Jake's point about being for the stoppage of trout plants in the Sierras got me to thinking the other night. I've been very fortunate in my life to fish all over our great state of CA, and one place in particular stuck in my mind when it comes to the issue of stocking the small bodies of water in the Sierras.

That place is located at the very headwaters of the Kern river. There are three creeks that come together here, in the bottom of a steep valley. We stopped here for a night on a 10 day backpacking trip in the mid 90's. The camp was on the Kern itself, and I fished this stretch of beautiful river for an hour or two before dark. It's shallow enough here to wade across without getting your knees wet. In the shallow riffles there I caught rainbows, goldens, and hybrids of the two.

Just a few hundred yards upstream, there was a steep mountain stream. It was astounding to me that trout were able to make it up in to some of the pools. Maybe it only became steep after the trout were already there. Regardless, there they were, the most amazing vividly colored pure strain golden trout you could imagine. The steep terrain kept the rainbows out, and there were no hybrids in those pools.

I've caught goldens in several locations around the sierra but these were just spectacular. We shouldn't value one species more than another just based on looks (like cute fuzzy seals vs. ugly old cod fish) but it's hard not to feel a bias toward fish that are golden yellow with crimson red bellies.

This stretch of the Kern river is located in a place where man should have no need to modify the situation. There's no need here for dams to provide water or hydroelectric power to people, or stocked fish to provide angling enjoyment. There's also no need for rainbow trout, which were probably introduced many years ago by some ignorant angler of DFG group.

In the Upper Kern there has been a direct reduction in biological diversity as a result of stocked rainbow trout. As a conservation minded person, I am against the rainbow trout that are there and the notion that any more might be planted there (I don't know if any are stocked in that section or in a place that could reach that section today).

Now, follow that water from the upper Kern down stream and eventually you wind up at Lake Isabella. Isabella is not on the "no trout stocking" list because it's larger than 1000 acres, but I think we could safely assume that the Center for Biological Diversity would prefer the cessation of trout plants here as a matter of course. So let's revisit the issue of stocked trout there, and ask if the stocked trout in Isabella are the reason for any reduction in biological diversity in this area.

Lake Isabella was completed in 1953 to provide flood control (the river used to flood Bakersfield), hydroelectric power, and a water source for human beings. Did this impact native fishes and amphibians? Without a doubt. Subsequently the lake was stocked with bass, catfish, crappie, bluegill, trout, etc. This action had further and significant impacts on native species. The question now is, can the stocked fish and the dam be undone now? And how important are these actions relative to the stocking of trout?

It is obvious that only through the most absurd effort could all of the non-native fish be removed from Lake Isabella. The only precedent in this state for even attempting something like this is at Davis Lake in Northern California where DFG has tried to eradicate all pike from the lake. These efforts have been a complete failure. So we can say with high certainty, that no effort could ever remove the fish from Isabella (a much larger lake).

In regards to the dam, the issue is not whether it could be physically removed (it could be) but whether that is a likely option. My argument is that it is not. People in Bakersfield don't want their homes flooded. People who eat the food grown by virtue of the water from Isabella don't want to stop having it available to eat. People who rely on electricity from the hydroelectrical project don't want their houses to go dark at night. Most importantly, politicians who might have the authority to remove the dam would never get re-elected if they tried to do it.

The bottom line is that the large populations of human beings that inhabit this part of the world require correspondingly large amounts of water, dry land to live on, and electricity. This is the true root cause for the reduction in biological diversity in the lower Kern River area and any area in this state where dams are present! The creation of the dams, and the subsequent irreversible introduction of non-native fish create the vast majority of the impact to native species. The trout stocked now are nothing by comparison.

My arguments earlier in this thread about why removing the trout may be even worse for native species still living in these lake zones just furthers the point that the trout are not the problem. The problem is the dams and the other stocked fish that cannot be removed from the lakes. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Stanford Law Student's problem is that they are not thinking about these problems holistically and in the context of the real environment that exists now at these man-made lakes.

If they wanted to make real change, they would focus their efforts on water and energy conservation and population control. These are the big root causes for reduction in biological diversity. If they want to stop trout plants in streams containing native trout and amphibians or in very small lakes where no large base of trout eating predators have developed that's good too and I support it. Where I have a problem is when blanket policies using round numbers (like 1,000 acres) are used to manage wildlife. It's idiotic and shows a lack of understanding by the people who seek to do good.

I'm close to getting off my soapbox now, but this issue still chafes.