Stocking

[Calduke]

Apparently, the KERN River has been deleted from the DFG website for trout planting.

[Calduke]

Dear Admin,

Can you provide an update on planting in the upper Kern.
The DFG site has dropped the Kern River from it's data base. The last post I saw, 2 weeks ago, showed that the last plant was the week of April 21.

Has the DFG actually stopped the planting of the upper Kern?

Thank You

[flyboy]

The hatchery manager says they have been stocking weekly but the trout he is getting from the SJ hatchery are smaller than normal he doesn't know why. There are no planting shown on the CDFW website because they just weren't able to submit their planting schedule to the CDFW website for May. I fished Friday and I don't think they stocked very heavy for the Memorial Day weekend based on where I was catching my trout (18 total). They were mostly 10" or smaller. There were no fishers at Riverside Park and that is a good indication that most of the fish planted earlier in the week were already caught or that area wasn't stocked (a rare thing indeed).

The hatchery manager indicated that they are really under the gun to complete the surface facilities for the new cool water wells at the hatchery. He knows that the record low snow pack will mean lethal river temps in late June and if he doesn't get cold well water all of his trout will die again even earlier than last year. So they will be busy trying to get the wells fully operational soon.

It is deeply concerning that starting this year the CDFW can only plant sterile trout in CA, that means when river temps hit +80 degrees this summer there will be a significant fish kill of the remaining wild trout stock. The only trout population in the river that can actually reproduce will be devastated. That means the Kern River fishery will sustain permanent damage. There are plans to rear native Kern River Rainbow at the hatchery but they will not be able to plant those pan sized trout (hopefully they won't have to be sterile trout!!!) for at least 2 more years if the stay on the CDFW schedule.

The future is troubling for the next 2 years. Take advantage of the next month of trout plants because you'll likely have to wait until late September before river temps will allow stocking of the Kern River.

Please get the word out to avoid trout fishing altogether (even catch and release) once river temps exceed 75 degrees because the stress of just playing trout to your hand/net will exhaust and kill them. My hope is that vendors in Kernville will convey this concern so they can help sustain the FRAGILE wild trout population during these extreme river conditions that haven't occurred in decades. Hopefully short term profit won't outweigh the long term health of the fishery.

Keeping my fingers crossed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Calduke]

Great post!!

Maybe it's not noticed, but, I started the thread about 'future of the Kern River'. Not much interest shown.

I'm 100% catch and release. I firmly believe all the fishing thru the summer should be catch and release.
It's fun catching the small trout - put them back and others can enjoy, also.

Need to eat a trout? Buy a nice, big, fresh one at the market. It's cheaper, also.