CalTrout remains an Underground Fave, in part because their local office (here in Mount Shasta) continues to fight the good fight on a lot of fronts - including the Klamath, McCloud River Dam Relicensing, multinational predator Nestle in McCloud and a host of others.

Given the stone-age perspective of Siskiyou County's Board of Supervisors, it's clear we need the help.

At a recent meeting, Supervisor Jim Cook astonishingly said "This is the first time I've seen anything that CalTRout has been involved with that wasn't a piece of crap," while Wise Use Cartoon Character (from way back) Supervisor Marcia Armstrong asserted that "fishing is no longer a vital activity in the county."

Cook even suggested the Shasta River (major spawning tributary of the Klamath) simply wasn't a good salmon river when he said "...the stream channel is not what you normally see in salmon areas."

Jim "I'm not a biologist, but I'll pretend" Cook is completely wrong, of course - every biologist who knows the Shasta River practically wets their pants explaining why it's perhaps the most productive trib on the whole Klamath River.

Good call, Jim.

As you can see, the mess up here is considerable. At times it's even despressing, especially given that the quotes you read above are not fictional - and that the people issuing them are using public funds to foul our own own nest.

It's galling to think my property tax dollars are fighting salmon recovery on the Klamath - and this despite the economic boon a healthy fishery would bring to this county, which is suffering an 18% unemployment rate.

After all, we put a little water back in the Trinity and now the flood of steelhead fishermen means you can't park your car there most weekends.

And the Lower Sac sees somewhere between 4000-6000 boat trips annually - the cumulative economic affect of which is considerable.

Meanwhile, the salmon on the Klamath are dieing in droves, and scientists aren't even sure why, though it's pretty clear the Klamath's atrocious water quality is playing a role.

My close friends know the Klamath River/Nestle/Shasta Dam stuff alternately works me up and knocks me back - a fact exacerbated by this reality: there's only a few of us, and a lot of them, and the "bad guys" all seem to be getting paid.

It's as if the barbarian hordes were fulltime professionals, while the guys charged with defending Rome buckled on the old broadsword only after working a hard shift in the catacombs.

With that as a backdrop, you'd think CalTrout wouldn't want to bite off any more regional office goodness, but they're slow learners (thank goodness), and they just announced the opening of a field office in the Tahoe area.

That's good because - when it comes to fishery issues - nothing really beats a "boots on the ground" presence (though we wonder why Tahoe gets a babe for a regional rep, while here in Shasta we're stuck with some skinny guy).

I imagine the recession is playing havoc with CalTrout's budgets, and while I'm all for the Undergrounders becoming members of the organization (it's $35 for chrissakes), it would be a lot better if some undeserving AIG bonus baby threw a couple hundred thousand at the organization instead.

Of course, that's about as likely as an Undergrounder throwing away a Victoria's Secret catalog without a peek, so in truth, I guess I am suggesting the Undergrounders throw down for a yearly CalTrout membership (nothing's changed from the previous sentence: it's still $35 for chrissakes).

Somebody's got to beat back the Barbarian Hordes, and while it doesn't have to be CalTrout ($35), there's probably somebody in your neck of the woods beating back the barbarians, so consider joining them.

Clearly, this is all getting to me, so after I write this, I'm going to get up, walk out of my dungeon office, and shoot a few paper targets (which is calming and a little zen - nobody hits the 10 ring in a frazzled state of mind).

The Upper Sacramento's falling slowly, so even though it's probably not fishing great, I expect I'll find out for myself this weekend.

See you fighting the barbarians, Tom Chandler.

siskiyou county, salmon, klamath river, caltrout