#Lackoftroutplants
#StockPerris
#StockDVL
#Stocksomething
#Trystockingtrout
#Troutprogramsucks
#Whatwillthenextexcusebetonotstocktrout
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Why isn't Lake Perris getting any Trout stocked?
Dark Shadow, there is no stream "downstream" of Perris Lake, so that cannot be it. Perhaps it's those frogs that only trout seem able to eat.
Wasn't that in a scene out of the Flintstones?
Every sewer and toilet get stocked with Trout around here except Perris. I even think the local tribe carved on the side of the mountains that it was OK to stock Trout.
Attachment 53089
As you may have heard, over the last several years our hatcheries have been undergoing much needed deferred maintenance/upgrades (https://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2018/...d-maintenance/), have had gas bubble disease issues (https://wildlife.ca.gov/Science-Inst...fornias-waters) and most recently have been infected with a novel bacteria (https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.a...=180707&inline) which necessitated the destruction of over 3 million hatchery trout. As a result, the number of trout available for stocking in southern California over the last 3-4 years has been severely reduced. The limited quantity of trout available necessitates allocation to lakes/streams that depend upon trout to provide viable fisheries.
Lake Perris is not one of those places. An angler survey/tagged trout study conducted 2009-2011 at Lake Perris showed that only 3.5-7% of the trout were reported as caught. Catch rates were OK ranging from 0.14 to 0.37 fish an hour (1 fish for every 3-5 hours of effort), however only 17% of the anglers that fished Lake Perris were targeting trout. Bass, panfish and unspecified target ("anything") anglers far outnumbered trout anglers. The dominant pursuit of other species and the poor return rate of trout at Lake Perris does not justify their stocking in lieu of lakes/streams that have much higher trout specific effort and return rates. The smaller County Park lakes and local mountain lakes/streams are an excellent example of waters that meet those criteria.
Additionally, CDFW has completed an extensive habitat mitigation project at Lake Perris to rehabilitate the warmwater fisheries that were affected by the prolonged drawdown necessitated by a dam remediation project (https://wildlife.ca.gov/Science-Inst...ag/lake-perris). This project unto itself, has set Lake Perris far apart from any other fishery in southern California moving forward.
When the disease issues are resolved and hatchery production can again meet the needs of the lakes/streams that depend upon trout to provide viable fisheries, and if there is excess production (which there very well could be), then allocation decisions regarding lakes like Lake Perris will be re-evaluated at that time.
So essentially, people didn't fish for trout enough at Perris for the DFG to justify allocating an already lessened number of trout stocks from Southern California hatcheries, so now they won't stock any trout....and that will cause people to NOT fish for trout. So, when the DFG revisits this, they will claim from angler surveys that nobody is fishing for trout, so no stocks. Which will cause anglers NOT to fish for trout, and we get stuck in this revolving door?
Curiouser and curiouser....
What I am now noticing lately is that these angler surveys may play a bigger role in fishery management than I originally thought. I thought it was someone's summer internship at the DFG, waiting around the hot *** launch ramp at DVL to ask people how much the bite sucked.
I didn't know that those surveys are used as they are, considering they seem to be a very inaccurate method of data gathering, and it's eye opening to think this determines legislation and whether a lake receives trout stockings or not.