The Napa Valley Register from Napa, California • 12

Outdoors This weeks best bets Striped bass in Napa River Catfish at Lake Rerryessa E-mail: napasportsnapanews.com C2 Thursday October 10, 2002 Napa Valley Register EjDneUIS.com For Up-To-The-Minute Sports Scores' Furry fliers nest in darkness of Kartchner Caverns Fishing Report Members of the media are seen looking through the Totem Forest, Feb. 6, during a tour of an unopened portion of the Kartchner Caverns in Benson, Ariz. During the six months that female cave bats are giving birth and caring for their young inside Kartchner Caverns, crews stop working on projects that will eventually give the public access to new areas of the popular cave system. ASSOCIATED PRESS By EDUARDO MONTES Associated Press Writer KARTCHNER CAVERNS STATE PARK, Ariz. Down in a dim and muggy world below the Arizona desert, a place where humans have only recently been admitted in any great numbers, a tiny bat reigns almost supreme.

During the six months of the year that female cave bats are giving birth and caring for their young inside Kartchner Caverns, crews stop working on projects that will eventually give the public access to new areas of the popular cave system. Even when tour groups are finally allowed to venture into the depths of the Big Room complex, it will only be on a timetable set by the bat known by the scientific tag myotis velifer. The bats have the priority in the scheduling. When they arrive it becomes their cave, and we bow out of the equation, said Rick Toomey, cave resources manager at Kartchner Caverns State Park, about 40 miles southeast of Tucson. Bat fossils and other scientific evidence indicate that the little brown cave bats, which weigh about 10 grams and are about 3 inches from head to tail, have been using the Kartchner Caverns complex below the Whetstone Mountains intermittently over about 50,000 years, Toomey said.

Officials knew the bats were there when plans were being formulated to make the caverns accessible to the public, he said. They decided early on not to disturb the bats. The park opened in November 1999 and was quickly dubbed the crown jewel in Arizonas state parks system. The caves are noted for the beauty of their growing rock formations, including stalagmites and stalactites and other mul-tihued structures, some of them resembling cotton, popcorn and drinking straws. About 180,000 visitors are allowed into the 2 1 2-mile cave system each year, but tours so far have been restricted to two chambers, the Rotunda and Throne rooms.

No large-scale tours have been done yet in the Big Room complex where the bats live from about mid-April until mid-October. The bats seek out cooler climates the rest of the year. From Register Staff The latest fishing developments from around the Napa Valley, North Bay, region and Northern California: Napa River Striped bass continues to be a' good bet for fishermen who are trolling or casting, said Jake Spears of Sweeneys Sports. Use anchovies or sardines, and live mudsuckers if you can get them. Sturgeon are starting to show in the southern area of the river, in the saltier waters.

There have been some salmon sightings in the system, but none caught as of yet. Lake Berryessa Crappie are starting to show; use red and white mini jigs and work the area around docks or around seaweed, said Dino Righetti of Spanish Flat Marina. Theyre catching trout and salmon at the 35-40 foot level. Catfish are reacting to hotdogs and chicken livers. Theyre catching bass off big island and rocky banks using Senkos and worms.

For bluegill, use I worms. Meanwhile, Spear said cat-1 fishing is your best bet, using shad, mackerel or nightcrawlers; early morning or nighttime is your best chance, said Spears. Trout and bass are still in deeper waters. Call 966-1 7708. Conn DamLake Hennessey Very few reports are coming in, but catfish is your best bet.

San Pablo Bay Striper fishing is the hot ticket. But salmon fishing has diminished to 1 almost nothing at all, said Spears. The salmon are moving into the rivers. Rock fishing is doing pretty well along the coast lines, in shallow, rocky shore areas, and on the Delta. Bodega Bay For the last two weeks, Wils Fishing Adventures has been fishing for coastal rock cod and ling cod, and has had very, very good success, with limits of rock cod to near limits of ling cod, Wil Morrow said Tuesday.

