Many Lake County residents and fishermen are confused over the status of the Clear Lake hitch after a number of recent sightings.
The Center for Biological Diversity has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to declare the hitch as endangered. The federal government set a timeline of one year, during which it will rule on the petition. Early indications are Fish and Wildlife may either list the hitch as threatened or endangered.
Yet over the past several weeks, fishermen have reported seeing huge schools of hitch in the coves throughout the lake. Scientists say these schools could be either hitch or blackfish. Both species are a native fish of Clear Lake and go back more than 10,000 years. According to University of California scientist Greg Giusti, both hitch and blackfish often look similar when in large schools and they often swim together.
Hitch can be identified by their larger scales in comparison to the blackfish. Their anal fin has 11 to 14 rays and the dorsal fin has 10 to 13 rays. Giusti said that both species are plankton eaters and the reason such large schools of fish are being seen in the coves is because of the abundance of the plankton.
The California Fish and Game Commission has listed the Clear Lake hitch as threatened and placed restrictions on any fishing or possession of the hitch. Hitch may be taken by scientists for research work.
A large school of fish was recently observed in Soda Bay and three fish were taken by scientists. Two of the fish were positively identified as hitch by Giusti. The other fish was a blackfish. California Department of Fish and Wildlife senior fishery biologist Ben Ewing reported electro-shocking approximately 30 hitch this week at various locations around the lake.
On Thursday afternoon, Giusti reported a large school of blackfish and hitch in the water off the Lakeside County Park. By his count, about one-third were hitch. The school consisted of hundreds of fish.
Hitch spawn in streams and blackfish will spawn in the lake. The recent three year drought has dried up the streams that flow into Clear Lake and the hitch have had a very limited spawn. According to some counts, just an estimated 500 fish spawned in Kelsey and Adobe creeks in 2014.
It is unknown the exact population of hitch in Clear Lake but experts say that it is only a fraction of past years.
