THE OUTDOORS : Outdoor Notes / Rich Roberts : State Trout Group Won’t Take Bait of National Organization
Trout Unlimited and California Trout would seem to be similar organizations with a common purpose--to preserve and develop trout fishing resources--so it may surprise some people that they haven’t worked together for about the last 20 years.
That’s the way CalTrout wants it, but TU, a national organization, has been a persistent suitor.
TU President Steve Lundy of Denver was in Southern California recently to help launch the South Coast Chapter in Orange County and said, “A national organization would come in handy (for CalTrout) in Washington, D.C. We’ve offered to work with them any time, anyplace on anything.”
CalTrout President Dick May says thanks, but his group doesn’t need TU.
“We have told Steve that there is a legitimate role for a national group such as his,” May said from San Francisco. “That is to raise money where there are a lot of people and spend it where there are a lot of trout needing attention.”
Otherwise, May said, CalTrout can be more effective concentrating its limited resources on the objectives, without getting bogged down with the social activities of local chapters and broader interests that don’t directly help California trout or California anglers.
“One of the problems with chapters is they end up being local fishing clubs,” May said. “We let the local fishing clubs do that sort of thing, because they do it well.
“That’s why we broke away from the old Trout Unlimited organization back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. We found we were pouring too much money into a bottomless pit that wasn’t producing any trout benefits. Very few trout management decisions are made at the White House. Most are made at the Statehouse, and that is where we decided to put our precious dollar resources, and it’s worked extremely well for us.”
CalTrout has four full-time employees, May and regional directors Jim Edmondson in Southern California, Jim Hamilton in Central California and Tom Hesseldenz in Northern California. The annual budget is $200,000-$250,000, which is provided by 3,500 to 4,000 members and major donors.
If CalTrout needs lobbying strength in Washington, May said, “We have them either on an ad hoc basis or when we link up with some of the groups back there which really have political juice, which TU does not.
“Our purposes are the same, but the approaches are vastly different--and the effectiveness is vastly different.”
Dive boat operators from the Long Beach-San Pedro area have designated June 15 as Catalina Chamber Day, with proceeds of that day’s charters going to save the hyperbaric chamber on Santa Catalina Island.
Tom Quick, president of the Greater Los Angeles Diving Council, said 15 boats have offered to participate so far.
“We’re just under $17,000 right now and hope to raise about $20,000,” Quick said.
Volunteers who operate the 15-year-old chamber, used by divers stricken with the bends, say it is becoming increasingly difficult to finance. Los Angeles County, which provided funding for the USC-operated chamber since 1974, can afford only half the operating costs and the diving community is concerned that diving fatalities will increase if the chamber is lost.
CalTrout, Department of Fish and Game and L.A. City Department of Water and Power officials will meet in Bishop soon to seek a solution to the problem of the Rock Creek diversion ditch, where more than 1,500 trapped trout had to be rescued when the ditch suddenly went dry the week before the trout opener in April.
The ditch carries overflow from Rock Creek into Crooked Creek, which flows into Crowley. When the ditch fills, the trout, demonstrating better instincts than judgment, travel up to spawn.
A temporary screen has been installed to prevent further migration, and the authorities are hoping to build a permanent barrier with volunteer labor.
Two major resort ranch owners near Mammoth Lakes have written DFG Director Pete Bontadelli, opposing the DFG’s plan to conduct a year-round trout fishing experiment on the upper Owens River.
The plan was prompted in part by the “loophole” fishing controversy--some anglers who are claiming to fish for nonrestricted species while actually practicing catch-and-release for trout between seasons.
Tim Alpers of the Owens River Ranch and John Arcularius of the Arcularius Ranch told Bontadelli that the real motive was to stimulate year-round fishing business to go with the skiing.
They wrote: “(Although) our resorts stand to profit more in the short term than any other business in the area, it is inappropriate that the fishery resource . . . be exploited to artificially prop up the economy of a one-dimensional resort town.”
Briefly
The Department of Fish and Game is seeking volunteers to assist with electroshock census projects on the West Fork of the San Gabriel River June 20-22 and on Bear Creek June 27-29. Contact Chuck Newmeyer at (619) 375-5810. . . . The Pasadena Casting Club has scheduled a work party on the West Fork July 1. Non-members may join in. Free lunch. Contact Bob Graham at (818) 793-0100 or (818) 445-5481. . . . The 1989 American Kanchenjunga Expedition for mountain climbers, led by Lou Whittaker, returned to Seattle Tuesday. Six members reached the 26,168-foot Himalayan summit in separate assaults May 18 and May 21. . . . The Orange County chapter of Safari Club International will hold a fund-raising dinner and auction for the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep Friday at 6 p.m. at the Irvine Hilton. . . . Brunton U.S.A. of Wyoming is marketing what it calls A Life Card Survival System--a thin, credit-card sized packet that fits in a wallet but contains a floating disk compass, magnifying lens for starting fires, and survival instructions. The product is new on the market; price is $4.95 at certain sporting goods outlets.