BASS FISHINGBass Fishing Sports Blog

The Asian carp is a skittish fish, averaging about two feet long and 10 pounds apiece. When startled by something, say a boat’s motor, it’s prone to jump up to 10 feet in the air. so when Blake Ruebush, Levi Solomon, and Chase Holtman, an ecology team with the Illinois Natural History Survey, head out on an early October carp-hunting mission, they do so with caution, and armor.

Ruebush’s steering console has been modified with a carp-proof Plexiglas windshield and a side wall of mesh netting to guard the throttle and steering wheel from aerial impact. the team considered wearing helmets but dismissed the thought as too dorky. instead, despite the humidity, Ruebush and Solomon wear waders to repel the slime. Holtman, a burly-looking guy, has gone the other way, opting for a T-shirt, shorts, and Crocs. “I’ll shower afterwards,” he says. “People look at you amusing when you reek of blood and fish.”

As they head out from Havana, Ill., and up a side channel of the lower Illinois River, the water starts to churn with agitated fish, and the boat’s hull thumps from underwater collisions. then the fish start flying—dozens of them, rising like a storm cloud. One ricochets off the boat’s guardrail; another leaps in from behind the boat, getting tangled in the motor’s steering cords. the air is so thick with fish that some bash together mid-flight, showering everyone with a snot-like splatter.

The fish come in at close to 30 miles per hour. That’s enough to cause bruises and broken noses—even concussions have been recorded—but Ruebush and his crew seem unworried. “This is Ground Zero for Asian carp,” Ruebush says, steering forward as his buddies stand at the front of the boat. they won’t have to endure the barrage much longer, though. They’re about to electrocute all the fish.

Solomon and Holtman lower two 10-foot booms attached to a generator capable of producing 5,000 watts. Ruebush starts the generator’s engine. It’s like a giant underwater Taser. as Ruebush motors ahead, fish that swim into the field will be stunned, then scooped off the surface by Solomon and Holtman with dip nets and dumped in a tub in the center of the boat, where they are identified, measured, weighed, and counted.

As the generator goes hot, they jump even higher. a fish hurdles the guardrail, skittering to a stop at Ruebush’s feet. “Hey! There’s a volunteer. we count those, too,” he adds, chuckling. Within a minute the water quiets and unconscious fish start rising to the surface.

The electrocution, one of four that will occur in the area today, will last 15 minutes and cover about 200 yards of shoreline. INHS runs thousands of these “fish community assessment” collections a year—a mix of shock fishing and other techniques such as netting—to track changes occurring in the river. the group is looking for two different species of Asian carp. the jumpers surrounding the boat are Asian silver carp. the Asian bighead swims closer to the bottom of the river and is harder to zap. both are filter feeders and thrive on plankton, a flotsam of algae and other microorganisms.

In the 1970s, fish farmers in mostly Southern states began importing Asian carp from China to help clean their commercial ponds. some escaped in floods, making their way into the Missouri River, the Mississippi River, and the Illinois and Ohio River basins. they breed fast, grow fast, and eat piggishly. Females can spawn up to three times a year, releasing millions of eggs per drop. Young fish easily eat their weight in food daily, while adults can consume up to 20 percent of their body weight. That yields silver carp as big as 50 pounds and bigheads up to 100 pounds. After their first few months, the fish outgrow their natural predators in the river system. And they pick it clean.

Thanks to the interconnectedness of America’s waterways, Asian carp now infest more than 23 states, mostly in the Midwest. But they are not yet in the great Lakes, home to a $7 billion fishing and $9 billion boating industry, according to the great Lakes Boating Federation. Havana and the 210 river miles north to Chicago represent the last stand in the battle against the carp.  The Illinois Natural Resources Dept. estimates that adult silver carp account for nine out of 10 fish in some places along the Illinois River. That’s 4,300 fish per river mile. “It is probably an underestimate,” says Kevin Irons, the state’s aquatic nuisance species program manager, who adds that it doesn’t include baby fish or bigheads.

The carp are scaring people away. According to a University of Illinois survey, 47 percent of recreational boaters from Havana and the nearby towns of Pekin and Beardstown were hit by an Asian carp in 2010 and 2011; one-third of those suffered watercraft hurt. “It’s cut down on our business considerably,” says Betty DeFord, manager of the Boat Tavern, a bar made out of an old riverboat on cinder blocks that sits alongside a boat ramp in the nearby town of Bath. “People who used to go out on the water won’t anymore because they are sick and tired of getting beat to death by the damn things.”

Ross Harano, director of international marketing at big River Fish, a processor in Pearl, Ill., estimates there are more than 100 million pounds of Asian carp in the Illinois River and more than 500 million pounds in the Mississippi basin, all of it growing at a rate of at least 10 percent a year.

Fish, of course, must follow water to spread, and local and national authorities are attempting to find out which rivers they’re in and how to kill them. in 2009 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and David Lodge, director of the Center of Aquatic Conservation at the University of Notre Dame, began taking samples of environmental DNA, or “eDNA,” from the water, looking for genetic markers in leftover scales, mucus, and feces. in November 2009, samples suggested that carp had made it upstream, as close as six miles from Lake Michigan.

The primary gateway to the lake, the Chicago Harbor Lock, is a system near Navy Pier in downtown Chicago. It handles about 1,800 tons of barge traffic per week and is a cornerstone of the country’s $380 billion domestic shipping industry, a transit point for commodities such as coal, steel, and petroleum fuels from as far south as Louisiana.

A closure would reroute those commodities overland, costing the region anywhere from an estimated $1.4 billion to $4.7 billion over the next two decades. It would also plug a pathway used by as many as 8,000 recreational boaters annually. the other two access points are the Wilmette Pumping Station, a passage the city uses to discharge runoff, and the Thomas J. O’Brien Lock and Dam, near Lake Calumet.

In 2010 the Supreme Court denied a request by the Michigan Attorney General to close the Chicago lock. Michigan officials have since pressed the issue with a series of bills now being heard in Congress. the Army Corps of Engineers has also launched its own $25.5 million study to identify all nuisance species in the region, figure out how they might travel between bodies of water, and measure the costs and impacts of two types of longer-term solutions. the first, hydrological separation, would be a total quarantine with no access via waterways. the second, ecological separation, would divide habitats less strictly, possibly using nets, filters, pumps, and lifts to hoist boats over the locks. the report is due in 2015.

