The Modesto Bee from Modesto, California • C3

C-3 FIRST 3 22:53 LAKE CAMANCHE Comment: Trout fishing still in high gear despite recent cold weather front. Early-morning bite is starting to pick up and afternoon bite remains strong. Trollers report limits of trout caught near Hat Island on Apex lures in fluorescent orange and chartreuse grubs behind a dodger. Fish still very close, so try top-lining with Ex-Cel lures in Firetiger, burnt orange or or Rapalas in or Shore fishing action at North Shore Day Use Point and South Shore Pond remains very good. Kastmasters, Magic Bullets and Cripp Lures are good choices.

During Sacramento Bass Wranglers tourney Saturday, jigs in brown or black, and plastic worms and lizards in green pumpkin, brown or purple were most commonly reported baits. Most fish were caught 5-15 deep. (Northshore store 763-5166, Southshore store 763-5915.) DELTA Comment: Things are picking up with stripers and sturgeon starting to bite in the Sacramento River. Audie Urbano at Bait and Tackle in Rio Vista says the biggest striper over the weekend ran 30 pounds on ghost shrimp. Most fish are averaging 10 pounds or so.

Sturgeon are also in the mix with the largest hitting 73 pounds, also on ghost shrimp. Pat Hayden of Bait and Tackle in Lodi says stripers and sturgeon are mostly coming from the Rio Vista side. Her biggest striper, caught on a sardine, ran 18 pounds, although many smaller fish are being hooked and released. She also reports 53-pound sturgeon caught on salmon roe at Chain Island. Jack Kelly at Resort in Isleton says the water is slowly getting angler-friendly a 17-pounder was caught on a rattle-trap lure in areas including Prospect Slough and Slough.

(707-374-2372, 333-1692.) LAKE DON PEDRO Comment: Despite the recent cold, king salmon and rainbow trout were putting on an excellent bite with good surface action for those either longlining or using sideplaners 75-100 feet behind the boat. Good spots were Fleming Bay, off Jenkins Hill and off Big Oak Island. Lures to use included greenback Ex-Cels and the new Uncle green or blue Perch spinner tipped with Krill or a piece of night crawler. Fishing with frozen shad off the dam face and into Mexican Gulch at 30-40 feet is producing a mixed bag of rainbows and kings up to 3 pounds. Tuolumne River arm is also producing nice king salmon.

forget to inject baits with shad and anchovy bait oils. (Danny Layne, 586-2383; Monte Smith, 581-4734; Phil Hill, Jigs Bait and Tackle, 852-2777.) McCLURE RESERVOIR Comment: Trout fishing for big rainbows is good at the steady-level lake for anglers trolling shad-patterned Needlefish at 35-40 feet, Diana Mello said. Watermelon-colored or the purple-dotted trout-pattern Needlefish are popular. Some anglers are scoring on trout drifting or minnows around dam area at 40 feet, for possible limits. Use the lightest splitshot possible when drifting the because fish seem to prefer slow presentation.

The bite could resume at wide-open levels once the weather warms. Some salmon are possible on worked by the dam at 40 feet or deeper. Bass fishing slowed to a crawl by the cold front that moved through. The best bet has been to work live bait, such as crawdad, in the early morning or motor oil-colored plastics. Warming temps should turn the bite back soon.

Crappie fishing went to a crawl as the storm passed but should pick up. (A-1 Bait 563-6505, 378-2441.) McSWAIN RESERVOIR Comment: Trout fishing is poor after the lake was drained down to almost a river channel because of hydroelectric repair, Diana Mello said. Water level refilled, but bite might be tough for a while as fish adapt to changes. (McSwain Marina 378-2534.) NEW MELONES RESERVOIR Comment: The few who fished despite the cold did catch fish with most anglers bringing in 1 to 3 nice fish in the 3- to- 5-pound range with bank fishermen catching the biggest fish. Most trollers were working the top 20 feet of water although a few did well in the 30-50 foot range.

Upriver between the two bridges has been good, as has the mouth of Angels Cove with shad-patterned lures such as Cop Car Needlefish or Rapala Countdowns being the best producers. Firetiger Needlefish and Apex lures have also hooked nice fish. Adding shad scent or Krill scent will help get strikes. Bankies are also doing good at the Tuttletown boat ramp, Angels Cove and Glory Hole Cove. Mike Derby Jr.

took the Glory Hole Sports Big Fish of the Week with a 5-pound rainbow caught in Angels Cove on rainbow Power Bait. Kokanee from 12-14 inches are being taken in the main lake near Rose Island, but the best time for bigger fish will be later in the spring and summer. (Glory Hole Sports, 736-4333.) NORTHERN CALIFORNIA Comment: Good trout fishing from Redding to Anderson. Water flows good for drift fishing. (Professional Guide Service 800-355-3113.) LAKE PARDEE Comment: Bite was good last week for trollers in the first two coves right outside the Narrows and Shenene).

