Clear Lake has more fish per acre than any other lake in California. The good news is the sports fish population, including bass, crappie, bluegill and catfish, continues to increase. What this means is that the lake is extremely healthy.
A good example of the lake’s health are the results of the NewJen bass tournament held Saturday. The winning team of Mike Rothstein and Adam Martin weighed in 29.54 pounds for five fish. Rothstein said they caught more than 40 bass during the one-day tournament, many of them in the 4-pound class. Just about every team weighed in a five-fish limit and most of the fishermen reported catching 25-50 fish.
Clear Lake originally was home to 14 species of native fish, nine of which are now extinct. Some of the species of non-game fish that were abundant a few years ago are now in sharp decline. For example, the once-abundant Sacramento blackfish and Clear Lake hitch have experienced dramatic declines compared to historic levels.
Most of the game fish in the lake now are nonnative. These fish include largemouth bass, white, channel and brown bullhead catfish, green sunfish, bluegill and black and white crappie. During the past 30 years these fish have also undergone a change. For example, in 1991 more than two-third of the anglers at Clear Lake had a catch that consisted primarily of largemouth bass while bluegill made up 15 percent of the catch. By 1994 those percentages were 85 percent bass and 2 percent bluegill. Today most of the fish being caught are largemouth bass followed by crappie.
Creel surveys conducted in 1969 showed that crappie dominated the catch with 39.9 percent followed by bluegill (22.8 percent) and catfish (13.1 percent). Bass only made up .5 percent of the catch. In 1994 crappie made for less than 1 percent of the catch.
What all this means is that Clear Lake has undergone some dramatic changes during the last 50 years.
In 1994-95 the Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) did creel surveys and it was estimated that Clear Lake hosted 26,864 fishermen per year or 73.6 anglers per day. These fishermen spent an average of $65 per day on their sport. Since then the number of fishermen and their average spending has gone up sharply.
The DFW management plan also showed how professional bass tournaments have dominated the scene in recent years. On a typical year the DFW s about 40 event tournaments per year and more than 100 bass club permits.
The management plan also addressed the impact bass tournaments have on recreational fishing. According to the biologists, in California the mortality rate of tournament-caught bass is 2 percent during the tournament, with a delayed mortality approximately 15 percent. Delayed mortality is when the bass die approximately two days after being released.
While there has been no study of tournament mortality on bass in Clear Lake, it’s probably close to the state average. The plan states tournaments have little or no impact on the sport fishery, the reason being that 600 or so bass caught during a typical tournament is just a tiny fraction of the number of bass in the lake.
Another subject addressed in the plan is whether holding all the tournaments in one location — be it Lakeport or Clearlake — will stockpile fish in these areas and cause an absence of fish in other areas. The plan says there is no evidence that releasing tournament-caught fish in one area has any impact on the remainder of the lake.
What was interesting was the high percentage of fishermen who called themselves tournament anglers. According to the report, 77 percent of fishermen who visit the lake are tournament anglers. That still holds true today. Many of the tournament anglers arrive here three or four days prior to the tournament and prefish to locate the bass.
The bottom line is that Clear Lake is healthy and continues to be one of the top fisheries in the nation.