Some of the ling cod have been up to the 20-pound class, while most are in the teens. Fishermen have been working the mouth of the Russian River for salmon the last two days. I borrow is anticipating the start of the Dungeness crab season in November. Wils will also be doing some whale watching trips starting in 'December. Call 875-2323 or visit Iwww.bodegabayfishing.com.

The beauty of Kartchner is that is a protected place that bats can come back to every year. Bats only have one young a year. Its pretty critical that we not do things to decrease their numbers. Ronnie Sidner Tucson Biologist The bats arent rare in the Southwest and the Kartchner population is relatively small, but theyre shielded by officials because the bats are an important part of the caves ecosystem. The bats guano sustains a whole system of tiny insects and worms.

They also provide certain aesthetics to the cave ecosystem. Theyre neat to see, said Ronnie Sidner, a Tucson biologist who did initial studies on the bat population after the caverns were discovered. Officials are also particularly mindful of the bats because Kartchner is a maternity roost, a place where females go to give birth and where they keep their young during their early months. Toomey said about 1 ,000 females use the cave each year, with the population shooting up to about 1,700 when they give birth. The males use other caves in the area.

Sidner said disturbing the bats by allowing workers or visitors into the Big Room while the bats are roosting could force them to abandon the site. Some species tolerate disturbance. The majority of them dont, said Sidner. In the case of caves, now youre talking about a deep, dark place under ground. while the bats are in the cave, he said.

Once the Big Room is open, possibly as early as fall 2003, tours will only be conducted there from about Oct. 15 until April 15. Those people who would like to see the bats in their natural environment will have to hope for a glimpse of the occasional youngster straying into the Rotunda or Throne rooms. They may get lost a little bit in the k.ivc, and wind up going, Whoops, this nt the area were supposed to be in, Ni'd Toomey But in reality, the people who venture i.i the bats domain know the truth. In this dim world, its the humans who are out of place.

The presence of people is very different from what the bats have come to expect. Sidner said there would be fewer bats in the region, where they play an important role by eating insects, if the Kartchner colony is driven out. The beauty of Kartchner is that is a protected place that bats can come back to every year, she said. Bats only have one young a year. Its pretty critical that we not do things to decrease their numbers.

So far, Toomey said, development-crews that are pouring concrete paths and putting in lighting in the Big Room complex have had to stop working each of the last three seasons once the bats arrive. The seasonal interruptions were expected, so workers complete other jobs Napa Valley blessed with great number of wildlife San Francisco Bay Salmon fishing outside the Golden Gate was very slow over the said Carusos sport fishing, with boats failing to catch a single salmon after also working the Marin coastline. istration Building, 11295 Third Napa, CA. Call 253-4417. At last weeks Conservation Commission meeting, three requests were granted.

Friends of the Napa River are conducting their second year of snorkel-ing surveys to establish the existence and possible numbers of our Napa River steelhead population. It is currently estimated to be between 5,000 and 10,000 fish, mostly young fish in the 2-to 4-inch size. The normal return of adult steelhead from locally raised stock is about 10 percent. So if the numbers are right, we probably will have between 500 and 1,000 adult fish returning from the ocean this winter to spawn in our local tributaries and keep the strain alive. We were told that there are 17 tributaries that produce enough cold water in the upper reaches to raise steelhead.

Many of these creeks are dry as they get closer to the Napa River. Some of these surveys were 20 years old, but the new information from the Snorkel Survey shows us that there may be as many as 30 creeks that support a population of young steelhead. The commission granted $5,000 toward the Snorkel Survey efforts for this second year of surveying. Another request for high-grade binoculars for our local game wardens was granted for $4,500. Another request that is being considered, but not yet acted upon, is the request for $20,000 for a wildlife habitat and land acquisition in the Quail Ridge Wilderness Conservancy area near Lake Berryessa.

The next meeting of the commission is Nov. 21 at the County Administration Building. If you would like to attend and would like more information, call 253-4417. Napa Valley Register Outdoors Columnist George Carl can be reached at or wlneguy54aol.com for duck hunting and pheasant hunting. There are no fees at this time, and in windy weather these units can be fairly productive for local hunters.

