The Delta has long been one of the nation’s premiere fishing grounds. If you enjoy bluegill, salmon, readear, largemouth, smallmouth, and striped Bass, bullhead catfish, channel catfish, shad, sturgeon, crappie, steelhead and the occasional crawdad, then you have found your Shangri-La.
There are over 1000 miles of waterways in the Delta beckoning you with thoughts of your next fishing adventure. Photo by Jah Mackey
By Jah Mackey
Published: September, 2010
There are over 1000 miles of waterways beckoning you with thoughts of your next fishing adventure. Whether you own the latest Ranger Boat or are pulling your grandfather’s aluminum special out of storage—or better yet, are looking for a quiet riverbank—the Delta has a fishing spot for you.
On a recent productive fishing outing on the Mokelumne River, a friend and I ventured to Paradise Point via several sloughs and cuts. As we meandered along, we stopped at Herman and Helen’s for lunch on Little Connection Slough. Then, we made our way to King Island Resort on Honker Cut and Disappointment Slough just north of Stockton. As I said, our last destination before we headed home was Paradise Point, located on Bishop Cut and Disappointment Slough, near Eight Mile Road north of Stockton. The scenery was beautiful and timeless, reminding me of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Eve’s Bayou.
Unfortunately, this anglers’ paradise is in jeopardy. Once upon a time, the Delta was teaming with huge populations of all kinds of fish and was home to many commercial fishermen. With the passing of the Burn-Porter Act in 1960, the California State Water Project, including the California Aqueduct, was constructed and expanded. Major additions and renovations were completed at recently as 1997 and additional work was to be completed around 2008.
The original plan called for massive pumps that would pump freshwater from Northern California through the California Aqueduct and supply Southern California and the Central Valley with a valuable resource. Due to court rulings on the endangered status of the Delta Smelt, a native to the waterway and a forage fish that makes up one of lower foundations of the Delta food chain, those pumps have been kept quiet for some time.
What has been historically the birthplace of legendary tales of great fishermen has become the site for California’s ongoing water wars. The California state government, along with the state’s corporate agricultural businesses, has set out to change the flow of the state’s most important waterway and freshwater fishery yet again.
The advent of the California Aqueduct and associated projects has decimated the fish populations to the point where the Delta smelt are on the endangered species list and others are dangerously close. Now the California State Legislature and our Governor have developed a similar plan to re-route large amounts of freshwater around the Delta in a new conveyance system to Southern and Central California. This plan is very similar to the Peripheral Canal rejected by voters in 1982.
The revised proposal now known as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan will further jeopardize the Delta. The plan (BDCP) calls for the eradication of non-native fish species, a new canal and a series of tide control gates—two permanently in the western Delta and two in the central Delta as long-term temporary solutions—to allow freshwater flow into the system on high tide to be contained as the tide begins to turn for the outflow.
In an effort to restore native fish species, part of the plan is the eradication of (presumably by poisoning the waterway) “non-native predatory species” that proponents of the BDCP say threaten indigenous Delta smelt, longfin smelt and salmonid populations. While not stated, this part of the BDCP specifically targets striped bass, largemouth bass and every other non-native predatory species in the waterway.
So, if you are an avid angler and you enjoy fishing in the Delta, get involved. Many organizations are opposed to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, including the California Striped Bass Association (www.striper-csba.com), California Delta Chamber and Visitors Bureau (www.californiadelta.org), California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (www.calsport.org), Restore the Delta (www.restorethedelta.org), Water 4 Fish (www.water4fish.org), several of the Delta water districts and the cities and five counties that comprise the Delta.
Stay informed, stay committed, and stay fishing.
Jah Mackey, is President of Oceanus Marine Group (OMG), which provides outsourced marina management services to public and private marinas. Mackey is the current commodore of California’s first internet-based yacht club, OMG’s Delta Yacht Registry, and is an avid boater with over 20 years of boating experience on the San Francisco Bay and Delta Regions.
