CalTrout seeks to protect fish at Piru Creek

[Ace In Pearblossom]

CalTrout seeks to protect fish at Piru Creek

By Bill Becher, Special to the Daily News

An angling group has asked Mike Chrisman, California's secretary for resources, to postpone approval of the environmental study of a controversial plan that would eliminate summer water flows in Piru Creek in drought years, killing the creek's wild trout population.
In a letter to Chrisman sent Monday, CalTrout writes that the proposed plan by the state's Department of Water Resources will destroy a highly popular and rare trout fishing water adjacent to the Los Angeles metropolitan area and cause an embarrassment for the Schwarzenegger Administration. The water agency plans to replace wild trout with stocked fish.

"Piru is the closest place I have to go to fish," said Rob Rubin, a fly-fisherman from Agoura. "I learned to fly fish there."

Rubin said fishing for stocked fish is not the same as pursuing wild trout.

"I leave the stocked fish for families who come up with 12-year-olds so they can all have five fish each," he said. "I go downstream and get into bigger wild fish. It would never be the same without the wild fish."

The state water agency has said the plan is necessary to protect endangered arroyo toads. A spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for the toads, has said the federal agency is willing to work to produce a water management plan that can help the toads and spare the trout fishery.

That's what CalTrout manager Jim Edmondson wants. He is asking Chrisman to hold off on the current plan until anglers and federal and state agencies can meet to work out a compromise that would preserve the wild trout and save the arroyo toads.

Sandy Cooney, deputy secretary for communications at Chrisman's office, did not respond to requests for comment on CalTrout's letter.