Clear Lake Quagga Prevention

[Cesar L]

http://www.record-bee.com/local/ci_8633409
What do you guys think about this????

[ash]

I think that is a very effective way to acknowlege and be pro-active. Clear Lake depends upon tourism and I am glad that they are looking at bringing in somone who is hopefully knowledgable and not just a board of directors that want to close the lake.

Time will tell.

[swimbait]

I think it's a great approach, I don't know what the guys with wrapped boats will do if they mandate 140 degree high pressure wash downs though. As I understand, that temp/pressure ruins boat wraps.

[Bill kizer]

I see it as hurting the tourism industry.

I live in Sutter County, If I read the article correctly, if i decide to go to Clear Lake and fish three days during a given week, I will have to find an open wash station and get a pass for each day fished. Since nothing is free what are the new costs involved.

Not only am I paying $3.50 a gallon for gas, now I'll have to get a day use permit as well as whatever the washing facility costs.

[JamesH]

Wow, they achnowlege that Clearlake has been exposed to this for the last 4 yrs so how are they going to judge if their efforts to keep the lake clean are working?

Are just doing this to make everyone feel better?

Where is the money going to come from to enforce these new rules?

What slippery slope have we begun to go down?

I fish the Delta, Berryessa, Folsom, Shasta & Clearlake. My boat has never been in any other body of water. Now I am going to have to stop at a decontamination station and pay $10 (who knows what they are going to charge) at 3am in the morning on my way into Lake County to "sanitize" my boat?

That's another good question. Are these places going to be open 24/7?

I have never had a Fish & Game employee stop me on Clearlake to check for my fishing license. I would imagine this is due to budget restraints and lack of employees. So who is going to enforce these sticker requirements and what is the fine if someone breaks these rules?

Wow, lots of questions running through my head. This is going to be a nightmare....

James Huffmon

[MIKE TREMONT]

So what is the requirement for the next 2 weeks?
I'm sure it's going to take awhile to get this done.
I'm going up there Saturday and I'm testing the boat tomorrow at Folsom. I want to make sure I get on the water on Saturday, after driving all the way up there.

[JamesH]

As far as I can tell, they have just passed this new set of prevention measures and ok'd the immediate purchase of these sanitation stations.
If it happens in less than 60 day, I would be amazed.

I think there are still way too many unanswered questions and they are moving forward just for the sake of being able to say they are moving forward.

James

[Greg_Cornish]

My boats only been in one lake and will only be in one lake as long as I own it. Clear Lake. Hmmm Wonder what provision they have in mind for that?

[scottsweet]

Folks, this is a good thing in general.

I contacted Elizabeth and got an email response. One of the things on the table for discussion is the elimination of organized bass tournaments. Please, if you can get yourselves organized up there and work with the local City Manager (Jerry Gillham) and the County Supervisor (Anthony Farrington) to be sure bass fisherman are represented properly.

Dr. Paul Marchand-rep the Sierra Club and CLF board member
(707) 279-1903

Jerry Gillham--CLF board member and City of Lakeport Manager
(707) 263-5615 x 32
jgillham@cityoflakeport.com

anthonyf@co.lake.ca.us

If we don't move FAST, they are going to make decisions without us involved. They have already made lots of decisions and I don't even know what they have knowledge of at this point.

Thanks!!

[bryanmc]

If they ban organized bass tournaments on Clear Lake, selling crank will once again be the leading source of income for the area...

[MIKE TREMONT]

Somebody told me years ago that there was a prophecy that there would be a great war. That it wouldn't be over land, gold, oil or anything like that, it would be over water.

With this and some of the other "plans" the governments have for OUR water, sure looks like some lines are being drawn. The sierra club scares me. I don't know what I can do, but I'll do what I can.

But then again, it will be great for the crank labs. Hopefully they take that into consideration.

[JamesH]

A good thing? You mean like "Clean and Dry" at Casitas? That lasted what two weeks..... You are right, we need to get involved and involved now!

James Huffmon

[ash]

James you pose some interesting points, and I hear what you are saying. It made me take pause on my first response Looking at what action was taken at Casitas (full closure) vs wash down stations I will take the wash down stations. But then again it is kinda like being excited when gas is under 3.50----we are still taking it in the arse and dont see an end in sight.