In many cases the fight against an invasive species ends in such protracted analysis. Asian carp have received more attention than usual because their presence immediately drives off business. as Lodge puts it: “When you’ve got a 40-pound fish jumping into a boat and breaking jaws and knocking out teeth, people tend to stop boating and fishing. That has a demonstrable economic effect.”  In September 2010, President Barack Obama tapped John Goss, a former head of the Indiana Natural Resources Dept., to become the country’s first Asian carp czar, though the term is not official. Goss runs a multistate, 20-agency task force, the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, which includes officials from the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Geological Survey, among numerous partners. Goss has greenlighted $106 million in projects aimed to reshape the way in which species are managed and maintained.

On a Wednesday afternoon in late September, Goss stands on the rear deck of an Illinois Conservation Police boat. He has arrived to check out part of his new fighting armada, a fleet of six vessels outfitted with nets, electroshocking units, and eDNA sampling bottles. the boats are puttering around about 10 miles downstream from Navy Pier in an area called Bubbly Creek, so named because it used to be a dumping ground for stockyards; air bubbles from cattle carcasses still burble up when the bottom is disturbed. That makes for nutrient-rich water, perfect for Asian carp. Not that Goss expects to find any. “If we do, I’ll be surprised,” he says, peering into the nets in various boats as they drift past.

Goss hopes to meld traditional and genetic sampling. an eDNA hit implies fish, but not how many, so Goss is trying to match results with fished samples. “When we find DNA, it just says there’s DNA there,” he says. “Is it from one fish, multiple fish, or just fish scales brought in by barges from farther downriver?”

Containment starts another 20 miles downstream in Romeoville, Ill. There, near a railroad track lined with shanty houses, sit three electric barrier stations. These are like mega-electrofishing units, paralyzing fish across the width of a river. anything shocked will simply float back downriver. the river here is also flanked by 13 miles of ultrafine chain-link fence, meant to keep fish from other rivers from dumping into the channel above the fail-safe during floods.

When a barrier was taken down for service in December 2009, state and federal officials launched Operation Silverstream, a 450-person effort to poison six miles of river with Rotenone, an industrial fish toxin. the attack used boats and pumps on the shore to inject Rotenone into the water. Its spread was tracked with a dye, and caged fish acted like underwater canaries. a neutralizer was applied downstream. the effort killed thousands of fish but found only one bighead carp near the barrier. After numerous eDNA hits around the Small Calumet River just a few miles from Lake Michigan in May of the following year, officials mounted Operation Pelican, poisoning a three-mile stretch of river, again without finding any Asian carp. When a bighead carp was netted above the quarantine zone in Lake Calumet in June 2010, officials tried a less noxious tactic. a large-scale fishing expedition lasted for days, but their nets came up empty.

Despite such results, the Fish and Wildlife Service has bought 2,000 gallons of Rotenone, now housed in an undisclosed wilderness location. It’s a communal pool that any state can tap to protect still-virgin waters, but the committee wants to be prudent about using it again in Illinois. Upstream from the barrier, dozens of sites are fished and sampled weekly. Officials onboard with Goss carry a playbook adorned with the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee logo—a shield-like crest featuring a carp in a net—that outlines their rapid response plan. three eDNA hits in a row, for instance, or a reported carp sighting, leads to exploratory fishing. Catching one Asian carp leads to more intensive fishing. Two or more fish in hand, and the poison can be released.

Two days later, at a town hall-style committee meeting in Saginaw, Mich., Goss introduces the audience to Dr. Leon Carl, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s great Lakes Science Center, who describes new weapons he is working on. the list includes an underwater “carp cannon” that blasts high-pressure sound waves to scare off the fish; a carp-specific toxin, or “carpicide”; and a perfume of pheromones that might lure males or females into some specific area, where they will find not like but death. the carp cannon has already been used to clear out the area around the barriers so they can be powered down for maintenance. More prototypes should roll out within the next two years, after which both Carl and Goss hope they can be applied more widely.

Locally, states and towns are doing what they can to kill the fish by more traditional means, such as catching them and eating them. directly below the electric barrier, Illinois Natural Resources has hired fisherman to pull as many carp as possible from the water. they netted 62 tons in 2010 and caught roughly 400 tons in 2011. the department is also promoting a new sport: aerial bow fishing, in which guys in motorboats with modified bows shoot and then reel in the jumpers. At the second annual Director’s Shoot, 54 teams shot more than 48,000 pounds of fish 120 miles upstream from Havana. At the Boat Tavern, owner DeFord also hosts the annual Redneck Fishing Tournament. she describes it as a “carp rodeo” where boaters with nets try to snag as many fish out of the air as they can in an hour, as if they were netting 30-pound butterflies. This year about 200 people, some wearing helmets and baseball cups, caught 8,977 carp.

Asian carp have been harder to sell to consumers. in March 2011 the Illinois Public Health Dept. approved Asian carp for human consumption. a series of videos posted to the USGS website titled “Flying Fish, great Dish” hasn’t really caught on. Officials promote carp as a cheap, protein-rich food source that’s lower in mercury than tuna, but in general the fish is considered bony and dirty. “A lot of people call them sewer bass,” says Steve McNitt, the sales manager at Schafer Fisheries in Thomson, Ill. currently, Schafer turns all the state’s donated catch into an organic fish emulsion fertilizer, but the company is prototyping carp hot dogs, carp burgers, and carp jerky.

Illinois has also hired a chef to conduct taste tests. On a Thursday afternoon in September, Chef Philippe Parola and his business partner, chef Tim Creehan, shuffle around the stainless steel kitchen of Christ the King Jesuit College Preparatory High School on Chicago’s west side, checking on a series of buffet-size trays that will be dished out to more than 300 underprivileged kids in a gymnasium. the menu will be carp cakes—a fish version of crab cakes—with a béarnaise sauce and sides of green beans and sweet potatoes. they are also working on a bit of rebranding. during his presentation, Parola calls the fish by a more inventive and polished name: silverfin. It worked for Patagonian toothfish, also known as Chilean sea bass.

