California Traffic

[Mike Cork]

Just curious what the lake traffic is like on some of my old stomping grounds. I've fished from Castaic to Shasta and many points in-between. I had a buddy tell me the other day that to fish Cachuma (a lake just south of Vandenburg), an angler has to buy a ticket through ticket masters?

Used to love fishing Oriville because a man could get way up one of the arms and not see as many boats...

[Pat Dilling]

Mike, The challenge is the low water and the limited number of available ramps.  We were at Clear Lake last week and the only usable ramps are at Lakeport 5th st ramp and Clearlake Oaks which is only 1 lane with limited parking.  Plus the Oaks area has a totally gross algae bloom going on.  At Oroville we have good ramps at Bidwell and the new one at Loafer Creek point.  I was there yesterday there was no problem on a Thursday, but weekends the parking lot fills up.  Fishing was OK, I took my grandson and son-in-law which made it good.  We went up the slot into the North Fork and did not see many other boats.  We quit at noon because of the heat, my truck said it was 114  , but settled down to 99 once we were on the road home.  Good old Camp Far West is great on weekdays, but gets overrun with jet skis, wake boats and hot boats on weekends. Shasta is really getting bad with just a few ramps in the water and most of them are old roads.  New Melones is also real low.  Reservoirs are typically falling 6 inches to a foot a day.  We are told Oroville will not get as low as last year, when we went two months with no way to launch anything but kayaks.  We have the Afterbay, but it is getting a lot of pressure because of low water everywhere else.  Berryessa and Folsom are also getting low and the fishing at Berryessa has been really tough all year, not sure why.  The lakes that have water are getting busy.

[Mike Cork]

I had hoped the water management would have gotten better by now. I know you guys got extremely low last year but I thought the rain and snow was good this winter. Not sure what I was thinking... I watched a report yesterday that says the salt is running further up the Delta than it has ever and between the salt and sea lions the fishing is taking a hit.

[Pat Dilling]

Mike, We had an unusual very wet storm in October that gave us hope, and another in December.  Then January and February were the driest ever.  And those are usually our rain months that fill the reservoirs.  In defense of the water managers, that I often question, it's hard to manage what you don't have when there is so much demand.  As for the Delta, in addition to the salt water intrusion and sea lions, the weeds had just gone out of control.  There can be too much of a good thing.  While still fun to fish, the Delta has become a sad memory of its glory days. 

[Mike Cork]

Man I hate to hear that about the Delta. Not that I'd ever get a chance to fish it again... Still hate to hear about disappearing waterway and fisheries. Mother Nature usually takes care of things but maybe it's gotten beyond her ability. The demand is phenomenal