Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose When Big Brother is the Ultimate Pond Boss?

Sometimes I rant and rave and come across like a deranged lunatic. But I have good days as well. All joking aside, this is some of the battle my buddies of the CAA or California Aquaculture Association are fighting. This is no joke, and has dire consequences for every California pond owner out there, even worse for those who would wish to make one. They have hired legal guys, lobbyists, you name it.

http://www.californiapondowners.com/fishstocking.html


I'll start helping out any way I can also, no matter how swamped I am. This is just a disaster to one of the last I thought untouchable fisheries I have.

Wow. In some ways I am a little shocked this kind of "big brother" is not already in effect in California. I'm glad to hear there is at least a little bit of room for pondmeisters to play without someone breathing down their neck. Enough is enough...

Pond Boss Magazine is already on board under resources and links. The store is wide open, if anyone has anything they might want to advertise. This is a brand new site, a lot of it is under construction, but I see the interest picking up, especially by word of mouth from owners I talk to. Who knows, I may hang my business there soon. And these laws will most assuredly affect out of state guys. I already got shot down trying to get shiners from Anderson's. I don't see how anyone out of state is going to get inspected by California. Just to get the new certificate. My local guys are just saying no and switching to 100% food fish. From what I understand they have to pay for each species to be planted, quarterly, and they can just about find anything wrong if they look hard enough. Asian Tapeworm is just about everywhere, because they brought in Grass Carp. Now they will use that to deny permits, a parasite they introduced. Unreal. Plus the language of the regs is so poorly written and so vague the guys I talk to are scared to death about having anyone come out and just shut them down. none of this would have happened if they had not lost that lawsuit. The real gotcha is any pond that empties into public waters. The other is certified disease and parasite free. I'm not sure there is a pond out there that could realistically meet that criteria, even though it does not list what it is anyway.

Sometimes you have to give a dictatorial government the bird and do what's in your best interests, unfortunately there are risks but like they say " If you don't stand for something, you'll stand for anything".
This is my opinion and not necessarily the opinion of Pond Boss Forum.
Of course if your in the pond business you pretty much have to follow the rules.

What a shame although it's not limited to California. Even here in the north central states and the east we are coming under increasing regulations and costly health inspections requirements. However as far as I know only Minnesota requires stocking permits for private ponds.

Here's an overview of health inspections required and hauling regulations out here in the Midwest and east. After VHS showed up things got much worse as the feds got into their "kneejerk" reaction mode.

http://www.ncrac.org/Info/StateImportRegs/stateregsmain.htm

The only saving grace I see for California pondowners is there won't be any money for state employees to do any enforcing, inspecting etc. soon. California is rapidly going in to default from what I'm seeing. Minimum wage now for state employees? Is that true?

I just do not see a silver lining in this ominous black cloud. Putting the government in charge of anything is akin to an oversight committee being led by red tipped white cane carrying baffoons. The track record and current situation is deplorable. A string of miserable failures from top to bottom. Fisheries destroyed, businesses shutdown, failing and fleeing the state. A deficit that just cannot be addressed.

What this does is a domino effect and hits families for generations. Kids won't have memories of visiting grandpa pond. Families won't have that fishing day in the backyard pond. Why? Prices to own and stock a pond could increase tenfold. And since the resentment towards the government and it's workers is at an all time high, no one is going to want to tell anyone they even have a pond. It's just going to end up being another misguided prohibition taking away private property owner's rights. A Pond Patriot Act. We will come and inspect your pond, you pay for that, it might pass, but the rules are so damn vague, if we are in a good mood, we might pass you. So you get certified to plant your own pond on your own property. No one plants them any longer. No one raises fish to plant in them. A regular 2-3" bg is going to be going from 50 cents to $5 a piece. A 1 lb LMB over $10. Then they have to come out and inspect that you have fish that came from a certified farm, and reinspect your new fish don't have parasites or disesases. You pay for that. And they may never stop inspecting, once they know you have a pond.

Like any prohibition, it will drive all business to a black market. Where the intent was fixing the fishery, and tracking what is where, the bait bucket brigade and black market will be worse than anything they could have dreamed of. Those guys will not care about parasites, diseases, endangered species. You could see more invasives, pike, gar, snakehead, anything. And all that formerly taxable revenue for a broke ass state, kiss that goodbye. No permits, no sales tax, no nothing. Some farms have already shutdown. The guys that build ponds will take a hit, more hard working businesses flee the state. Most of my suppliers and I laugh, they really can't stop anything, people are going to give the government half a peace sign and do what they want.

Pond Frog - Don't let the government hear you or else they will commission an expensive study to see how to deal with your concerns.

THe most ironic part of this whole ordeal was CA F & G was sued because they were incompetent in thier salmon, steelhead and trout planting and hatchery management. And that is why they lost, because they are incompetent. There were like over 100 biological concerns listed, all of them CA F & G issues. All of them. The suit did not mention private pond, private fish hatcheries or anything even remotely related to them. In fact, all of it was dealing with public lakes and rivers, and watersheds. So they decide, like the Patriot Act, we will just take away everyone's rights, because we can, because the government is here to help you.

One of the hardest hit areas in my state is Northwest. Ft. Bragg, Humbolt and Mendicino. They already hate the government, would rather shoot any government employee than look at them. They had, and I mena had two primary industries, logging and fishing. First the land shoe drops because of the spotted owl. So timber industry collapses. Everyone is out of work, including my uncle who was at a sawmill as a mechanic his entire life. Then the second shoe drops with the entire closing of the Salmon fishing. The same salmon CA F and G are supposed to be planting and monitoring. That is what the hatcheries are for. That and trout. So every fishing boat, every party boat, dock worker, marina, cannery worker all the way down the line is out of work, done in one CA F & G nightmare. So now they either grow pot or remember what is was like having income.

CA F & G does not just constantly shoot themselves in the foot, they gather everyone around they can and have a hand grenade hot potato game. Pulling pins and tossing. They almost have nothing left to blow up. I guess that is why they twisted a lawsuit loss around to take away rights of private landowners and wipe out another industry. Out of the top ten fish farms around me, in less than 1 year all but one have gone food fish or closed. Going to be just like the salmon fleet and party boat fleet, a memory.

Rules??? What rules????

My customer is my boss!