There’s one place, however, where carp is both in small supply and welcome on the menu: China. since 2010, Illinois has spent $6 million training fisherman to catch carp and helping processors develop ways to better store and ship bulk orders to China. in the homeland of carp, there are hardly any wild-caught specimens available; canal systems are too polluted to support the species. American processors can buy carp for 13¢ per pound on the docks and get up to 92¢ per pound from mainland importers. “In China, we tell everybody that this fish is so fresh and has so much energy that it dances on the water,” says Harano, the marketer at big River Fish, which recently received a $2  million state grant to expand its packing plant to handle an annual 30-million-pound contract for Beijing. “We market it a lot like you might Angus beef.” Their logo is a bald eagle clutching a fish in its talons while flying over the Mississippi River.

Above the barrier at Romeoville, eDNA testing suggests carp are getting through, but in small numbers. in 2010 there were 21 hits out of 1,270 samples. in 2011 there were 34 hits out of 2,548 samples. That isn’t enough for a big intervention. That there are fish still in the region, though, argues against hydrological separation as a permanent solution; it doesn’t account for human interference. There is currently a federal ban on transporting live Asian carp anywhere, as well as state bans on using carp as bait. That doesn’t mean fishermen, especially those who are selling live catches at ethnic markets or out catching their own bait, are following the guidelines.

Back near Havana, the INHS crew completes another electroshocking and spots a type of species thought to have been driven off: the human. Dan Belden, a lean, tan, 23-year-ancient with a ponytail, paddles up to the boat in his canoe, spooked by the carp flying around everywhere. Belden has been on the river for weeks. in September he loaded his canoe with camping gear and trail mix and put in hundreds of miles upstream on the Fox River in Wisconsin, plotting to paddle south until he hit New Orleans.

He knew there would be danger along the way, but he wasn’t expecting it to be in the water. Belden got blasted in the head with a super-size Asian carp a few days ago. “I never thought I’d be worried of a fish, but those things had me frightened within a day,” he tells Ruebush. When he nears a shoreline, he has learned to tuck his paddle into the boat and drift in gently, hoping not to launch the bottom-dwellers. Belden looks over at the stunned fish in the tub. “Do you reckon there are any lakes out there where these things can’t live?” he questions. says Ruebush: “I wouldn’t bet against them.”

Twilight fishing out of Long Beach was all the rage last weekend as 52 anglers on the Friday and Saturday night evening trips on the Native Sun out of Long Beach Sportfishing tallied nearly 200 sand bass and more than 150 sculpin.

“This is better than summertime twilight fishing,” said Steve Dunkerley, a passenger from Redondo Beach.

Al James from Long Beach took a limit of 10 sand bass on Friday evening along with several stout sculpin as did Raul Martinez, also from Long Beach.

Martinez said a 2-ounce green leadhead combined with live or fresh dead squid was the key. Martinez was hooked up constantly.

Wintertime sandbass are lethargic and don’t go around a lot. That’s why you will see some anglers catching lots of the bass on one part of the boat and very small on another part of the vessel. make sure you are observing this phenomenon and politely squeeze into where the fish are biting. If everyone works together, everyone will catch more fish.

The Native Sun will be at it this Friday with the Liberty out Saturday, 6:30p.m. to 11:30p.m. the cost is $42.

The Liberty has scheduled a special Presidents’ Day trip to Catalina Island for $65. the trip will depart Long Beach Sportfishing on Monday at 6a.m. and return at 6p.m. the focus will be on calico bass, halibut, white seabass and filling the sacks with lots of perch. There have been a few flurries of seabass at the island and wintertime bass fishing can be good. Halibut fishing has been excellent everywhere so hopes are high for a good trip.

The Tradition out of Redondo Sportfishing as well as the Marina del Rey fleet have been having excellent sculpin fishing, along with a few bass too. on the Tradition’s last trip, 15 anglers had 75 sculpin for limits, 34 sand bass and five calico bass.

Sea lion incidents: Sea lions have been in the news this week. first, Colombian pop singing star Shakira had a scary encounter with a sea lion off Cape Town, South Africa, earlier this week. Shakira described the encounter on her Facebook page:

“This afternoon I happened to see some sea lions and seals. I thought to myself how cute they were so I decided to get a bit closer than all of the other tourists and went down to a rock trying to pet them doing a baby talk while taking pictures …

“Suddenly, one of them jumped out of the water so quick and impetuously that it got about one foot away from me, looked me in the eye, roared in fury and tried to bite me. everyone there screamed, including me.

“I was paralyzed by fear and couldn’t go; I just kept eye contact with it while my brother `Super Tony’ jumped over me and literally saved my life, taking me away from the beast.”

In San Diego, animal care experts from Sea World removed a bullet Wednesday from a sea lion that had come ashore a few days earlier in Oceanside. the pinniped was reported to be in stable condition. National Marine Fisheries Service is investigating the incident as well as a string of nine sea lion killings in Washington state.

Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. Photographs by Walker Evans, through April 8. “The Legend of Rex Slinkard,” through Feb. 26. “Memory and Markets: Pueblo Painting in the Early 20th Century,” Feb. 22 through may 27. Sculpture from the Fisher Collection, Feb. 29 through Oct. 13, 2013. 11 a.m.-5p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays; Thursdays till 8 p.m. Stanford campus, off Palm Drive at Museum Way. 650-723-4177 or museum.stanford.edu

Gallery 9. “Libations,” photography by Cupertino Christine Arthur. Through Feb. 25. Gallery 9, 143 Main St., Los Altos. 650-949-7969 or gallery9losaltos.com

Palo Alto Art Center. “Clear story,” site-specific, walk-in installation by Bay Area artist Mildred Howard, through August, King Plaza, in front of Palo Alto City Hall. “LawnBowls: A Site-Specific Environmental Installation,” by Judith Selby Lang. through February 2013, Palo Alto Lawn Bowls Club, 474 Embarcadero, Palo Alto. cityofpaloalto.org/artcenter

Peninsula Museum of Art. Main Gallery: “Hive,” video installation by Ruth Eckland; original music by Matt DiFonzo, through March 18. Collections Room: “Timepieces,” a selection from Gail Waldo’s collection, through April 8. Peninsula Museum of Art, Twin Pines Art Center, 10 Twin Pines Lane, Belmont. 650-594-1577