The worriesome part for me is targeting bass tournaments specifically. The BOR has done this in terms of added fees 300.00 per event on Berry and Melones. Orroville State gets their permit fees, are they intentionally running organized tournaments off of the lakes? Have we become that big of a nusance to the rest of the citizens that enjoy the waterways?

I dont know what exactly I can do expect to educate people on being Clean and Dry - but again the frustrating part is Quagga muscles are not a BASS BOAT specific issue.

I have said it many times.......
Water is Californias next gold rush!

[JamesH]

Wash stations are just the beginning of the end. Unless we get involved now! Most likely clearlake is already infested. Once they get to a detectable level they will say the wash stations aren't enough and shut the lake down. Unless we get involved now!
We can let ourselves be the scapegoats to an inevitable problem or we can get involved and represent ourselves in the process.

I don't want to tell my grandkids stories about how great Clearlake used to be back when we were able to actually put a boat in water!

How about you?

James Huffmon

[Greg_Cornish]

If they ban organized bass tournaments on Clear Lake, selling crank will once again be the leading source of income for the area...

I'm a local - Best post yet, but I'd rephrase it. "If they water vessels on Clear Lake, selling crank will once again be the leading source of income for the area..."

Looks like I'll need a summer home in Minnesota.

[Jay Rowan]

I was at 3 of the last 4 meetings in the county. Chasing off Bass tournaments and closing the lake to them is not the intention of this. They just want to protect the lake. There are defiantly a lot of questions on how this whole sticker and decontamination thing is going to work that have not been decided on yet.
They just really wanted to get the ball rolling and get the equipment in place as soon as was possible.

They are going to be working with us at DFG to come up with a system that makes as much sense as possible. There is not going to be doing decontamination of every boat. There will be some sort of inspection first that will identify a boats risk. If your boat is dry, (live well and bilge or fat sack if you go that way) there is no reason to decontaminated your boat. (I'm not sure how the fat sack can be checked though. Maybe all wake board boats will have to be decontaminated...that should give us an extra hour or so of quality fishing time before having to listen to 50 cent from half way across the lake.)

There really are two separate issues at work here. Big boats that stay in the water for long periods of time with attached mussels. Largest threat of movement to any body of water that has big boats. Second is day use boats that may have some water in the live well or ballast tank carrying veligers (larval stage). If it is a day use boat there is absolutely no reason to wash the exterior of the boat. The only places that will need to be decontaminated are the spots that hold water and even in that case it's only if you have been in a lake that has them and you have water in there.
The mussels are actually not all that hardy of a critter at the veliger stage. They don't survive out of water for any discernible length of time and even when in water they have fairly specific temperature requirements. It's unlikely that veligers would survive in a boat coming from Havasu or So. Cal in the summer months through that distance and heat. Not impossible, but in my opinion unlikely. If they could you would probably see them in more So. Cal waters already with the amount of use Havasu gets from So. Cal boaters over the last 5 years(4000+ on some weekends).

The main users of Clear Lake are bass fisherman which is why they are getting the most attention. People come from all over the country to fish the best bass lake around. There are people that fish events like the Havasu FLW then fish CL three days later. There were at least 2 anglers confirmed the last two years and probably more if you check the FLW and Vanity cup results.
However all the Boardstock boats, the big waterski race boats, and even float planes were all talked about and will have to go through the same deal.

Just make it a habit of pulling your plug and sticking a towel in your live well at the end of the day, just like wiping down your boat or putting on your transom saver, and you will have no reason to worry about the inspection or get decontaminated.
Unless you need a boat wash, then say that you just came back from a houseboat trip on Mead.

[Greg_Cornish]

Thanks Jay, that's encouraging news. The most important thing to me right now is good scientific information covering all the aspects. The best defense is knowledge.

[mac (Doyle McEwen)]

Jay, it seems like a lot of common sense is being used by the powers that be..No doubt there have been and will be more overkill type situations, There really isn't an easy and simple way to assure the lakes protection, short of shutting it down, which no one wants to do or see,,There are a lot of steps each of us can take that will make things better and easier..One of them is to not go off the deep end when a proposal is made, at least not until the darned thing is really looked at..Our best bet is to go with the suggestions you have made..

mac

[Jay Rowan]

Thanks for the good words. I'm starting to feel like a quagga guy instead of a fisheries biologist. The folks in Clear Lake should really be commended, epically the public works dept. as they are the only ones that I know of at the county level doing anything significant.