Napa County Wildlife Commission grants approved Each county in California has a board of volunteers appointed to help spend the fine money that is collected from acts against DFG regulations, such as fishing without a license and or hunting violations. A portion of that money over the years has gone back to the county for various projects. In recent years for Napa County, that has been anywhere from $6,000 a year to as high as $30,000. Any local group who wishes to has always been able to apply for some of that grant money. There are special guidelines that need to be followed.

The project a group might want to present must be wildlife- or education-related, and has to benefit the general public. A complete list of the requirements can be picked up from the Napa County Wildlife Conservation Commission at the Napa County Admin- We are blessed to have so much available to us here in the Napa Valley. With the growth of vineyards on our valley floor and we have, to a great extent, lost the foothill wildlife. The pheasants that used to live along the Napa River and venture out in the many fields that ran adjacent to our orchards are virtually gone. Many older landowners and ranchers remember the call of wild cock pheasants in the mornings and evenings when pheasants used to breed here.

Now, that is a sound only old timers remember. We may have lost our pheasants and much of our valley quail and deer in the hillsides, but three quarters of Napa County is outside the Napa Valley, and we are very diversified. We have more wildlife in Napa County than 98 percent of all other counties in the U.S. That is a big statement. However, according to the Friends of Napa Snorkel Survey, 2001, Napa County was among the top 50 counties in the U.S.

based on the wildlife variety found here. After all, we have the mountains with deer, wild turkey, bear, mountain lion, bobcat, coyotes, raccoon, and many other creatures. Big numbers of wildlife are also in the Napa Marsh, which is now the largest single marsh of its type in the U.S. The reclaim- ing of the Napa-Sonoma marsh has been ongoing for years, spearheaded by the Department of Fish and Game and senior biologist Jim Swanson. We have 13,000 acres that have been turned back to marshland.

There are hundreds of different species of waterfowl and water birds, as well as small mammals from the marsh mouse to otters. All of this is available for us to see by boat or by hiking. Some of these wildlife areas open to the public include Coon Island, Dutchman Slough, Huichica Creek, Napa River, Ringstrom Bay, Sonoma Creek, Tolay Creek, White Slough, and Wingo management units. Most of these units can be reached by boat, but a detailed map of parking and walk-on units is available from the DFG in Yountville. Some are available Sacramento River Salmon fishing above the Red Bluff Diversion Dam up to the Anderson Balls Ferry has been excellent 'with the huge number of fish now in 'this stretch of the river every nook and cranny is stuffed with salmon, said Hank Mautz Professional Guide Service.

Lures in K-15K-16 sizes with a sardine wrap are working well in the morning, but roe continues to be the main bait throughout the day. Anglers can expect the great bite to continue for as week or two then salmon fishing will probably slow down for awhile as a lot of the fish will go into the upper reaches of the river and Battle Creek to spawn. The stretch of river below the Red Bluff Diversion Dam to Colusa has slowed down as the number of salmon has dropped off, and moved into the stretch of river above the Red Bluff Diversion Dam. A fair number of steelhead are also being caught; theyre averaging 5-8 pounds. Call 1-'800-355-3113.

The average salmon from 20-35 pounds, and Outdoor Jfc seeing some kings up to 40 'bounds. Outdoor is using flatfish hires, T-50s and bouncing roe. Salmon season is open until Jan. 14, J2003. Rainbow trout fishing is fair to good from Redding to Anderson, but changing water flows could throw off fishing for a few days.

The system is producing 10-20 trout. Outdoor is fusing spin, flatfish lures and is fly fishing using glo-bugs and bead head foxs poophas Nos. 16-18 and 'brassies, and is nymphing with indicators. Call 1-800-670-4448 or (530) 221-6151, or visit www.sacriver-jguide.com. Premium Gas for the Price of Mid-Grade A BATTJ Am ZD mr We Refer Quality Painting Contractors DEVINE PAINT CENTER 971 Lincoln at Main dHd Full Service Auto Truck Repair Committed to providing the best service possible in professional, timely and pleasant manner.

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