Kepler’s Books. Youth Event: Meg Rosoff, “There is No Dog,” 7 p.m. Feb. 16. Patricia Schultz, “1,000 Places to see before you Die,” 6 p.m. Feb. 18. story Time with Jennifer Fosberry, “Isabella: Girl on the Go,” 11:30 a.m. Feb. 19. story Time with Alexandra Day, “The Fairy Dogfather,” 11:30 a.m. Feb. 26. Christopher Wachlin, Tory Hartmann and other contributors from the San Francisco and Peninsula Branch of the California Writers Club, “Fault Zone, Stepping up to the Edge,” 2 p.m. March 4. Irvin D. Yalom, “The Spinoza Problem: A novel,” 7 p.m. March 6. Jack Kornfield, “Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening right where you are,” 7 p.m. March 7. Spencer West, “Standing Tall: my Journey,” 7 p.m. March 9. Youth Event: Alexander Gordon Smith, “Fugitives: Escape from Furnace 4,” 7 p.m. March 12. Dr. Eric Topol, “The Creative Destruction of Medicine,” 7 p.m. March 13. Cara Black, “Murder at the Lanterne Rouge,” 7 p.m. March 14. Elaine Pagels, “Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation,” 7 p.m. March 17. story Time with Emily Wagner, “Asleep under the Moon,” 11 a.m. March 18. J.D. Rothman, “The Neurotic Parent’s Guide to College Admissions: Strategies for Helicoptering, Hot-housing & Micromanaging,” 7 p.m. March 20. Youth Event: Ally Carter, “Out of Sight, out of Time,” 7 p.m. March 21. Jason Benlevi, “Too much Magic: Pulling the Plug on the Cult of Tech,” 7 p.m. March 22. Harlan Coben, “Stay Close,” 2 p.m. March 25. Akash Kapur, “India becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India,” 7 p.m. March 26. Kepler’s Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park. 650-324-4321 or keplers.com

Phil McKinney. “Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions that Spark Game-Changing Innovations.” In conversation with Computer History Museum’s John C. Hollar. Noon, Feb. 16. Computer History Museum, 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View. A Kepler’s Books event. 650-324-4321 or keplers.com; or computerhistory.org/events

Cirque du Soleil. “Totem.” March 2-April 1. Taylor Street Bridge, 176 Asbury St., San Jose. Performance times vary by day and date. $63.50-$148.50 (adults), $47-$108 (ages 2-12). Premium tickets available. cirquedusoleil.com/totem or 800-450-1480

Arab Comedy by the Bay. 8:30 p.m. Feb. 23. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $25. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Comedy Monday. 8 p.m. Mondays. Host Dan St. Paul. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $10. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Comedy Wednesday. 8 p.m. Wednesdays. Host Dan St. Paul. Bell Theatre, Angelica’s Bistro, 863 Main St., Redwood City. No cover. 650-365-3226.

“Dance with Cheryl for Black History Month.” 6 p.m. Feb. 17. Gala fundraiser for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) student scholarship program. Cheryl Burke Dance, 1400 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View.

$45 advance; $55 at the door. 650-864-9150 or cherylburkedance.com/mountainview

Smuin Ballet. 8 p.m. Feb. 22-24; 2 and 8 p.m. Feb. 25; 2 p.m. Feb. 26. “Dear Miss Cline,” choreographed by Amy Seiwert; Michael Smuin’s “Tango Palace,” “The Eternal Idol” and “Stabat Mater.” Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. $49- 62. 650-903-6000 or smuinballet.org

Los Altos History Museum. “Shaped by Water — Past, Present, Future,” through April 22. Los Altos History Museum, 51 S. San Antonio Road, Los Altos. Noon-4 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays. Free. 650-948-9427 or losaltoshistory.org

San Mateo County History Museum. Playing Grown-Up: Toys from the Harry P. Costa Collection, through Dec. 31, 2012. Toys from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that allowed children to mimic the activities of adults, such as a pedal-car fire truck and airplane, Tonka work trucks, an electric 1929 Lionel Stove & Oven, a G-men Fingerprint Set, a “Miss Friday” mechanical doll and a Lionel train. San Mateo County History Museum, 2200 Broadway, Redwood City. $3-$5; free to Association members. historysmc.org or 650-299-0104

“Glide Fishing Film Tour.” 7 p.m. Feb. 28. Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City. $17. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Disney on Ice. “Toy story 3.” Feb. 22-26, HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose. Feb. 29-March 4, Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland. $16-$77. 800-745-3000 or ticketmaster.com

Lyrics Born. 9 p.m. Feb. 16. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $20. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Fred Eaglesmith. 9 p.m. Feb. 17. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $18. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Palo Alto Philharmonic. 8 p.m. Feb. 18. Hector Berlioz, Roman Carnival Overture; W. A. Mozart, Clarinet Concerto in A Major, soloist Michael Corner; Richard Strauss, Tod und Verklärung; Igor Stravinsky, Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra. 7:30 p.m., pre-concert Talk by Music Director Thomas Shoebotham. Cubberley Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto.

$10-$20. paphil.org or at the door

Tony Orlando. 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18. Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City. $35-$52.50. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix covers) and Kevin Russell’s Cream of Clapton. 8 p.m. Feb. 18. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $12. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Stan Erhart Band. With Jackie Enx, Michael Warren. 7 p.m. Feb. 19. American Legion, 470 Capistrano Road, Half Moon Bay. No cover. 650-726-7403

Chucho Valdés and the Afro-cuban Messengers. 7 p.m. Feb. 19. Presented by Stanford Lively Arts. Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University. $38-$42; $10 for Stanford students; 650-725-2787 or livelyarts.stanford.edu

Junior Watson (Club Fox Blues Jam). 7 p.m. Feb. 22. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $5. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Journey Unauthorized. 8 p.m. Feb. 24. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $15. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale. Music of War and Peace. 8 p.m. Feb. 25. Ralph Vaughn Williams, “Dona Nobis Pacem” and “Five Mystical Songs”; Randall Thompson, “Frostiana.” first United Methodist Church of Palo Alto, 625 Hamilton Ave., Palo Alto. $24. symphonysiliconvalley.org or 408-286-2600, ext. 23

Kim Baker & Heather Combs with Garrin Benfield. 8 p.m. Feb. 25. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $15. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Stan Erhart Band. With Ken Owen, Michael Warren. 6 p.m. Feb. 25. Sam’s Chowder House, 4210 N. Cabrillo Highway, Half Moon Bay. No cover. 650-712-0245

