Let's not paint the California SPortfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) as one of "these groups"... they are doing ALOT to help the salmon, steelhead and stripers, as well as overall bay/delta ecosystem issues as it relates to fish...including largemouth and smallmouth bass.

Yeah they may have had a hand in this particular instance, but that may be in part to the general silence and lack of involvement of the black bass fishing community in anything related to California fisheries politics.

While I don't really support this closure, I do feel that the salmon and steelhead are in MUCH worse shape and in dire need of assistance than the largemouth bass.

What scares me the most about all of this is the whole "predator species" and "let's study bass predation on steelhead smolt" dialogue... that is an ugly path!!! "They" (UC Davis) are already studying black bass predation in the delta.

The biggest problem for me with the predation arguments as that it distracts from the real/root causes of the problems, which are 99%+ habitat destruction (water exports and diversion)!!

For the record the CSPA vehemently opposed the AB1253 fiasco which was centered around "predator species" arguments with striped bass. It is a very positive organization for California fishermen... funded by fishermen... I highly doubt the "Shadow Cliffs Back Ponds closure" was a diabolical plot of some sort.

In any case closing the back ponds to fishing seems excessive, but the overall steelhead restoration project seems very positive in my view. Would we rather that folks weren't out there trying to restore salmon/steelhead runs? I like to fish for bass but I also like to fish for salmon, which I currently can't do at all in California!! The stripers and largies must have ate all the smolts!!! What a joke...

Marcus