OK, we're making a joke here, but then again, we're sorta not.

As Singlebarbed (the Underground's brownlining equivalent) points out in his latest post, maybe it's time someone spoke out for those waters considered too far gone by most to warrant a word:

Take a water district operating with complete autonomy; no CalTrout, no Trout Unlimited, no passionate enviro-lobby, as there's little glamour in little brown rivulets, couple that with a week long promise of heavy rain, and you get Scarface and more like him as progeny.

140 CFS is the normal flow, yet for 12 hours during the storm the dam release was 14000 CFS - enough to take the face off what few fish could hide, and blew the rest of the fish into the Delta accompanied by Dodge Escorts and rusty shopping carts.



I'm wandering an empty creek, barren of Bass - and what few fish remain show scrapes, scratches, and assorted wounds compliments of the "Zero Sum" water policy on the lake above.

You're tired of hearing it, and I'm tired of saying it, ".. rather than spend those precious dollars on restoring the pristine, which we quickly despoil, perhaps we should be focused on restoring the balance of Nature."

In each of the last two years the release from the lake coincided with the wettest storm, suggesting the water district management blew open the gates in response to what runoff was anticipated. Swelling any river 100 times its normal size in an instant makes a killing machine; it destroys the insect population, kills or removes all the fish, and probably wipes a goodly portion of indigenous reptiles, amphibians, and anything else that calls the streambed home.

Both years would have scrubbed the creek at the height of the salmon spawn.

Beavers are great swimmers, but not when the river is a torrent. Likely it kills most in their burrow - and those that make it into the water are battered into pieces. At right is one of three dead beaver encountered at the high water mark. A little far-gone to determine cause of death, but it's possibly additional evidence of an abusive water policy.

If fly fishing really is experiencing a "fish where you are, not where you aren't" movement, then maybe there really will exist the political will to make some of the simple water management changes. Then again, maybe not.

See you at Browline Unlimited's Fundraiser, Tom Chandler.