Around the World in 88 Keys. 8 p.m. Feb. 26. Pianist Frank Lévy. Music by Beethoven, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Glinka. Oshman Family Jewish Community Center, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. $10-$18. paloaltojcc.org/arts or 650-223-8605

Stan Erhart, blues jam. With Pat Tinling. 7 p.m. Feb. 28. Neto’s Market & Grill, 1313 Franklin St., Santa Clara. No cover. 408-296-0818

Lara Price Blues Revue (Club Fox Blues Jam). 7 p.m. Feb. 29. Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. $5. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com tickets.foxrwc.com

George Komsky. 8 p.m. March 3. Arias by Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini and Leoncavallo. Oshman Family Jewish Community Center, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. $30-$40. paloaltojcc.org/arts or 650-223-8609

Peninsula Symphony. Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, performed by pianist John O’Conor. Charles Stanford’s Irish Rhapsody No. 1 and Aaron Copland’s Suite from Billy the Kid. 8 p.m. March 9, Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City; and 8 p.m. March 10, Flint Center, DeAnza College, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino. $20-$39. peninsulasymphony.org or 650-941-5291

Palo Alto Philharmonic. Spring Chamber Concert: Debussy, String Quartet; Mozart, Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, (“Kegelstatt Trio”) K 498; Corelli, 3rd Sonata op. 5 for Flute and Bass; Robert LeBlanc, Duo for Flute and Double Bass. 8 p.m. March 10. first Baptist Church, 305 N. California Ave., Palo Alto. $10-$20. paphil.org

Noa. 8 p.m. March 22. With Mira Awad. Oshman Family Jewish Community Center, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. $60-$75. paloaltojcc.org/arts or 650-223-8692

Folger Stable. Authentically restored stable, miles of trails among redwoods. Blacksmith’s shop, antique carriage collection, other features. 4040 Woodside Road (in Wunderlich Park). 1-4 p.m. Saturdays. Docent-led tours, 1 and 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays (reservations required). folgerstable.org or 650-851-2660

Berkeley Repertory Theatre. “Ghost Light.” Conceived and developed by Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone. Through Feb. 19. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. $14.50 to $73 (subject to change), 510-647-2949, berkeleyrep.org

Bus Barn Stage Company. “Doubt, A Parable.” by John Patrick Shanley. Through Feb. 18. Bus Barn Theatre, 97 Hillview Ave., Los Altos. $24-$32. 650-941-0551 or busbarn.org

City Lights Theater Company. “Aphrodisiac.” by Rob Handel. Through Feb. 19. City Lights Theater Company, 529 S. Second St., San Jose. $25-$35. 408-295-4200 or cltc.org

SF Playhouse. “Becky Shaw.” by Gina Gionfriddo. Through March 10. SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter St., San Francisco. $40-$70. 415-677-9596 or sfplayhouse.org

Foothill Music Theatre. “All Shook up.” Book by Joe DiPietro. Directed by Milissa Carey, musical direction by mark Hanson, choreography by Katie O’Brion. Feb. 23 through March 11. Lohman Theatre, Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills. $10-$28. foothillmusicals.com or 650-949-7360

Notre Dame de Namur University Department of Music and Vocal Arts. “The Light in the Piazza.” by Adam Guettel. 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24, 25 and March 2, 3; 7 p.m. Feb. 26 at 7 p.m.; 2 p.m. March 4. NDNU Theatre, 1500 Ralston Ave., Belmont. $15-$25. brownpapertickets.com or 800-838-3006

Nickelodeon. “Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer Live! Dora’s Pirate Adventure.” 7 p.m. Feb. 24, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Feb. 25. Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City. $24.25-$41.50. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

Broadway San Jose. “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.” March 6-11. San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Blvd., San Jose. $20-$82. 866-395-2929 or broadwaysanjose.com

TheatreWorks. “Now Circa then.” by Carly Mensch. West Coast premiere. Directed by Meredith McDonough. Previews: March 7-9. Opens March 10. Runs through April 1.TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. $19-$69 (savings available for students, educators and seniors). 650-463-1960 or theatreworks.org

Hillsdale High School. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” by William Shakespeare. A hip-hop-inspired production directed by Allison Gamlen. March 7-11. Hillsdale’s Small Theater, 3115 Del Monte St. ,San Mateo. $10-$15. hillsdalehigh.com/drama or 650-558.2634

North Star Academy. “Anything Goes.” by Cole Porter. 7 p.m. March 8-10 and 2 p.m. March 11. McKinley Auditorium, 400 Duane St., Redwood City. $8-$14. northstartix.com

“Cotton Patch Gospel.” 3 p.m. March 18. Performed by John and Beth Chase. Benefit for Dar al-Kalima College through bright Stars of Bethlehem. Grace Lutheran Church, 3149 Waverley St., Palo Alto. $5-$15. 650-494-1212

Broadway by the Bay. “Hairspray.” Book by mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan; music by Marc Shaiman; lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman; based on John Waters film. Directed by Amanda Folena. April 5-22. Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City. 650-369-7770 or tickets.foxrwc.com

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CHESHIRE, Conn. — Retired Marine Sgt. Joe “Sarge” Kowalski, a lifelong Cheshire resident, is teaching veterans to fish, but it isn’t to feed them for life. It’s to help them recover from mental and physical injuries.

Kowalski is a co-host of the NBC Sports Outdoors show “The Ultimate Fishing Experience,” which first aired on Jan. 5 and will end its first season on March 29. the cast and crew of the show travel around the country to teach veterans about the therapeutic effects of fishing.

“There is something about 17? feet of carpeted deck (of a boat) and fishing that is relaxing,” he said.

Kowalski first started fishing when he was about 5 years ancient. He learned that fishing helped him cope with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“If it helped me, I wondered if it could help my fellow veterans,” he said.

The 13-year veteran started the Maj. Steven Roy Andrews Fishing Outreach Program in 2008. the program is named after Kowalski’s lifelong friend, fellow veteran and fishing partner. Andrews served in the Air Force and was due to retire in 2002, but died of a heart attack at 40 in 2000.

The outreach program teaches veterans and children how to fish. Kowalski gives the participants what he calls “Bass 101,” which teaches them the basics of fishing. He also sets the participants up with fishing gear so they can continue fishing.