Limits were the rule with most containing a fish or two in the 3- to 4-pound range. No one was going lower than 20 feet lot of hook-ups were at 5 feet. Most popular set-ups were flashers with night crawlers, lures tipped with a partial scented grub or night crawler behind dodgers or sidekicks. Some were flat-lining behind a slow troll. All were out 75-100 feet behind the boat.

Red, pink, white and green were predominant colors for lures, dodgers and sidekicks. For shore anglers, the launch ramp, Rainbow Point and Stony Point Landing were the best spots. Some larger holdovers were lurking in the Recreation Area. Rainbow and chartreuse-colored processed bait, silver and blue casting lures and black wooly flies behind a plastic float worked well. Nick Welton nailed a lake-record 8.7 smallie at an undisclosed location using crawdad-patterned crank bait.

(772-1472.) SAN LUIS RESERVOIR Comment: Several fish in the 20-pound range and one 30-pounder highlighted improved striper fishing this week at Forebay and big lake, Larry Bristow of Lucky Bait and Tackle said. Most were taken on minnows. The 30-pounder was reported to have come from the Portuguese Cove area on a minnow. Highway 152 area continues to produce a decent topwater bite along the shoreline for school-sized fish, as well as by Dinosaur Point and the Basalt launch ramp areas. Forebay kicking out a 7- to 8-pound fish on trolled Rapalas or Rebels.

Los Banos Creek Reservoir has a decent bass bite for fish to 5 pounds; trout fishing good for limits of small trout on Power Bait. Outpost 826-5559, Lucky Bait 827-1522.) TROUT PLANTS Stanislaus County: Turlock Reservoir. One of the most haunting sounds to be found innature is the high-pitched whistle of a bull elk, be it Rocky Mountain, Roosevelt or tule elk. One of most historically interesting species is the tule elk, which once filled the great Central Valley by the tens of thousands. That was before Gold Rush-era market hunting and agricultural development drained the swamps or destroying most tule elk and tule elk habitat.

By the time the state legislature got around to passing laws in 1873 to protect tule elk which at around 500-900 pounds are smaller than their cousins nobody was sure there were any of these beautiful creatures left in the world. That was until about 1874, when ranch hands working for Henry Miller, the former San Francisco butcher turned major cattleman and landowner as in the Miller-Lux cattle empire discovered a few of the animals hiding out in the while draining marshes in the San Joaquin Valley. Those few were protected by Miller and pretty much formed the basis of the tule elk alive today in 22 herds established by the Department of Fish and Game around the state as part of their elk management program. Which brings us to the present, where tule elk are alive and doing well. There are even enough to have a few offered in special hunts each year by the Department of Fish and Game on a permit-drawing basis.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 animals may not seem much, but the fact of the matter is that as big as California is, there really more space where the fence-busting, wide-ranging creatures can live without getting into trouble. Which brings me to DFG Senior Biologist Terry Palmisano, a top official in the regional elk program who calls it of success Palmisano and about 125 others, including assorted DFG biologists, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staffers and dozens of volunteers from several of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation chapters, were at the Concord Weapons Naval Station last week rounding up nearly 40 elk for transplant. Running free among the ammo bunkers, cattle fences and assorted parking areas on the base since about 1977, the Concord herd was established primarily as a seed herd with individuals going out to found or replenish groups in other areas. According to Palmisano, the elk were being moved in part because the herd no longer is needed to supply seed animals and because the base, which is undergoing decommissioning, is becoming part of suburbia, not a good place for tule elk.

are big animals, and they need lots of she said. Watching the capture was exciting and reminded me of watching chopper cowboys head up wild mustangs in the northeast corner of the state. But instead of miles of open sagebrush, the helicopter headed the elk down and around the steep green hillsides while herds of non-plussed cattle watched as though amused. Once a tule elk was cornered, the three-man helicopter blasted a net out over the animal, which was then jumped on by a assisted by volunteers and hobbled. The animals then were rushed to a staging area, where they were vet-checked, given antibiotics and cooled down with water before being led carefully into pens.

