Recap of Casitas Municipal Water District Board Meeting

[Ron C]

First and foremost, I want to personally thank everyone who took the time to attend this meeting. I was absolutely dead-wrong in my assessment that having too many bass fishermen there might hurt our efforts. Your attendance and professionalism showed your VERY obvious support of our efforts and it flat out overwhelmed the Board of Directors. Several times during the meeting the President mentioned how pleased he was to see the interest and passion of those in attendance. He acknowledged that he and his fellow Board members were well aware that most in attendance were bass fishermen. Again, thanks to all who attended.

Just to clear the air, for the one person who took offense that I was the one to represent our interests, let me say this – Ranger Rob Weinerth personally phoned me and asked for my help with this extremely serious issue and he requested that I address the Board of Directors at this meeting on behalf of the tournament organizations. Not for a fraction of a second did I (or would I ever) hesitate to help Ranger Rob. It is clear that you still have a chip on your shoulder towards me for a very obvious reason, but that’s your problem, not mine.

The general mood of the Board of Directors was definitely one of anxiety and concern, and DFG Sr. Biologist Mike Giusti did an outstanding job educating the Board regarding the history of the quagga mussel and how it came to be a problem in the West. His most powerful point was that there is not one single body of water with quagga mussels that is not Colorado River water related. This includes the San Diego lakes that receive their water via canals from the Colorado River aqueduct system. Mike gave each Board member a map (which he obtained from the DFG website) that showed the infected waters. One of the Board members jokingly said that it looked like the Mason-Dixon Line and that Lake Casitas was well to the north and west of this line.

Mike also pointed out that, to date, there have been approximately 100,000 boats inspected at the agricultural inspection stations on our state’s borders, and that of these 100,000 boats, about 100 were quarantined because they were suspected of possibly having quagga mussel larvae on board. Nine of these boats had adult quagga mussels attached to their hulls or had vegetation hanging on them that had quagga mussels on it. None of these boats were bass boats.

Mike also informed the Board that boats that are “Clean and Dryâ€

[buddy brown]

Thank you Ron C and the others that took the time and effort to attend.

[tunaman]

Thanks for the summarization as well as your efforts Ron.

Roger

[Ron C]

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2 ... e-casitas/

[Oldschool]

Ron, there was never any question that you would represent all fishermans best interest and do it well. Mike Gusti taking time out of his schedule and making a professional presentation was outstanding and we all owe Mike our gratitude and support.
My point was everyone should attend that could, it was an open public forum.
Thank you for support and your team for volunteering your time and expertise to the effort.
Tom

[Bill Hutcheson]

Thanks for your hard work Ron. Bradley Schweit is going to run with what you have here in this next weeks issue of WON. Keep us posted as we'll be happy to run whatever we need to do to keep our readers informed of the Casitas situation.

Hutch
WON BASS

[Pred]

why am i not surprised the locals want the lake closed to everyone but them... Kinda like their own private lake that they dont have gto pay for.
nice job representing

[smpboy]

i would think that the locals would want the lake open think of how much $ we dump into the local economy of those small towns. iam sure alot of those business depend on the lake.

[Bulldawg Dave]

Ron C wrote:
it looked like the Mason-Dixon Line and that Lake Casitas was well to the north and west of this line.

Damn yankees!

[Darkman]

Well Done Ron, you always have my utmost confidence in such matters.

To Scot Sweet and Mike gusti...Thank you also

[Ray L.]

Thanks again Ron.
Sorry I could not make it. As you know it is 1 heck of a drive for me. If you need me there let me know as I will work it out to be there to help.

[wccjanel]

Ron ........... Wow!

I've never seen a better laid out explanation before. You did a fabulous job of educating us all, and I commend you.

No go catch me some fish.


Peace,
James

[KMAC]

Although I am not a tournement fisherman, I feel honored and proud to have guys like Ron C. and Mike G. and others representing all who love the "Lake".


Good looking out !

[bass1056]

It was a good job overall, and the attendance was a plus. Where we go from here? We need to pull in everyone outside of the bass fishing world. All of us who fish the lake, see more than bass boats. Everything from ski boats to sail boats. Bottom line, we all have contacts outside of our sport and need to make sure they all get the word about potential closures. We need to get them on board with us in a combined effort. The tourney world and bass world are not the only game in town.

So for each one of us there last night, if we could get another face in the crowd representing other interests, the impact would be even greater. Talk to your friends and business owners who could be affected by this. Keep them updated and ask them to join us for a united front. I am committed to do this and will hold up my end of the bargain.

The cost of a cleaning station could be offset by fund raisers, donations etc. We all have connections to make that financially feasible rather than dump it on the district.