“The Ultimate Fishing Experience” is a natural continuation of Kowalski’s mission.

The show’s founder, executive producer and host, Keith Alan, took some inspiration from Kowalski’s program and other similar programs that help veterans through fishing. Alan started creating the show with Emmy Award winning director/producer Jason Wald. the show started on its way to production in February 2011, when Alan invited Kowalski to a meeting in Orlando, Fla., with fishing industry and television network executives.

“I told him, ‘You can say things I can’t,’ ” Alan said.

Kowalski told the people at the meeting that he needed their time and money in order to help veterans and spread awareness about veterans with disabilities.

“After that, it was clear that there would be a role for Sarge,” Alan said.

Kowalski brings several elements to the show; one of the most vital is his ability to relate to troubles veterans face. He is also a regular guy who smokes a cigar and drinks Scotch while fishing, Alan said.

“Sarge is an endearing, lovable guy,” Alan said. “He is the same in person as he is on camera.”

North State officials are warning about the dangers of a proposed Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta restoration plan, and a Colusa outdoors shop owner believes an attempt to change striped bass fishing regulations was a carefully disguised attempt to get more water, too.

The state Fish & Game Commission last week voted down a proposal that would have allowed fishermen to catch three times more stripers on each outing, and would reduce the size of keepers from 18 inches to 12.

Pat Kittle, owner of Kittle’s Outdoor & Sports, said that, had the regulations changed, his business would have benefited.

“In the small term, business would boom,” Kittle said. “I would have made money.”

But, like most of the sport fishermen who attended the commission meeting, Kittle opposed the changes because of the negative, long-term impact on the bass population.

But that was the thought.

The proposal was introduced by the DFG as part of a settlement agreement resulting from a 2008 lawsuit.

The state agreed, as part of the settlement, to introduce the new regulations. The outcome was not tied to the settlement, a DFG spokeswoman said.

In that lawsuit, the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, a group of mostly San Joaquin water districts, claimed the non-native striped bass are harming native species, including endangered salmon and Delta smelt.

“There is growing scientific consensus that predation is a major source of salmon and Delta smelt mortality, but state regulators have repeatedly failed to address the problem of striped bass predation on these species,” the Coalition states on its website.

“Striped bass are an invasive species that were planted in California as a sportfish. The Department of Fish and Game has long been protecting the voracious predators at the expense of salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, and other endangered species through the imposition of size (18 inches minimum) and bag (two per day) limits.”

The regulations would have set the daily limit at six fish instead of two, and in some areas, such as the Clifton Court Forebay, 20 per day.

The commission unanimously voted the proposal down.

Kittle said he attended the meeting because of his concern over the potential impact on striper fishery, but left believing the issue was more about water than fish.

His opinion changed when he realized it was large Central Valley water districts and other San Joaquin users who were behind the proposal.

“We all know water is the issue, and when you look back at the Owens Valley and all the tricks that were used then are coming back right before out eyes,” Kittle said.

It is a similar concern that Glenn County Supervisor Leigh McDaniel has about the Delta Stewardship Council plan, which he said would drain North State reservoirs and possibly even threaten groundwater supplies.

McDaniel said allowing flows of 75 percent or higher out of the Sacramento Valley, as proposed by the council, would essentially eliminate most water storage in this region, and said the concept of allowing natural flows in the Delta is an “extremely narrow vision.”

He convinced the county to send a letter expressing the kind of negative impacts the plan would have on the North State water supply.

McDaniel said comments and concerns expressed by North State counties and water interests seem to have been ignored during the environmental impact process, and that the Stewardship Council seems “hard bent on going forward with the EIR on its (plot).”

The Glenn County Board of Supervisors concluded that the plan does not consider the effect on areas upstream of the Delta and “the role these upstream environments play for a healthy and economically viable California.”

The board also said the “aggressive timeline” for implementing the plan by June 20, 2014, and June 2018, can only result in “additional depletion of regional groundwater resources and significantly reduce storage in the Shasta and Oroville reservoirs — in addition to causing negative economic and social impacts to the rural communities of the Northern Sacramento Valley.”

Calls to the Stewardship Council were not immediately returned.

1. what kind of fishing do you do?Bass fishing — rod and reel. what I do is I compete in bass tournaments all over the country. Really, last week, I was just down in Florida on Okeechobee.2. How did you get started fishing?It’s kind of a mystery. Neither one of my parents fish. when I was in about second or third grade, I remember Mom taking me out to a pond. really, from there it just started where she bought me a magazine subscription — this bass fishing magazine that I read constantly. It was one of those things. I was young, if I was willing to read a fishing magazine; she was willing to buy it for me.3. How many tournaments do you enter each year?Generally, I fish 13 to 15 tournaments a year. this year, I plot on doing right around 13 or 14. 4. What’s involved in a tournament?A tournament can be anywhere from one day to four days. You launch your boat from a designated area and then have to be back in by 3 p.m. You have eight hours to fish. You are allowed to bring back five fish and it is the combined weight of those. You have a height minimum — usually the fish has to be at least 12 inches. All your fish must be alive. I have these compartments in my boat called live wells that pump water in and circulate it. You are penalized if any of your fish are dead.5. where are the tournaments held? what is the farthest you’ve gone?Okeechobee is the farthest I’ve been — it’s 1,200 miles. I go all over — Lake Erie, Lake St. Clair. I’ve been to lakes all over Ohio.6. what kind of equipment do you use?If I’m fishing as a pro on my boat, I usually have 10 to 15 rods in the boat. I probably have six to eight boxes full of hard lures and four to six Ziploc bags of soft lures. One thing about tournaments, you can’t use live bait. You have to use artificial lures.7. Do you use live bait when you fish for fun?No, I pretty much only use artificial bait.8. How often do you fish for fun?I am probably on the water fishing for fun at least 80 days a year easily.9. What’s your largest catch?Last year, I did catch a 5 pound 11 ounce smallmouth bass. I’ve caught several largemouth bass in the 8- to 9-pound range, but I haven’t hit a 10-pounder yet. Typically, a smallmouth bass at 6 pounds or a largemouth bass at 10 pounds is a once-in-a-lifetime type of fish.10. what do you do with the fish you catch when you are fishing for fun? Do you like to eat fish?Generally, I release any bass I catch, and yes, I like fish — just not bass. I prefer walleye or perch. if I catch a walleye, it’s supper that night.11. How many tournaments have you won?Last year, I won two of my club tournaments. 12. What’s your favorite part of fishing?It gets me out of my normal job as an attorney.

