View Full Version : SG/SB mountain fishing?
JoshuaSGR
03-01-2016, 09:24 PM
Has anyone gone up recently for some fishing? How are the water levels?
Viejo
03-01-2016, 09:32 PM
I can only respond to the SBNF. Water levels are still very low for this time of year. They are as low as anyone can remember them. The drought has filled in most of the stream with silt which covers the gravel needed for spawning and bug life. I personally sampled one of the rivers for three days....there were no bugs or growing vegetation and the ash from the fire has infiltrated the entire run. Places that folks talked about for years here are dried up or so skinny as to not support fish. This was a creek that I've fished for fifteen years with great success. The massive rains and snow that was so desperately needed to wash out the muck never materialized. Big Bear lake is doing pretty good. My advice to you if you enjoy stream fishing is to go Bishop and enjoy the Owens. It is fishing very well for all kinds of fisherman and the water and weather are pretty much been perfect. I think you'll be disappointed locally.
John Harper
03-02-2016, 07:20 AM
I read a recent report from someone on another site. They fished a major stream in the SBNF extensively and found nothing, nothing at all. Another person fished the SG and only found two tiny fish in three miles of stream. Creek fishing in SoCal may very well be on the edge of extinction.
Like Viejo said, point the wagon north to the ES.
John
DarkShadow
03-02-2016, 10:49 AM
I read a recent report from someone on another site. They fished a major stream in the SBNF extensively and found nothing, nothing at all. Another person fished the SG and only found two tiny fish in three miles of stream. Creek fishing in SoCal may very well be on the edge of extinction.
Like Viejo said, point the wagon north to the ES.
John
Will spring fed creeks suffer from the same fate?
I would hope the rains being predicted over next couple weeks will flush out the creek beds of the silt much in the way they did in the past during big El Nino type rains. But hope it's not too late to re-establish the populations.
DarkShadow
03-02-2016, 11:14 AM
I would hope the rains being predicted over next couple weeks will flush out the creek beds of the silt much in the way they did in the past during big El Nino type rains. But hope it's not too late to re-establish the populations.
Seal,
I wonder what involvement, if any, involvement will be made by our DFW in the re-establishment of native populations?
Seal,
I wonder what involvement, if any, involvement will be made by our DFW in the re-establishment of native populations?
Save the frogs!
DarkShadow
03-02-2016, 02:41 PM
Save the frogs!
And the dace and the chubs!
I love visiting https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Publications/Journal/Contents and seeing how nothing is of fishermen's concerns.
Experimental enhancement of pickleweed, Suisun Bay, California (https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=102285&inline).
We all love that pickleweed!
Potential mitigation of and adaptation to climate-driven changes in California's highlands through increased beaver populations (https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=113244&inline).
Beavers!! Who doesn't love beavers?!
Observations of the non-native Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) in San Diego County, California (https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=102286&inline).
Oysters, baby.
But the dwindling fish populations? Eh...we'll research them next year.
John Harper
03-02-2016, 03:02 PM
Will spring fed creeks suffer from the same fate?
Well, it seems eventual in some areas. My local down here in SD was a spring fed creek, and it went bone dry.
Unfortunately, on the ES they seem to now only stock sterile trout (except native goldens, cutthroats in select areas), and any westside streams there seems to be a lot of divisiveness about strains and purity. I can't believe there is not some recognition that the coastal rainbow trout is a native, and part of the historical ecosystem. Most these streams no longer reach the ocean, but the steelhead recovery programs seems to have doomed the fishery. All the creeks I fished as a kid in Fillmore (Lower Sespe, Santa Clara River, Hopper Creek) are now permanently closed to all fishing. So very sad.
John
DarkShadow
03-02-2016, 03:06 PM
Save the steelhead!
(But let's keep Matilja and the Rindge dams intact, and keep limiting and destroying spawning grounds with development!)
So the answer is to close the tributaries, because it's the anglers fault these fish can no longer head to their ancestral spawning grounds.
Gotcha!
JoshuaSGR
03-02-2016, 03:35 PM
I read a recent report from someone on another site. They fished a major stream in the SBNF extensively and found nothing, nothing at all. Another person fished the SG and only found two tiny fish in three miles of stream. Creek fishing in SoCal may very well be on the edge of extinction.
Like Viejo said, point the wagon north to the ES.
John
Well, that blows. I don't know why the army corps of engineering can't make a fish ladder of some kind to keep the fish's spawning runs intact. These trout ARE native to SoCal. It's sad that these fish are slowly dying out because of everything that we've done to their habitat. Hopefully something good comes soon for those little guys
The fish will adapt and change, eventually they will be a unique strain but still a Oncorhynchus mykiss. Genetic purity, sounds racist to me.
carpanglerdude
03-07-2016, 02:10 PM
Viejo is right. Most of the streams I have previously fished have suffered similar fates, with increased silt and a loss of pools. At least one of them looks more like Whitewater River near Palm Sprigns rather a nice trout stream with a good ratio of pools/riffles.
I have heard nothing good about the San Gabriels/E/W/N forks and my experience on them in the past was not encouraging.
There are a handful of streams still producing. One bad fire and they'll probably face a similar fate.