President Jim Kellogg
California Fish and Game Commission
P.O. Box 944209
Sacramento, CA 94244-2080

Re: Opposition to Restrictive Striped Bass Regulations (This will be the subject of your email)

Dear President Kellogg and Commissioners:

This letter will register my strong opposition to the proposal by the California Department of Fish and Game to eradicate the San Francisco Bay and Delta striped bass populations by lowering the size limit and increasing the bag limits. These are the wrong solutions to reducing the predation by striped bass on juvenile salmon. This proposal will not solve the salmon predation problems but it will destroy hundreds of businesses, millions of dollars of economic benefits and the recreation of hundreds of thousands of anglers.

A huge body of science concludes that the primary source of predation of salmon smolts is the heavy export pumping during the spring periods when salmon smolts are migrating downstream. The smolts are pulled into the Central Delta where they perish through predation by striped bass and a host of other predators including squawfish (pikeminnow).

The right answer is not to try to wipe out the striped bass but to:

• Reduce Delta flows so that the salmon are not pulled out of their normal migration path into the Central Delta
• Fix hundreds of hotspots where striped bass squawfish and other predators can congregate to prey on young salmon.

I respectfully urge the rejection of the Fish and Game Proposal in favor of saving the striped bass fishery and implementing better predator solutions.