THE OUTDOORS : Lake’s Success Depends on Transplanting Game Fish

A full moon illuminates Lake Success as Stan Stephens casts off for his nightly fishing expedition.

He’ll be out there from dark until 2 or 3 a.m., catching as many as he can. On a good night, he and his cronies in 2 other boats will get up to 1,000 fish.

Aren’t the local fishermen up in arms? Does the Department of Fish and Game know about this?

In a word, it’s shocking.

But Stephens is the DFG--the district fishery biologist based in nearby Visalia.

And the local fishermen aren’t up in arms. They’re up all night helping Stephens.

For the last 4 weeks the DFG, using 3 specially built electroshock boats, has been trying to pre-rescue as many game fish--largemouth and striped bass--as possible from the lake before a chemical poisons them all.

The project is intended to eradicate so-called trash fish--mainly carp--from the recreational reservoir. Starting today, the lake will be treated with Nusyn-noxfish, a poison that will kill all the fish. The chemical is derived from the root of a plant in South America, where Indians have used it to catch fish for centuries.

“I think if we get 10% (of the game fish), that’ll be doing pretty good,” Stephens says as he prowls the lake. “That would be about 8,000 game fish, 80% of them largemouths.”

His 18-foot aluminum outboard skiff is equipped with floodlights and a 220-volt generator that puts out 6 to 8 amps. Two hoop-shaped electrical probes, each dangling 5 quarter-inch cables into the murky water, extend at 45-degree angles from the bow, where 2 volunteers from the Lake Success Bass Club stand ready with long-handled nets.

Stephens warns the others not to put their hands into the water, lest they be shocked.

The charge reaches only 6 to 8 feet through the water, so Stephens, aided by an electronic fish-finder, maneuvers the boat deftly into shallow spots around the lake where game fish are known to feed at night.

As the boat moves over a school-- zap! The stunned fish roll to the surface, are scooped up and put in a tank in the middle of the boat. They’ll recover their senses within a few minutes and later be transferred to a holding pond until they can be returned to the lake.

“The only way it’s selective is that we fish certain parts of the lake where the game fish are,” Stephens said. “That’s why I have a couple of bass fishermen on board.”

One is Richard Rayner, the other Tom Potter. They have fished the area’s waters all their lives.

Porterville, 50 miles north of Bakersfield on California 65 in Tulare County, is a tidy, friendly town of 23,000 where they still have diagonal parking, a bowling alley and sidewalks that roll up at night.

One would expect the townsfolk to be mighty upset about somebody killing fish in their lake. And if it hadn’t been for a similar project at nearby Lake Kaweah last year, they probably would be.

When that project was proposed, the reaction from sportsmen was downright hostile.

The DFG wanted to kill the white bass in Kaweah to prevent them from migrating into the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta to feed on salmon. Tulare County got a restraining order but it was overturned in appellate court and then upheld in state Supreme Court.

Now, the county and the fishermen agree it was a good idea and are supporting the Lake Success project with enthusiasm.

Potter said: “We were against (the) Kaweah (project) until we saw the way it came out. Kaweah is excellent now. And we found out there was a lot of junk fish in here when we started shockin’ ‘em.”

About 90% of the fish in Kaweah were carp, a lot more than anyone suspected. Now there is more food for the game fish, and without the carp stirring up the bottom silt the water is much clearer.

Lake Success was created by damming the Tule River in 1961.

Stephens said: “New reservoirs, after 10 or 12 years, tend to go downhill as fisheries and need to be regenerated.”

The Kaweah and Success projects may become models.

So when a panel of DFG, county and fishing club representatives conducted a public hearing on the Lake Success proposal Oct. 13, Howard Shainberg, a DFG fishery biologist, said: “I heard no serious objections. The attitude has really changed, since they’ve seen how it benefits the reservoir.”

“The shutdown is going to hurt us,” said Danny Smith, who works at a tackle store near the lake. “We make our living from this lake. But we hope it’ll help us in the long run. We’re getting the bad fish out and the good fish in.”

Smith said business already is hurting because the lake is down to 14% of its capacity surface area of 2,477 acres. Because it’s a flood-control lake, managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the volume must be down to 8,000 acre feet--enough water to cover 8,000 acres 1 foot deep--maximum by Nov. 1 each year, before the wet season.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a wet season in California for 2 years. The lake is already down to 5,654 acre feet.

But a low lake is best for a fish kill. Many of the game fish suffocate from lack of oxygen, anyway.

Lake Success will require a massive clean-up before it can be restocked, DFG officials said. Those interested in volunteering may phone (209) 784-0215.