San Gabes Trip Video Report: Trashed by Gold miners, trout say goodbye

[carpanglerdude]

Decided to do some hiking around the San Gabe watershed.



Look at the reservoir! Almost totally dry! This is a FAR cry from my trip last year when I hiked down to the San Gabriel Reservoir and caught largemouth and carp (video of that trip, notice the huge water difference!)
I think they are drawing it down and filling up Morris-Morris was very full.


Hiked up the most popular fork. Boy, has it changed-the water is still running well, for this dry time of the year, but there are virtually no trout to be seen. I consider myself fairly adept at hooking even the smallest trout from these SoCal creeks but this was a no go-didn't have a single bite I could say was from a trout and didn't spot one, despite good water clarity and an extended hike up the canyon. The goldminers were out in full force (not sure how much longer that will last with the new National Monument Status) I filmed just a tiny selection of the disgusting destruction these miners had brought on the creek, you can watch it here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJvZ...ature=youtu.be)


The water definitely had more silt along the bottom, likely from the extended dry period + flash floods over the summer.




What's this? A Fish! Despite the complete lack of any trout to be seen, I landed this mysterious guy by accident. Turns out he is likely an Arroyo Chub, of remarkable size. He was safely released, as you can see in the video. This fish, and a lot of Santa Ana Suckers, were all the fish I saw.

Overall, very disappointing but not entirely unexpected not to find any trout. Usually I don't give out the name of a stream, but the San Gabriel is very well known and this certainly isn't an appealing report.

Video of this trip plus the Arroyo Chub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-AmmasFK9I

[Viejo]

Yours is not the first report of the moonscaping of both forks. With weekend crowds approaching 25,000 in San Gabriel canyon, something has to give. Don't look for anything to happen before the three year management plan is finalized and when they figure out who is going to pay for the new Monument overlay. Right now, no one knows that. Until then, the gold miners will continue their havoc that actually began in that canyon around 1860 and the thousands will deposit their massive amounts of trash and dam up the creeks. As someone said, "There are 20 million people within 90 minutes of that spot". Few have your conservation ethic.

[DEVOREFLYER]

Yours is not the first report of the moonscaping of both forks. With weekend crowds approaching 25,000 in San Gabriel canyon, something has to give. Don't look for anything to happen before the three year management plan is finalized and when they figure out who is going to pay for the new Monument overlay. Right now, no one knows that. Until then, the gold miners will continue their havoc that actually began in that canyon around 1860 and the thousands will deposit their massive amounts of trash and dam up the creeks. As someone said, "There are 20 million people within 90 minutes of that spot". Few have your any ethic.

Fixed it for ya!!!!!!!

[old pudd fisher]

How it is today.

[HawgZWylde]

How it is today.

Hmmm, none of that looked like miners trash to me. I used to go up there in the late 60's into the 70's. What a shame it has become now...

[Marley]

My brother and our friends and I used to knock around those canyons back in the day and, while we saw the occasional bather washing her hair in the clean river water (the shampoo was supposed to lather up much better) and the guys keeping their beers cool in a slackwater, we never saw any real destruction. Now it's a pretty sad situation.

[castle]

No trout,but at least you got something over there.

[TUNAVIC]

How it is today.

Actually quit going there years ago,because of that! Sad.

Cya Tuna Vic

[inthroughtheocean]

It's not the prospectors fault (I mean I'm sure there's one in the bunch but I'm talking for the most point). It's the people that come for a day trip to picnic and party near the road etc and leave their trash. Prospectors can be found way up there even past the narrows where it's still nice and mostly nontrashy.

[noleash]

Big Rock creek Trashed.....Upper "T" Trashed.... Frenchmans Flats Trashed...... One thing I will say about the lack of Trout is This........At the Frenchmans Flats I was witness to why this condition existed.........Group of non taxpaying citizens dragging a net accross and up the whole length of the stream.........What was a thriving trout fishery had become a chub Hole! SOLUTION....Public Outcry...Petitions...Office Heads in charge of protecting these resources A ROLLING...Armed Law enforcement...INS sweeps....GOOD LUCK...but having grown up in UTAH and having a passion for small stream Trout fishing I do believe the San Gabrial resources are definately worth fighting for!