The animals later would be taken to other free-range areas. Several bulls, according to DFG public information officer Troy Swauger, were scheduled to join other tule elk on the range on Grizzly Island in Suisun Marsh, four cows were headed to the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge in the San Joaquin Valley, and the rest destined for the Cache Creek Wildlife Area in Lake and Colusa counties. Lest anyone forget, however, it was the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation that made the whole thing workable, Palmisano says. be happening without the help of the she said, adding that the air time for the chopper estimated at about $500 an hour was coming out of the pocket. Asked why the Foundation was so generous, Rocky Dorvall, a Foundation member from Blue Lake at the upper end of the state, said only, what we do.

We represent elk and elk I think you can do better than that. SOMEONE ELSE who not only did good but also didthe right thing was Carla Emig of La Grange, who pulled a rainbow trout out of the upper main canal at Turlock Lake on Feb. 13 using a pair of salmon eggs and a night crawler for bait. Her husband, Jerry Emig, said his wife was fishing with their son, Mark, 36, who helped her release the fish, a spawner which they estimated weighed between 10 and 12 pounds. How long did it take to land the giant? Said Jerry, know, but she had to lay down on the ground after she caught COMING UP on March 11 is thirdannual Ranger owners-only team tournament scheduled for Lake Don Pedro.

Registration is a.m. at Fleming Meadows. Blast-off is at 7 a.m. with weigh-in at 1 p.m. Cost per team is $50, which gets you a free BBQ and other goodies.

For information, call Chet or Richard at 526-4120. Hunter Education courses are being offered at the Atwater Community Center. To sign up, call 357-6320. George hunting and fishing column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at 536-9005 or California works hard to keep elk population up 5 2 6 4 4 0 History connects the past to the present and leads us to the future.

This can be seen each February in the celebrations of Black History Month. And it could be seen in February 2005 in the National Football League. In the middle of the excitement for Super Bowl XXXIX, football passed two milestones in African-American history. One day before the New England Patriots defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, Fritz Pollard was honored as a black history pioneer with election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Two days after the Super Bowl, Patriots defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel wrote a new chapter in African-American history when he was named head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Pollard, who was long overlooked for the Hall of Fame, was the first black head coach in the NFL when he was named to take over the team known as the Akron Pros in 1921. Before that, Pollard had been the first African-American to play quarterback in the NFL, the first to play in the Rose Bowl (for Brown University) and the second to be selected to the college All-American team. He also played a key role in forcing the NFL to re-open its doors to African-Americans after the league had banned them in the years from 1934 to 1946. A team first More than 80 years after Pollard became an NFL coach, Crennel made history by becoming the first full-time black head coach in history. Crennel earned the job after 35 years as a top assistant, winning three Super Bowls running the defense, and two while an assistant with the New York Giants.

Crennel became the sixth African- American coaching in the 32-team NFL for the 2005 season, joining Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts, Herman Edwards of the New York Jets, Marvin Lewis of the Cincinnati Bengals, Dennis Green of the Arizona Cardinals and Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears. History change More than 70 percent of the athletes now on rosters in the NFL are African- American, and more than 80 percent of the all-stars on the rosters of the 2005 Pro Bowl. But it was not always like this. When the National Football League was formed in 1920, African-Americans played for a few teams, and some like Pollard and the future singer and civil rights leader Paul Robeson were stars. But starting in 1934, the owners made an informal decision to follow the whites-only policy of professional baseball and ban African- Americans.

The ban lasted for a dozen years until racial barriers started breaking down after World War II. living black history BMW sponsored by: For more information contact Janet Pollard at (209) 578-2126 The Modesto P.O. Box 3928, odesto, CA 95352 NAACP In the 97 years since it was founded, the NAACP has helped bring great change to America. The leading civil rights organization has worked to break down racial barriers in housing and education, expand the voting rights of African-Americans and end the fear and terrorism of lynching. Today, the NAACP faces great changes itself.

The organization known officially as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has a new president and is looking to play a bigger and stronger role as the voice of African-Americans. Kweisi Mfume, the president for nine years, announced in November 2004 that he was resigning. That sparked debate inside and outside the NAACP about what kind of leader the organization needs to energize young people, build membership and strengthen the role in the politics and policies of the nation. The man taking on that challenge is Bruce S. Gordon, a nationally prominent business executive who grew up attending NAACP meetings as a child and broke new ground for minority hiring with one of the biggest communications companies.