The implementation of this sticker thing does worry me a bit as an angler, but they are aware of who uses this lake and the times of day they are coming in (24/7/365) so hopefully reasonable solutions will prevail as the details get worked out. It won't be as simple as driving to Red Bud, (or any of the other 700+ free ramps) and your on the water like it has been, and it won't be free anymore. I see a boom in business for the tackle shops coming since they are the only ones I have ever seen open around there at 4:00 am.

It appears from looking at other states that education and outreach is the key. One of the Northern states, I believe Montana, was one of the first states infested years ago. They instituted an aggressive education and outreach campaign and have not had any more lakes infested since the initial ones were found.
When it comes to a day use boat and veligers it really is as simple as drying it out.

[MIKE TREMONT]

It won't be as simple as driving to Red Bud, (or any of the other 700+ free ramps) and your on the water like it has been

Thanks for the post Jay. I feel a little bit better. I posed a question earlier in the thread, maybe you can help. What do I have to do to launch my boat the next 2 weekends, besides have it clean and dry.


Thanks

[Jay Rowan]

That is probably it. I think it will be at least a month before they can get anything off the ground. You'll know when the sticker program is implemented. In the mean time, there might be some random ramp or highway "choke point" based inspections depending on what they can get together. The FLW is coming up so I would expect something like inspections to happen as that gets closer.

[Smile_n_Jax]

I'm all for "clean and dry". I also think we could do more by using a killing spray to wash down our bilge areas, boat exterior and trailer. I recall reading an earlier post where Jay talked about using a bleach or vinegar solution for this purpose. Just not sure of the concentrations and how they would affect certain materials on the boat. I'm sure vinegar would be benigh, don't know about bleach.

It would be an easy addition to add to the routine once we get the boat home. Use a pump sprayer to "clean" the boat.

[Jay Rowan]

You could use bleach, 5%, but obviously have to be careful as it's corrosive. I've talked with a few people that put it in a spray bottle and do a quick spray of their live wells just to keep the stink out but that will kill any veliger hanging out in there as well. Arizona recommends pure vinegar most likely because it's less damaging to equipment, and there were some threads about "Catch and Release" working, but I haven't seen any data on that yet. There is also hot water, only 104 for veligers, which can be easily had from your bath tub at home. There are probably a lot of different things that will work on the veligers I just don't know what they all are. I have heard that there are some people in the Department evaluating various pesticides as well.

I wouldn't worry at this point about the outside of your boat unless you go to a lake that is confirmed to have them, and you leave it in there for a few days. Anything that is not an attached adult mussel will dry out and die on the drive home. Just check your trailer and intakes/screens for weeds, and livewells for bits of craw, fish, etc. and dry out anywhere that holds water.

[GW]

What happens when it rains? So much for clean and dry? Then what?

I am also willing to bet if they build wash stations, which I am sure we are going to have to PAY to use, what about when the "locals" trear them apart to get the copper, money and whatever else to support their drug habits? I would hate to have to drive all the way to the North end of the lake to get a sticker at 4am because the south end station was "recycled"...

[Greg_Cornish]

Do you really think the nice people of Clearlake would do something like that? We're very civilized up here.

[GW]

....Greg you are right to a point, however, I remember one time a number of years ago when for some reason we decided to run a TOC out of Red Bud we had the big horse tanks we fill with water stolen one night. Now mind you this happened while they were secured to our big Mercury tent (full of water)and under the watchful eye of the Red Bud Patrol volunteers....

Its still the best bass fishery in the country and I love the place!

[Greg_Cornish]

We'll I got one better. Two guys sleeping in their camper trailer in Redbud found themselves moving down the road one night.

The guys who were stealing the truck forgot to check for inhabitants.

They called the cops on the cell if I heard correctly then made a apprehension with a tire iron when they came to a stop.

That's one situation I'd hate to be in. Anyway, back to Quagga.