Al Davis

[DougH]

yes... now what?
The lake was ready to sacrifice a years of income (~$600K ) to avoid the Q, so $225K for a hot water tank/washer doesn't seem so bad, they will still come out ahead but, that said...
What can we do to help?
Again, we will need a good organizer to lay out the whole plan, as it gets developed. I am down with fundraisers etc.. but I like the idea of installing these units in the 5 lakes that are infected, not the 1000 lakes that aren't. If the whole west coast fishing community banded together to help out the 5 or 6 infected sites to a quarentined state, perhaps that would be a much cheaper approach overall. I would like to see a "Swab" developed that would indicate the presence of the Q via a chemical reaction, like a lead detection stick used to see if house paint contains lead. Things like this might be an answer too.
Anyways, we are embarking on a quest right now to go to battle with Q, so we really need to start developing a plan.
I'm not smart enough to organize a "master plan" but I would gladly contribute money or time to the "master plan" that we as a whole community agree to follow.

It's time to band togther and kick some bass my fellow anglers, for together united, we can make some serious things happen. And the time has come, because if we don't, Q will be coming to your lake next. This is WAR gentlemen, us vs Q.

[ken burk]

Hey Ron thanks for the info....Ken

[Brian D.]

[SKTR 20i]

Ron, what So. Cal. lakes have been found to contain the Quagga Mussel???

John.

[Ron C]

http://nas.er.usgs.gov/taxgroup/mollusk ... quagga.pdf

[Pred]

i would think that the locals would want the lake open think of how much $ we dump into the local economy of those small towns. iam sure alot of those business depend on the lake.

locals dont think like that. They see it as THEIR lake and it will always be there. So the less people on it the better

[scottsweet]

It was a great turnout and thank you to all!

To keep things in perspective, the potential closing of Lake Casitas is only the beginning. While we all do not want to lose the priviledge of fishing one of the few trophy bass lakes, it could result in many lakes of the Socal area being closed as well. In other words, the knowledge and responsibility to all boaters to practice "Clean and Dry" goes beyond the potential closure of Lake Casitas, but also possibly Castaic, Cachuma, Piru and Pyramid and beyond.

My initial goal will be to start the education process and hopefully we will get the local area people and retailers, including bass fisherman, to show Lake Casitas and all the decision makers of our lakes that we are doing our fair share to minimize the chance of infection.

What we can do now is practice "Clean & Dry." Simply said, this means:
1. Wipe your entire boat and down and pay close attention to your trailer to ensure there is no plant life on it anywhere.
2. Remove your bilge plug after leaving every lake.
3. Be sure your live wells are clean and dry.

The extra five minutes to wipe your live wells down is a small investment to improve our chances.

I will provide additional information as it becomes available.

Thanks again for everyone's support!

[DL]

I dont think we will get much help from the pleasure/powerboating public. I posted a topic in the forum on www.performanceboats.com about an hour ago and have had no responses as of yet. I'm sure they could care less about a specific lake when all they have to do is go to another one. What they fail to realize is the fact that EVERY lake in the west will be on the list unless we are able to stop the spread.. Until Lake Havasu or the river threatens a closure...we are most likely going to fight this battle on our own...

[Oldschool]

The zebra/quagga mussel issue certainly needs everyone to cooperate. What we really need is enough time to let fact overcome hestaria.
The midwest has been dealing with zebra mussel problems for years. When the zebra's initailly showed up in the great lakes and found their way down all the major river drainages, each community reacted in a similar manner as the city of Ventura; initiate wash downs, apply fees, fines and try to track boats from neighboring waterways. None of those tactics worked. In time nature adjusted to the invasion and eliminated or reduced the zebra's to managable level.
We need time to let the facts, not emotions, come into play to allow good decissions to be made.
SoCal is totally dependant on outside water supply and we don't need local cities closing the few reservoirs open to the public.
Support the efforts being made, we need more time to resolve this problem.
Tom

[Caveman]

Ron,
Thank you. Thank you! THANK YOU!!! I'm sorry I couldn't be there to support your efforts. But, I would like to offer all the resources of the UFC (limited as they are) in your efforts on this issue. Please, let me know what we can do.
I also want echo Oldschool's take on this. We need calm heads to prevail here. A serious look at the communities that have already had to deal with this invasion is invaluable information that needs to be applied in the decision making process facing So Cal water managers.

[Rob Cummings]

i would think that the locals would want the lake open think of how much $ we dump into the local economy of those small towns. iam sure alot of those business depend on the lake.

locals dont think like that. They see it as THEIR lake and it will always be there. So the less people on it the better

Pred,

That's two ignorant posts in a row from you stating your expert opinion on the local residents close to Casitas, which shows you don't know a damn thing about the "locals". If you read everything, you would see what the locals are doing to try and keep the lake open. The issue here in this post doesn't affect you. It may not be serious to you, but for many of us here it's VERY serious. If you can't show support and be positive then shut the **** up.

Thanks to Scott, Ron and everyone else who is standing up not just for the tourney guys and bass guys, but also for the little guys who aren't in the limelight. A HUGE thank you!

[scottsweet]

Can you please contact me at 818-448-3366. I am working on some things and I could use some assistance.

Thanks.

[Rob Cummings]

Can you please contact me at 818-448-3366. I am working on some things and I could use some assistance.

Thanks.

Scott,

Who were you asking to contact you?

[scottsweet]

Caveman....he responded here....

[Caveman]

Caveman....he responded here....

I'll call you in the morning, Scott.