This past weekend, Eternally Wild, the CalTrout and Keith Brauneis Productions film, premiered as one of the official selections of the 2016 Wild & Scenic Film Festival.

Now it's your turn to enjoy.

We're pleased to share with you the story of the iconic Smith River, a salmon and steelhead stronghold, its history and its current plight.

Here there are no dams, no wretched clear-cut blocks, no mitigating hatcheries. Instead... ancient forest, iconic redwoods and a powerful symbol of freedom -- THE SMITH.

But 4,000 acres of the pristine North Fork are threatened by a giant toxic nickel mine operation.

The Red Flat Nickel Corporation has applied to sink 59 drill holes that would pave the way for one of the largest nickel mines in the Western United States. The film examines current conditions, discusses future threats and asks just how much protection is enough?

Eternally Wild from California Trout on Vimeo.

I follow several blogs on the web. Chi Wulff is one blog that I follow it is out of Boseman, Montana. On January 3rd they had this video on Rush Creek. It is a remake from the first one that the Mammoth Fly Rodders put out in the 1990’s. This battle against the LADWP was a huge deal, a David and Goliath size fight. A bunch of fishermen fought the LADWP and won. Part of the settlement was to keep a minimum flow and do restoration of the seven miles from Grant Lake to Mono Lake. They only did two miles of stream restoration. Caltrout was a small organization back then with most of their help being volunteer. That’s how far back it was.

The settlement was turned over to Caltrout several years ago. From what I have heard Caltrout has told LADWP that the requirements of the settlement has been fulfilled. Caltrout’s stance is let’s let nature take its natural course. Problem with that is the dam at Grant Lake. If we get the El Nino that is predicted the LADWP will fill Grant Lake up. They will maintain that minimum flow. Rush Creek won’t get the spring runoff surges like the surrounding creeks will. So there won’t be the scouring and cleaning out of silt on the bottom of the creek. I talked to the CDFW about Rush Creek and asked if fishermen could fulfill the last five miles of restoration. The CADFW told me that the settlement hadn’t been released from the courts. I don’t know exactly what that means but nothing can be done until it is released. What some of the fishermen want to do is make some deeper holes like was done at the top two miles. This will give the trout refuge in the summer from the heat. This has been done in Idaho and other places with very good results.

Two things caught my eye on this blog, 1) the photo of Lake Oroville (largest in the state) and 2) their talk of the drought and how it is probably going to become the norm. So here’s the first paragraph and photo. Click the link below to read the whole article. It will take you to their website and at the bottom there are links to other articles.

The banality of California’s ‘1,200-year’ drought

The south fork of Lake Oroville, California’s second largest reservoir,
in September 2014. Photo by Kelly M. Grow/California
Department of Water Resources

By Jay Lund

California’s ongoing drought will continue to break records and grab headlines, but it is unlikely to be especially rare from a water policy and management perspective.

Estimates of the current drought’s rarity range from once in 15 years to once in 1,200 years (Griffin and Anchukaitis 2014), depending on the region and indicators used (precipitation, stream runoff, soil moisture or snowpack). In the Middle Ages, large parts of California had droughts far worse than this one, some lasting more than a century (Stine 1994). The probability of California experiencing a once in 1,200-year drought during a short human lifetime is extremely low.

Read More: California Water Blog

By Gary Applebee

Last weekend after the Steelhead Science for Anglers symposium there was a meeting at Chili’s for a new conservation group. Well, not really a new group just a concerted effort to get many different people working together instead of separately on the San Gabriel River Monument. If you haven’t heard, President Obama signed a bill to make the San Gabriel Rivers into a monument. This encompasses the West Fork, North Fork, and the East Forks of the San Gabriel Rivers as well as some of the forest around the rivers.

The group talked about some of the problems on the San Gabriel River Monument. One of the members from the Pasadena Casting Club said the West Fork was being used as a city park. I thought that was a pretty accurate description of the West Fork’s usage. People walk and ride bikes up along the paved road that follows the river. On the weekends there can be up to 20,000 people swimming and playing in the river, FRVC and the USFS’s numbers. The flows on the West Fork River are down to a trickle. Pot Farms are on all three forks as they are on all our rivers. They talked about the numbers of people that are homeless and living up on the East Fork. Some of them are miners and some are squatters. The over use of Bungee America was discussed. Bungee America can have 200 or more people going back a day to bungee jump the Bridge to Nowhere. They discussed the proposed Cattle Canyon Project that will be coming up on the East Fork Canyon. There are problems of mining and pot farms up Cattle Canyon as well. If you grew up fishing the West Fork as a kid then this is something you might want to get involved with.

I met Jim Burns from LA River Fly Fishing: http://lariverflyfishing.com whose motto is; Fishing for carp, waiting for steelhead. I hadn’t heard of his blog, but read it after this meeting and I like his writing, give it a read. He’ll be writing for this group as well. I’ll be passing on their news blasts as they come.
I had hoped this would be a foothills group that would look at the problems of San Antonio Creek, Lytle Creek, Deep Creek, Santa Ana River, and Bear Creek. But, as you can see by the name they pretty much only want to talk about the San Gabriel River Monument. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing and if you fish on any of the three forks of the San Gabriel Rivers, it is long over due. Was I disappointed, maybe a little? I could list the problems creek-by-creek, but if you have fished locally you know what they are, the flows are down on all our creeks, people fishing the creeks in 100 degree weather, painting graffiti on the rocks, having parties on and in the creek then leaving their trash, silt accumulating, pot farms, and using these creeks for target practice. These aren’t issues only on the San Gabriel River. They are issues for all our creeks.