Hi Steve, I wasn't fishing Putah 10-15 years ago but that won't stop me from having an opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if it is declining because that is the the trend for just about every northern california stream for the last 200 years and without attention it would continue to decline. I think that this 4 mile stretch of Putah definitely has strong possiblities for management polices that could improve the fishery. At present there is still a healthy run of fat & feisty rainbows to work with and there is a lot better handle on fishery management practices than there was just 20 years ago. Look at what happened with the Pitt, large sections were completely diverted to the point that the Pitt was reduced to a dusty ribbon of weathered rocks. When minimum flows were mandated for providing eagles habitat a healthy fishery reestablished itself just from the remnant stocks of fish that populated the tiny tributaries that still oozed enough water out of the hills to keep them going. The best thing the Pitt had going for it once the water started flowing again was that it was so hard to access that people left things alone, and then presto! A blue ribbon fishery!

I've found some literature on the web about more progressive management practices that have improved the overall biomass and size distribution of fish including trout. Things like slot limits, eradicating the invasive hatchery truck, special regulations, and habitat restoration go a long way. Implement these and you would see marked improvements in no more than 2 years because the current population of fish would benefit with more of them finding the conditions that let them grow larger. Mud snails aren't the first threat and they won't be the last, but they're enjoying an "unfair" advantage over the indiginous fauna and something will happen to eventually offset that, as in some sort of mudsnail disease or pestilence. Just hope that too many stressors don't hit all at once causing things to collapse.

At the end of the day, as many have pointed out, Putah like most other Norcal waterways is still completely altered from what it was historically before the dams were built. It's hard to imagine what the the california landscape looked like just a few hundred years ago and the salmon runs that had stabilized after not just a few decades but litterally millions of years, with the last few tens of thousands just for fine tuning. Even the native americans were new comers that just showed up on the scene hardly more than 10,000 years ago. What we think of today as "blue ribbon" is in reality just a clip from a "the day after" post apocolyptic horror flick. So we have to work with what we have today, a 4 mile tailwater fishery, but I don't think it's asking much to expect that with some new fishery management policies for Putah and other waters we can see some significant improvements. Yeah some people will be upset because they don't get to take home a stringer full of marshmallow-caught-rip-finned-dull-&-dumpy hatchery trout, but that's the price you have to be willing (for someone else) to pay

On a side note, I'm turning off the sprinklers, installing some CFL's, bicycle commuting and rooting for the dams to come down on the Klamath.

I've been fishing Putah for over 30 years.  The changes I have seen mainly deal with channel changes and numbers of fishermen.  

I have been fishing Putah for over 20 years, but the last 10 I have fished it a lot more frequently. This Winter has been the toughest for me in several years. The biggest difference Ive seen is that there is a scarcity of fish in the 13-16 inch range. In past Winters I would catch a wide spectrum of fish, typically between 9 and 20+ inches, but this Winter the fish are either in the 12 inch range or over 17. I was talking to Greg Schuerger a month ago about this and we both agreed that its like an entire years spawn may have been wiped out. In the Winter of 06, the water in Berryessa overflowed the Glory Hole at least two different times (early January and March) and exceeded 7000 CFS on these occasions. The stream washed out and wasnt even fishable until sometime in May. Thus, this may have been the year when the spawn was wiped out. Another possible cause of the decline are the river otters that live in the stream. In October of 2006 I spotted five of them upstream from where I was fishing. I believe these otters are pretty efficient hunters and I suspect that they feed on trout. I cant say how much impact they have on the trout population, but I really do have my concerns about their negative impact on the stream. Putah is an incredibly resilient stream. Each year it survives heavy fishing pressure and fluctuating flows. Some years the water is muddied for weeks at a time and for several years it has had to battle the NZ mud snail infestation. Yet, even with all of this, it has continued to produce some pretty incredible fishing. I just hope that it has not reached its breaking point. There are still a decent number of big fish in the stream, but once they die off, I wonder if there is a sufficient population of smaller fish to take their place.

It really sucks seeing Putah go down like this. I am young, only 18, and started fishing putah only a year and a half ago. Heck, I learned how to fly fish on Putah. I have only caught one trout there out of my times being there. But, it was a quality 20+ native. She was released btw. My parents bought into the campground, which is how I learned about Putah. They need to enforce the rules on the campground side, as I've seen people fishing with barbed hooks and bait in the artificial only season. I seen people catch some really nice native trout, and sadly put them on a stringer. I don't know if they are not informed or they just don't care. No matter what though, I will always fish Putah and remember it as the lake I learned fly fishing on.

Love reading the posts and reading all the different experiences. I have been fishing Putah off and on for over 15 years now. Considering all the activity on the creek, I think Putah is still a great fishery and gives up some of the biggest fish in the state. I have caught some of my most memorable trout there and I am very happy to have such a great river so close to home. In my opinion the biggest impact on the creek are we humans. The very low flows in the winter don't help either. As for the otters, they have been there before men walked the creek, they will take some fish but they also eat a lot of crawfish, which feed on small trout as well, so I hope it evens out. I would even argue that the fact that there are ottters is a good indicator for the overall health of the creek. If Darwin is to be believed the fast and smart fish will avoid the otters while the planters and week fish will be the once eaten and stay out of the gene pool. Frankly I rather get rid of the bait dunkers then the otters

One thing I noticed over the years (not just on Putah) are a lot of dead trout in the water. Some of them are large fish that might have just died of natural causes, but a lot of fish are also killed by us. A few years back I counted more then 20 dead fish below the power house riffle at Hat creek, which is a catch and release fishery. On my last trip to Putah I saw 3 dead fish in the 13-18" range. I am not sure what causes the fish to die, but I doubt those fish were killed by otters.

Just a side not, there used to be a beaver in the creek, I haven't seen that guy around for some time, any one seen that critter lately? He used to scare the **** out of me by swimming up really close with out me knowing and then slapping his tale on the water right next to me.

There are actually quite a few beaver on the creek although it seems not quite as many as there were years ago.My friend Danny O Connell hooked one on the nose with a # 16 glo bug,about 20 years ago, it put up a hell of a fight but the 6x tippet was no match!

I saw a pair of beavers at Lake Solano a couple of years ago, and I saw one above the bridge last year.  They appear to be doing well.