The choice of Gordon was something new for the organization, which previously has turned to political or religious leaders to fill its top job. The selection marked the end of a six- month search and a nationwide debate over what kind of president the NAACP needed. Top names mentioned for the job had included hip-hop power Russell Simmons, who has high energy and appeal among young people, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who has a reputation as a battler for African- American rights. Rich history With half a million members, the NAACP is the most prominent civil rights organization in the country. It was founded by such civil rights pioneers as W.E.B.

Du Bois, Ida Wells- Barnett and Mary White Ovington, and its presidents have included Roy Wilkins, Benjamin Hooks and James Weldon Johnson. The NAACP presidency, William Jelani Cobb wrote in an essay on the Web site Africana.com, arguably been the most visible civil rights position in the Future challenges As president, Gordon needs to move quickly to increase membership, raise NFL milestones more money and deal with political and court challenges that threaten to dismantle programs important to African-Americans. rights leaders throughout this country did what they did and died so my generation has full responsibility to walk in the doors those brave people he said after his appointment was first announced. Those civil rights leaders included his own father, who founded the NAACP chapter in Camden, New Jersey, and soon had his 8-year-old son coming to meetings with him. The son of two teachers, Gordon earned a degree from MIT and went on to become one of the top black executives with Verizon Communications.

Years apart, Fritz Pollard and Romeo Crennel made marks as pioneers. The Newspaper in Education supplement Black was created by Hollister Kids for syndi cation to newspapers nationally. Copyright 2005 Hollister Kids. All rights reserved. The graphic designer was Breonna Rodriguez.

Th writer and editor was Peter Landry. Photos courtesy of Brown University. education in the news 1. During the search for a new president, some in the organization felt it a heavyweight with a national as one civil rights leader put it. Others felt the group needs someone with strong understanding of the history and achievements.

As a class, discuss what you think will be the biggest challenges facing African-Americans in the next 10 years. Then discuss what kind of leader you think the new NAACP leader will need to be to be most effective. While the NFL now has more African- American head coaches than at any time in the past, just 10 of more than 400 head coaching jobs have gone to African-Americans in the history of the league. Civil rights leaders, sports activists and top African-American lawyers like the late Johnnie Cochran in recent years have pushed the league to be more aggressive in hiring black head coaches. Now the NFL requires any team that is hiring a new head coach to interview at least one African-American for the job or face a large cash fine.

the news as history 1. Sports often reflect the events and attitudes of the times. In periods when opportunities were closed to African-Americans, pro baseball and football banned them. Today while more than 70 percent of NFL players are African- Americans, 19 percent of head coaches are black. About 13 percent of the U.S.

population is African-American. As a class, discuss the importance of having minority coaches in pro sports. What factors should be considered when teams hire? Write a newspaper editorial expressing your view on the issue. 2. Fritz full name was Frederick Douglass Pollard.

He was named for the black anti- slavery crusader Frederick Douglass. Both Pollard and Douglass are role models who stood up for African-American rights. Find someone in the newspaper whom you consider a role model for African-Americans today and write a paragraph explaining your selection. With a new president, the pioneer civil rights group faces the challenges of change At Verizon, which has revenue of $67 billion a year, Gordon pushed to expand minority hiring. As NAACP president, he has vowed to make economic issues affecting African-Americans a top concern.

of color need to change and balance the trade deficit that exists between people of color and the rest of he said. going where the trouble Danny Layne, Twain Harte, with a big rainbow from Lake Don Pedro. TIP OF THE WEEK Senkos are a terrific plastic bait to use for bass, but most anglers only fish them weightless in shallow water, letting the lure sink slowly under its own weight, Larry Hodge of the Fresno Bass Club said. He suggests dropshotting the Senko 10-12 inches above an eighth-ounce dropshot weight when the fish are holding deeper. This gets the bait to the bottom quickly and provides a new look most fish never have seen while suspending the bait just above the bottom and making it more visible.

ROGER THE FRESNO BEE HUNTING AND FISHING Jim Molton, Modesto, largemouth bass at Lake Don Pedro. Tom Vannucci, Murphys, 3-pound rainbow trout from New Melones. Have a picture of a nice score while hunting or fishing? Send photos with comments to or Sports, The Modesto Bee, P.O. Box 5256, Modesto, CA 95352. Include your name, phone number and hometown.

Submissions may be edited and republished in any format. They become the property of The Modesto Bee. RIGHTS FISH REPORT GEORGE BEE DFG biologists Terry Palmisano, left, and Sara Holm attend to a tule elk at Concord Naval Weapons Station. GEORGE SNYDER The Modesto Bee WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2006.