54 



DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME 



Catfish eggs being agUaled at Elk Grove Warmwaier Fiih Hatchery. 



— Fish and Game Photo 



nveen 1956-57 and 1957-58 reflects the poor black 

 bass spawning season experienced in the spring of 

 1958, when heavy rainfall and high winds caused a 

 heavy mortality in newly hatched bass fry. 



The AU-American and Coachella canal systems that 

 carrv irrigation water from the lower Colorado River 

 to the Imperial and Coachella Valleys of Southern 

 California began drawing really heavy angler use for 

 the first time. The big change came in the spring of 

 1957, when crowds of fishermen such as those associ- 

 ated with the opening of trout season lined the banks 

 of the Coachella canal near Niland and the All- Amer- 

 ican canal near Winterhaven to share excellent catches 

 of channel catfish and largemouth bass. 



Pine Flat Crappie 



Censuses carried on at Pine Flat Reservoir, Fresno 

 County, during the 1956-58 period revealed that about 

 25,000 anglers use this reservoir each year. What was 

 developing as a smallmouth bass fishery of notable im- 

 portance last biennium has now become one depend- 

 ent largely upon the much less desirable black crappie. 

 Crappie, planted by unknown persons, began to ap- 

 pear in March, 1957, and by March, 1958, constituted 

 87 percent of all fish caught. This is a good example 

 of the tragic results from unauthorized plants of fish. 



Farm Ponds 



Most of the farm ponds listed in Table 33 in the 

 Appendix are warmwater fish ponds. Many of the 

 ponds were stocked with fish provided by the de- 

 partment at no charge. Even though practically all 

 farm ponds are closed to fishing for the general pub- 

 lic, they relieve angler pressure on public waters. 



CHANNEL CATFISH 



During the biennium, for the first time, the stock- 

 ing of young channel catfish became an important part 



of California's fisheries management program. In the 

 past there has been a general belief that the channel 

 catfish requires a flowing current in which to spawn 

 and thrive, but in several Southern California reser- 

 voirs they are now reproducing naturally and putting 

 on unusual growth. Fish weighing from 10 to 20 

 pounds are now being taken. At Lake Hodges and 

 Puddingstone Reservoir, numerous small channel cat- 

 fish continuously enter the catch, while trophy-sized 

 fish add tremendous rewards to the angler. In these 

 lakes the channel catfish is now more sought after 

 than the largemouth bass, which formerly was con- 

 sidered the top trophy among warmwater fishes. 



An experimental program to test the feasibility of 

 rearing channel catfish under artificial conditions was 

 initiated at the Central Valleys warmwater fish hatch- 

 ery. Brood stock was obtained by trapping adult fish in 

 the Sutter Bypass and Honcut Slough areas. Tech- 

 niques for incubating the eggs and rearing the fry 

 were perfected. In spite of the newness of this under- 

 taking, with only improvised facilities, over 130,000 

 channel catfish fingerlings were reared. 



SALTON SEA FISHERY 



It took some doing and some patience, but the de- 

 partment's program of introducing ocean fish from 

 the Gulf of California into Imperial Valley's 350- 

 square-mile Salton Sea began paying handsome re- 

 turns to sport fishermen during the biennium. These 

 returns were in the form of 5- to 15-pound orange- 

 mouth corvina, the offspring of 2,189 adult corvina 

 transplanted from 1950 through 1956. 



Biologists pronounced Salton Sea's corvina ready for 

 fishing in the early fall of 1957, when they estimated 

 there were approximately a million of these finned 

 fighters there for the taking. Few of the fish were 

 caught, however, until the spring of 1958, when surf- 

 casters tossing wobbling spoons suddenly began taking 



Newly hatched catfish at Elk Grove Hatchery. 



— Fish and Game Photo 





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