Our good friends Kirby
and Sam came up to visit for the opening weekend of Striped Bass speafishing in
the Sacramento River Valley District…and to have a look around the Sierra Nevada
mountain range for morel mushrooms (Morchella
elata and M. angusticeps).
I had spent the
previous evening rigging up my speargun. The bungies needed mending and I had
to replace the shooting line. It had been a while since the trusty hunting tool
had been in its intended element— Water.
It was good to see the
guys again. Both of them, along with my wife and myself were all Humboldt State
University Alumn. We had some really good memories from behind the Redwood Curtain to share over a beer or two.
One of the best things about good foragers is that they also often
come bearing gifts… and this crew brought some real gems! They bestowed upon us some sizable chunks of white seabass, yellowtail, California halibut, cabrilla,
and even some smoked landlocked salmon. Our freezer was now sufficiently
stocked and we were all smiles. It had been over a year since the last time we all got to hang out and so of course we had plenty of foraging stories to swap. Sam
told us of adventures fishing on the rough and frigid waters of the Bearing Sea
in Alaska and Kirby related his latest battle wrestling his wounded 60lbs white
seabass away from a 12 ft. long sevengill shark (Notorynchus cepedianus) as
the sun set on their kelp bed over a mile's swim from shore.
About that time my
brother-in-law, Jesse, stepped in, also bearing gifts. He had brought a flat of
assorted homebrew including Irish stouts, doppelbocks, a Belgian quad, and
more. While the dogs played, we hatched our plan
for the following day’s adventure and enjoyed Jesse's hand-crafted beer.
We were on the water by
9am. Not one of us had dove this river before but we had heard rumors of
productivity and decent visibility. You see, the Sacramento River Valley District
has been open to spearfishing for several invasive species for years now. Some divers actually took advantage of that opportunity and hunted these waters for carp
and giant goldfish. But last year they opened the river to another invasive
species (a very tasty one)—the Striped Bass.
Even though this was done because striped bass have
been decimating native juvenile salmonid (Oncorhynchus
mykiss, Oncorhynchus
kisutch) and delta smelt populations (Hypomesus
transpacificus), opening the river to allow spearos to thin the schools
really caused an uproar. It was unfortunate, but some hook and line anglers
turned violent and started threatening the safety of divers who dared come
after these fish. We are subsistence foragers, we mean no disrespect, but if it
is legal, and we can help keep our waters healthy, and help our native species
have a fighting chance in the meantime, then we will be there! So now you have
some context as to the waters we were jumping into.
When we entered the
river it was surreal. It was as if you mixed the scenery from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry
Finn with an old pirate swashbuckler film. The river had the feel of an
economically depressed waterway of the Deep South, and yet the ubiquitous
half-sunken boats made me think we should all be armed with swards or cannons.
I half expected to see a sign painted on the bridge reading “Pirates, Ye be warned!”
We dove hard all day
and had a lot of laughs in between. Yet not a striped bass was seen. We heard they were still holding up at the river mouth and would not enter until a little later in the season. We did
encounter a huge bull sea lion (Zalophus californianus) though! That was
strange as we were miles upstream from any salt water. He seemed to be "happy as
a clam" as he was diving over and over likely well-fed on all of the fish we did
not see.
After a time we
switched our focus. We were headed back downstream and planned to stop at a
spot our buddy Carter had found…oh yeah, Carter met us by Kayak mid-way up the
river. When we got to the spot we anchored and dropped down to the silt bottom.
I couldn’t believe my eyes! There were more signal crawfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) than I
have ever seen! We casually snatched up about 100 in a half hour for appetizers
for the next two nights and left at least as many still there on the bottom in that little spot.
We shot a little video
while we were there as well.
When we got back we had
a crawdad boil that night.
The next day I had to
grade mid-term exams and papers but Sam and Kirby headed deep into the mountains and
found a treasure trove of Morels!
That night we started
with crawdad cakes, and then had a main course of white seabass fillets with a
morel cream sauce and herb potatoes.
Not too bad at all!
Keep the old ways
alive!
