What is the fishing outlook?

Fishmas and its boost to the local economy is just days away, but the cost of a license has gone up again (see more on p. 10), and there will be less fish for the dollars. Planters are getting smaller and they will be fewer in numbers; the number of pounds of planters this year is to be cut in half. Locals who depend on waters for their livelihood are afraid of the tiny fish coming at a higher price, worried this could be a death knell for the area. But, like angling itself, it’s a wait and see game.

“I feel like the rug is being pulled out from under me,” said Jeff Wenger, owner of Bridgeport Marina. Wenger said he’s trying to provide a place for people to recreate, to relax, to sit back and throw a line in, following in the tradition of Eastside backcountry camps and lodges established in the 1920s. Now he feels like he’s being squeezed out of business.

Wenger explained that it’s not just the amount of fish that has him concerned, but the type and sizes of fish. It came as a surprise to even some guides interviewed for this story that the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) has been planting triploids; a sterile fish that looks like a trout but will not reproduce. Planters this year, the third year of the triploid, will average 6 inches and weigh about a quarter pound. That’s half the fish planters used to be.

The change is the result of a lawsuit that requires CDFG to save wild and native fish from overcrowding, hence the introduction of the sterile fish. Historically, Sierra Nevada waters were virtually fishless until the 1800s, when European immigrants began bringing fingerlings in milk jars to the backcountry lakes for their own fun.

The State began stocking in the 1950s and by 2000, more than 70 percent of the waters on the Eastside had fish. The protection of the mountain yellow-spotted frog has resulted in the end of stocking in many backcountry lakes since 2000. Now, fish will be found in fewer numbers on the valley floor, too.

Wenger admitted to being biased on the subject, as his livelihood depends on it, but said he was trying to keep an open mind and positive attitude.

Some in the fish biz are taking the news in stride and staying positive; they have to be, said Chad Brizendine of The Troutfitter in Mammoth Lakes. He said the local waters, especially Crowley Lake, the local cash cow, or cash fish, are full of fish and there’s no way to tell how a season will unfold. “We’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

With Mammoth becoming a summer tourist destination, fishing has become one of many activities to enjoy, he said. Brizendine said it’s a tough scene trying to lure tourists in. The CDFG is not making it any easier.

The department is blaming the state budget crisis as reason to cut down on stocking, from 770,000 pounds of planters to 375,000 in the Eastern Sierra. Revenues from licenses were down slightly in 2014 by about $1.4 million from 2013, down from $43.9 million to $42.5 million, but that loss of revenue does not equal a cut of 50 percent in the amount of fish stocked.

Assembly Bill 7, introduced in 2005, directed 33.3 percent of license fees go directly to the Hatchery and Inland Fisheries Fund. Then Senate Bill 1148 came along in 2012 and most of that 33.3 percent was re-directed toward the Heritage and Wild Trout Program, with a small percentage going toward hatchery programs.

There are less licenses being sold, so the CDFG is raising the price to try and compensate, said Reagan Slee, owner of Sporting Goods in Bishop. He made the analogy of raising the price of lift tickets at a ski resort because sales are down. He suggested a better strategy might be to offer the service at an affordable price to bring the tourists and their dollars in the door.

All of this news does not include the effect the drought could have on fish or fishing. Brizendine said the historically dry conditions, loss of stockers and higher fees “could be a recipe for disaster,” but time will tell.

Slee predicted if the next twenty years of hunting and fishing are anything like the last twenty of higher prices, less product for the fee and more regulations, “We’re going to be hurting.” He said he remembered when the snow and winter season would get Mammoth through the year and fishing and hunting in the summer and fall would do the same for Bishop, but with the drought, and the latest in a long string of bad news from CDFG, the area is running out of options.