Those weird-looking fish that resemble a frisbee or from a distance look like jumping tuna are still with us around the channel.

Most of the time, the Mola Mola – also called Ocean Sunfish – can be found floating around debris and around oil platforms. Sunfish have been known to grow up to 10 feet and weigh more than 3,000 pounds. Females are oviparous and once a 5-foot female was found to have 300 million eggs. Sunfish feed on jellyfish as well as bottom dwellers, crustaceans, brittle stars and small fish.

Sunfish have a habit of floating in a state of complete suspension, so silent and subdued you can sometimes pick them out of the water with your hands. The ones that are currently invading our waters seem to be about 8 pounds, still a small large for a sportfishermans’ net or hands.

Whale watch: On Sunday, Don Ashley of Pierpoint Landing took a whale watch out with my warning to keep an eye out for the Mola Molas and maybe snap a picture for me. The trip did not turn up any sunfish but they observed solid porpoise schools from the Long Beach Light House to the oil rigs mixed by a solid group of fin whales. He said the gray whales on their way back north were not on site.

Local saltwater: The boats out of Long Beach Marina Landing has been catching plenty of sculpin and sand bass on its half-day runs. One half-day run turned out 18 anglers catching 125 calico and sand bass. with that, the landing announces the start of the Enterprise back on the 3/4-day schedule.

Pot of gold halibut: The third week of the halibut tourney at Long Beach Sportfishing turned up one to three flattie halibut per trip. The catch of the week was a 39.2-pound halibut caught by David Akamine. Many undersized fish were thrown back as the action also kicked out some fish in the high teens.

In Marina del Rey, the sportboat new Del Mar has been doing well – catching 265 sculpin, 44 sand bass and 11 calicos on a half-day trip. I am thinking it’s time to go sculpin and halibut fishing especially in Santa Monica Bay. Marina del Rey has always been for those who know the fishing spots as the best for sculpin and especially large halibut.

Marina del Rey Halibut Tournament: The tournament (June 9-10) is the oldest of its kind on the west coast and they claim it produces the largest fish. Last year’s winning fish topped the scale at 43 pounds.

The way the large butts are being caught really rings my bell, “Let’s go get’em, the big ones are there”.

The very latest technique for catching butts is called “Bounce Balling”. you deploy a 2-pound lead ball on the end of your line with a small leader and a lure or bait dropped off above the ball. The idea is to troll slowly causing the ball to pound the bottom creating noise and a massive bottom disturbance. Halibut love to attack the lure and will attack with aggression.

Fred Hall Tackle and Boat Show: this is the `huge one’ so make your plans soon. The event runs March 7-11 at the Long Beach Convention Center. I usually do three visits because it takes that many times to get around the whole show. I usually spend two nights on the seminars and walk around booths then one night spending money on the new tackle.

Irvine Lake Presidents’ Day Tournament: There will be a special stocking of steelhead trout for the tournament on Saturday and Sunday with 10 places awarded. First place is $875, second place $425, third place $300.

Santa Ana River Lakes planted their lakes with thousands of their well-known Nebraska “Tail Walker” rainbows on Wednesday. now is a good time to fish this popular lake especially while the big ones are biting. Last week a 20-pound rainbow was caught near the boat dock and many stringers of 1 1/2 to 3 pounds are also being caught.

Eastern Sierra: The year-round open zones in the area are usually smothered with snow and ice but the warm weather finds the zones open with anglers enjoying wide-open trout fishing. Places that normally find the area snowed in with banks full of snow are accessible and simple to fish.

The rainbow trout are definitely on the go out of Crowley Lake on their spawning runs and those that know how to fly fish are also doing very well on 17- to 22-inch cutthroats and browns. Reports are the trout can be seen in all the creeks and are very hard to hook with very shallow water on the run off on those waterways legal to fish.

The tournament will be held on March 17 at the Pleasant Valley Reservoir which is 8 miles north of Bishop. Early bird registration ends Feb. 28. you can also register the day of the tournament. Adults are $10, kids 12 and under $7. for more information: 760-873-8405 or bishopvisiter.com

There is no doubt the Alabama Rig (called “A” rig) is sweeping the bass fishing scene by storm and it’s especially popular at Clear Lake.

The last three bass tournaments held on the lake have been dominated by the a rig. for example, the winning team during the WONBASS team tournament on Saturday featured the father and son duo of Jose and Jackson Juarez of Kelseyville with 33 pounds, and all of that was caught on the a rig.

On Sunday, another father and son team, Frank and Joe Pomilia of Ukiah, won the American Bass team tournament with an incredible 36 pounds that included an 11-pounder and a 10-pounder. They said they caught their fish on the a rig and by casting swimbaits.

In fact, at least 75 percent of the fishermen during both tournaments said they caught their fish on the a rig. Some of the teams reported catching between 30-40 fish per day using the rig. One team caught 21 bass by 9:30 a.m. using nothing but the a rig.

The rig is so popular and effective that a number of fishermen are calling for it to be banned from both bass tournaments and recreational fishing. four states – New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee and Minnesota – now ban the a rig completely from all waters in those states. Bassmasters, the largest tournament organization in the country, also prohibits use of the a rig in all its major tournaments.

The Alabama rig is technically not a lure, but an apparatus that allows an angler to attach and fish up to five lures on a single line. the possibility exists of catching more than one fish at a time. It is basically a castable “umbrella” rig, consisting of a hard body with a line-tie, followed by five wire strands in a fanned-out design, each with a snap swivel at the end. Anglers can attach a variety of lures to each swivel for a look that is meant to mimic a school of baitfish.

California regulations state that only a maximum of three lures with hooks may be used, but, teaser lures with no hooks can also be attached to the rig. the reason Bassmasters gave for banning the rig is because it claims the rig removes the skill from fishing in its megabucks tournaments. It’s basically just a cast-and-reel type of apparatus.

