Trout Rule - Pike Drool?

What the hell are these people thinking? Piscatorial genocide?

All they have to do is offer free fishing licenses to folks from
fly-over country - like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, N/S Dakota,
Michigan and a free trip to the lake for a week's fishing.

I guarentee you there won't be any pike left. :)

--------------

The New York Times - 09/12/07

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

PORTOLA, Calif., Sept. 11 — The poison didn’t work, and neither did
the hook and bobber. The electrical probes were somewhat effective,
but don’t even ask about the explosives.

In support of the state’s eradication effort, residents in the Lake
Davis area recently burned a 13-foot-long effigy of the pesky northern
pike, made of papier-mâché with nails for teeth.
For the last decade, the state of California has waged a Sisyphean
battle against the northern pike, a fish and a voracious eating
machine. In the mid-1990s, when pike were first found in Lake Davis, a
Sierra Nevada reservoir about four miles north of here, the discovery
set off a panic over the potential impact on the local trout-fishing
and tourist industries as well as the possibility of the fish
migrating to fragile ecosystems downstream. Since then, millions of
dollars and thousands of man-hours have been spent trying to spike the
pike.

But while the methods, including poison, electro-fishing, explosives
and decidedly low-tech nets, have varied, the results have remained
the same.

“We’ve taken 65,000 pike out of the lake,” said Steve Martarano, a
spokesman for the State Department of Fish and Game. “And we haven’t
made a dent.”

But like Captain Ahab or perhaps Wile E. Coyote, the state has not let
a little adversity stop it. On Monday, more than 500 fish and game
personnel began a last-ditch, $16 million effort to rid the lake of
pike, the most expensive ever undertaken against an “invasive species”
in California. “This is a top-of-the-line predator,” said Ed Pert, the
project manager. “If we don’t get it this time, we may need to rethink
things.”

The lake was closed after Labor Day to prepare for the watery assault.
The plan is simple: poison the fish with 17,000 gallons of rotenone, a
commonly used pesticide that is absorbed through the gills and blocks
the ability to process oxygen. Rotenone is widely considered safe for
mammals and other nongilled animals, though some concerns have been
raised about links to Parkinson’s disease and some types of cancer.

But Gerald Sipe, the director of environmental health for the Plumas
County Public Health Agency, said his office had determined that the
treatment plan would not adversely affect the public.

It is not the first time the state has used rotenone in Lake Davis. In
1997, officials used a powdered form of the poison, which fouled the
lake, Portola’s longtime water supply. (The town now primarily draws
its water from wells.) The state later approved a $9.2 million
settlement with the city and the county for businesses, homeowners and
local residents. And, two years later, the pike were back.

This time, though, the state is using a milky liquid version of
rotenone, and is focusing on the streams and tributaries that lead
into Lake Davis, a 4,000-acre artificial reservoir about 60 miles
north of Lake Tahoe. On Monday, about 60 workers staffed “drip
stations” in creeks and streams while others sprayed ponds and other
still waters with poison from plastic backpack tanks.

The state has also begun an extensive education effort. On Monday, two
dozen reporters and television crews crowded around a rocky streambed
as Stafford Lehr, a fishery biologist, described his pike-killing
method.

“These fish will be exposed to the product for eight hours,” said Mr.
Lehr, who wore a cowboy hat, goggles and white coveralls. “Which is
more than enough time to kill these individuals.”

No one knows exactly how many of “these individuals” live in Lake
Davis, though estimates run anywhere from the tens of thousands to the
hundreds of thousands. Nor does anyone know where the pike came from,
though Mr. Martarano says they may have been introduced by sport
fishermen who prize its fight or even “eco-terrorists” who might have
introduced the pike “just to cause trouble.”

Whatever the cause, the pike is not a friendly newcomer to any
ecosystem. A slender, razor-toothed hunter that can grow to more than
three feet long, the pike has been known to devour anything it can get
its pointed maw around, including frogs, waterfowl and — legend has it
— small dogs.

While not a flashy menu topper like tilapia or trout, pike is edible,
even glorified by some palates, though its bones make for challenging
chewing. But in California, it is illegal to possess, dead or alive,
Mr. Martarano said.

State officials are particularly concerned that the pike might escape
to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where it could feast on other
fish, including valuable salmon and threatened species like the delta
smelt. Signs on the lake recommend cutting the head off any pike
caught and tossing the fish back in the water, apparently to show the
other pike that human beings mean business.

On Monday, at least, the poison seemed to be working. Within a few
hours, fingerlings were starting to turn belly-up downstream, with
reports on Tuesday of bigger pike giving up the ghost. The body of the
lake will be treated in late September.

After the poisoning is complete — and all the dead fish are scooped
out of the water — the lake will be tested for toxicity, and will
remain closed for two months, Mr. Martarano said. After that,
restocking will begin, with a goal of one million trout in Lake Davis
by 2010.

Not every effort has been as encouraging. In March 2003, the
department used underwater detonation cord to try to blow up the pike.
A grand total of four pike were killed. Jim Murphy, the city manager
in Portola, a railroad town of 2,300 people along the Feather River,
said he was guardedly optimistic about the new plans. “I don’t think
any of us want or encourage a chemical being put in our drinking water
or our recreational lake,” he said. “But we better understand the
issues and need now.”

That sentiment was echoed by Sara Bensinger, who runs the Grizzly
Country Store, a fishing tackle and potato chip outlet on the lake’s
southern shore. Ms. Bensinger said her business had been badly hurt by
the pike problem, and the bad press that followed. On Sept. 1, she and
about 200 other locals gathered to celebrate the beginning of the
eradication effort by burning of a 13-foot-long papier-mâché pike,
complete with nails for teeth.

“They’re going to get it right this time,” she said. “And then we’re
going to start over.”