California Sportfishing Protection Alliance; www.calsport.org
Notice to California Anglers

OUR GAME FISH NEED YOU TUESDAY APRIL 13th

Assemblymember Fuller has introduced AB 2336 to terminate the management and protection of the public's striped bass fishery that inhabits the Bay-Delta estuary. The bill mandates the elimination of all regulations that govern the legal harvest of the fishery thereby eliminating its sport fishing protective status. The author alleges this is necessary to reduce striped bass predation on salmon and Delta smelt protected by the state and federal Endangered Species Acts.

This bill is similar to the one the Fuller introduced last year that was defeated by a coalition of anglers who care about the fishery and that acted in concert with sportfishing and environmental groups lead by CSPA. That bill was killed in its first committee hearing because the false arguments used by the author significantly overstated the impact of striped bass predation. Scientific testimony provided during the hearing made it clear that striped bass rarely, if ever, eat Delta smelt and that predation on listed salmon is so low that it does not impact the population level of the listed salmon.

Why aren't they fixing the problems caused by the state and federal water projects that have destroyed the estuary's natural hydrology and the resiliency of its ecosystem? Why aren't they immediately reducing the significant over allocation of the public's water exported out of the Delta?

The bill's supporters all seem to be dependent on water exported from the Delta and this attack is simply another way to misdirect the government away from the real impacts associated with the development of the public's Delta water supplies.

CSPA is calling on anglers and the public to help us make another legislative stand by raising your voice in opposition to this bill.

Please join us at the state Capitol building on Tuesday April 13th at 8:30 AM at Room 437 on the Assembly side of the State Capitol. There will most likely be (as before with AB1253) no time for anyone to speak other than to line up at the microphone and state that one does not support the bill. If we get a large turn out with many live bodies, we have a fair chance of stopping this Bill at the hearing. We need as many people as we can possibly get to show the legislators the fishing community will not stand for these continual attacks on our fisheries by those that are responsible for their decimation.



PLEASE BE THERE IF YOU CAN! OUR FISHERIES NEED YOU NOW!