Whereas most of the attention on the rig is focused on bass tournaments, there are also fishermen modifying it for other types of fishing. During a fishing radio show out of the Bay Area aired Saturday, a fisherman said he was going to modify a rig for halibut fishing. other fishermen plot on using it for albacore fishing and it is already being used for crappie fishing in Texas where fishermen report catching up to five crappie at a time. Trout fishermen also say they plot on using it to troll a variety of lures.

Several bass fishermen have told me it will be a killer with spawning bass. all you have to do is cast the rig with its three lures and two teasers in the shallows and drag it past bedded bass and it will be nonstop action. the big question is will harm the fishery? the answer is still out on that. the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) hasn’t taken an official stand on the rig with the exception of saying it’s illegal to have more than three lures with hooks on a single line.

I doubt many tournament organizations will ban the use of the rig in their tournaments because the organizations want as many fishermen as they can attract and the main attraction is being able to catch a lot of bass. That’s why Clear Lake is so popular among the tournament sponsors. As long as it is permitted the tournament fishermen will use the rig.

As one well-known tournament fisherman told me, “You have to use the rig to compete or you may as well not enter the tournament.”

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It’s been a Rockford tradition for 41 years, and this weekend’s Boat, Vacation and Fishing Show at the Indoor Sports Center is starting to reel in big numbers and bounce back from the effects of a down economy.

“In the past four years there have been a lot of lookers and I reckon everybody was just worried to spend the money, but this year we’re seeing a major difference. There’s a lot of enthusiasm and boats are being bought”, says Showtime Production’s Duane Nichols.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are expected to be spent at this year’s expo, and that doesn’t include the money spent on hotels, restaurants and businesses from those staying in town for the event. Organizers hope the effects of the show don’t stop there, giving local businesses a chance to develop a loyal customer base moving forward.

Bass-ett Baits owner Tim Hamilton says, “I reckon that’s part of being here, the longer you are here, the people are going to come and see you more. you always see new people. I’ve felt and we have seen that the dollar value is up, so they are spending more personally at this show that I have seen.”

More than 15,000 people are expected to come through the gates at this year’s expo and while businesses are seeing more people buy compared to years past, the boom in sales could be thanks to an outside source.

“The problem was the banks. the banks are loosening up now so people are getting financed again. if someone put a deposit down on a boat, it was a very hard time trying to get them financed”, says owner of Fox Lake Harbor, Warren Moulis.

The show wraps up Sunday February 19th at the Indoor Sports Center from 11 am to 5 pm.

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand

THE AIR WAS as still as an oil painting, and across the lake in the mountain silence could be heard the gulping of large rising trout, feasting on an afternoon insect hatch. I stood knee-deep and motionless, for the trick in such quiet, clear waters is to lay out a fly line without sending every fish in the lake into hiding for the day — and there’s no sense casting until a fish is spotted.

Only when the gulp of a trout sent a ring expanding over the surface just 30 feet from me did I cast; a flick of my wrist sent my fly line shooting out across the water and the fly settled without a sound. Perfect — and then gulp.

The fluffy brown bundle of deer hair and feathers vanished in a swirl. I lifted my arm, and that living resistance that has captured anglers’ imaginations for centuries place a deep bow in the rod. a second later, a 20-inch trout leaped from the water, shaking its head wildly in protest.

I slowly backed up and brought the trout toward the bank. The fish was spent within just a minute — it was a rather sluggish ancient brown trout, as many here are. Though I’ve been releasing most fish lately, this female was bound for the frying pan.

Such trout are monsters by a Californian’s standards, but this is New Zealand, where three-pounders are about average. indeed, to raise a Kiwi’s eyebrows one must catch an eight- or 10-pounder.

Suffice it to say, I’m easily satisfied in this land of monster browns and rainbows, as I cycle with camping gear and a fly rod strapped to the rear of my bike. My latest off-highway trek took to me to the mountains about 70 miles west of Christchurch, where I camped among a cluster of mountain lakes that I won’t bother naming. Hey — I found them on my own; you can, too.

Amusing about trout in New Zealand: They’re an introduced species, as are Chinook salmon — and though neither was ever intended by nature to live here, these fish flourished remarkably. The trout, especially, are abundant like in few other places — and so huge.

Sad, then, that in California, although a brilliant array of native salmonids were established and thriving when we got here, we’ve squandered the resource and now can barely hang onto what’s left. Heck, even the introduced ones are dwindling — like the striped bass — and the California Department of Fish and Game’s misguided plot to loosen fishing restrictions as part of a striper eradication program is not going to help matters.

In New Zealand, introduced trout surely displaced native fish when they colonized local waterways — but no one here talks about that. It’s history, and the fish are here to stay as a treasured game species. as an angler, I can’t help but wonder what these waters would hold if trout did not rise here or salmon not spawn here. I, for one, am pleased that they do. I just wish things were so good back home.

• Sturgeon action in San Pablo Bay turned on in January after a brief lull. According to Keith Fraser at Loch Lomond Bait Shop, shrimp baits have produced most of the fish — like the two sturgeon measuring 70 and 75 inches caught recently by Warren Weissenburg and Steve Scott.

Another angler, Bill Foster, caught and released nine sturgeon in two trips. He was fishing alone. Fraser himself, along with two friends, set hooks on five sturgeon in under two hours recently.

• Sean Treacy, skipper operator of the party boat Mini Me, had two clients out on San Pablo Bay on Jan. 28 competing in the 6th annual Diamond Classic catch-and-release sturgeon derby. They landed four fish. Treacy also provided a secret: He’s been using a special bait lately, — salmon roe.

• Fraser hosts “Sturgeon Fishing in Bay Area Waters,” a seminar at the Marin Rod and Gun Club in San Rafael on Saturday at 7:15 p.m. Guest speaker Mike McNair and Fraser will share tips on how to catch, clean and cook sturgeon.

Fraser says this year is probably his last for the seminar, which is 37 years ancient, so he is reducing ticket prices to $5. Fishing tackle is available below wholesale costs.

• Finally, another derby is coming up, and $40,000 in prize money is to be divvied up among 14 anglers this weekend as the annual Super Bowl Sturgeon Derby kicks off. to enter, call Loch Lomond Bait Shop at 456-0321.

Alastair Bland is a Bay Area fisherman. Send him tales, photos or video to or call the IJ sports desk at 382-7206. Check out his blog at blogs.marinij.com/ fishing_in_marin/