to us fishermen. I'm worried that without trout, many lakes will close down because not enough people will come to fish. I'm worried kids won't get their start in fishing because they won't have trout to fish for. I'm worried the CBD will go too far to do things that sound good on paper but are bad in real life. I'm worried about letting people who don't really understand fish be in charge of the fish.

I want to get the word out to the fishing community about this topic. That's why I'm posting this. I need help from lawyers especially, so if any of you are lawyers or know lawyers who can help, drop me a line. If you just want to write to talk about the issue, that's great too. 

Rob can be reached at swimbait@gmail.com

I can be reached as well regarding this topic at fish4biz@gmail.com