Is it my imagination or am I seeing a whole bunch of unlicensed worm tossers on the creek this last weekend? Doesn't regular fishing season on Putah begin in April? If so, where is F&G? I would love to hear them tell me they don't have the funding to enforce the laws. If they did enforce the law, they would maybe bring in some funding to do more. Maybe if they did Putah Creek wouldn't be treated like some suburban drainage ditch, with all the beer cans and night crawler containers. I told one guy I saw on the island with 2 tackle boxes, a spin rod, and a really ratty lookin' fly rod, that a warden would go through his tackle box and cite him about $850. for every illegal lure he had in there, confiscate all his stuff and impound his truck. I never saw 300 lbs stuffed into neoprenes split so fast.
Alright, maybe I am reacting a little harsh. But the fishing season starts April 24th. Maybe a nightcrawler hung on my wooley bugger would be a good thing. I don't mind getting blanked on the creek, its just nice seeing the water come down, seeing a few friends, and knowing the fish will be rising soon. :)
I fished along the campground above the bridge on Saturday. There were a few, mostly kids dunking worms and power bait. The kids didn't do any better than I did. We all got skunked. Oh well, what a spectacular sunny day.
Putah creek has always had a problem with bait guys that don't know how to follow the law,the trash they leave behind during the regular season is a perfect example.As far as the DFG enforcing the laws....well not easy due to the fact that The stretch of creek we all fish is within 3 different jurisdictions Napa,Solano and Yolo and all 3 are out of the way for the wardens.This combined with the fact that catching somebody bait fishing is small potatoes compaired to other issues these understaffed individuals have to deal with.What I usually do when I see people fishing illegally is approach them and let them know the regs in a polite manner and try to be non confrontational and maybe even setting theyre spinning outfit with a fly rig and explaining to them how to use it.The reglations will allow this type of fishing and in fact unfortunately allow spin fishing with a single barbless hook during the supposed "fly fishing only season" sad but true.
Are you saying if these guys have a spinning outfit, if they have a single barbless hook they could put a worm or an egg on it? I'm not familiar with all the regs, but that seems ridiculous.
No, spincasters cannot use a single barbless hook with bait on it. It has to be a single barbless hook with artificial stuff on it such as a fly or nymph, or even a fake egg. If they did that, I wouldn't have a problem with spin casters per se. But in addition to that issue, the phenomenal amount of trash they leave tends to make me generalize about them more than I should, and as a culture of their own I tend to associate them with empty beer cans and not caring or respecting the places they visit. Every single fly fisher I know without exception tends to understand their place on the stream as a visitor, and aside from leaving thousands of dollars worth of flies in the trees. Am I confused, or what?
A little help from the parks people and F&G concerning trash cans would be great. You think the campground people who sell their spaces to vacationers would speak up to keep the creek clean.
According to the regulations, one can use artificial lures with single barbless hooks. This includes spinners, spoons, and flies. However, ALL FISH MUST BE RELEASED until the Friday preceeding the last Saturday in April.
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"Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught."