People who view agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife as distant, uncaring, regulation-bound bureaucracies need to meet Jeff Weaver, program leader of the DFW’s Heritage and Wild Trout Program. He embodies many of the best qualities of the constituency he serves — a passion for the active outdoor life, for fly fishing, and for the experience of the natural environment. With that motivation, he’s pursued a career in public service with energy and intelligence from which we all benefit. We wanted to know more about the kind of person who makes such institutions work for us all, and also to better understand the benefits such institutions provide fly fishers.
Bud: You’ve been involved in natural resource management in some form or other for pretty much your whole adult life. How did you come to that vocation? And what role did angling play in your choice of a life path?
Jeff: I grew up in South Lake Tahoe and moved to Placerville just before intermediate school, so my childhood was spent riding bikes in the national forest, building forts, going fishing and catching crawdads in Trout Creek, the upper Truckee River and other nearby streams, and playing on the beaches of Lake Tahoe. My grandparents lived in the boondocks, north of Nevada City, in very rustic fashion. I spent at least a month each summer with them, much of it outside, so I developed a deep appreciation of the natural environment from a very early age. My grandpa fly-fished when he was younger and took me fishing (mostly boat trolling). He had a couple of treasured bamboo rods in a felt-lined presentation case that he promised would be mine when he passed on. Unfortunately, when he did, my ailing grandma hired a local dirtbag to clean up their sprawling place and, lo and behold, the rods went missing. It still stings to know I’ve lost that family heirloom and the symbolic connection to my grandpa those rods represented. He and my grandma spent about twenty years with a couple of friends literally living all summer in a fishing camp my grandpa and his friend would set up as soon as the snow melted, just southeast of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Army surplus wall tents, cots with mattresses, a full kitchen with a wood-burning stove, 55-gallon drum perched on two-by-fours in a tree for a gravity-fed water system — the whole nine yards. They loved to fish Hat Creek and the Pit River. And now so do I.
I knew going into college that I wanted to pursue environmental science and biology and hoped eventually to find gainful employment in that field, without any specific goals in mind. My dad’s graduation gift to me was a Sage rod/reel/backing starter kit. He also enjoyed fishing and took me when he could, ever since I was a kid. We fished together, time permitting, until his death in 2011. I was very glad to have finally made a lifelong dream fishing trip to Alaska with him in 2009. He was sick then, but none of us knew it at the time. I know it meant a lot to him, and it’s a treasured memory for me.
I dabbled in fly fishing for a while in my early twenties until I landed a job as a wilderness ranger with the U.S. Forest Service. I patrolled in the Desolation Wilderness for seven seasons, and the early morning and post patrol evening fishing opportunities were limitless. I fished a lot and have very fond memories of my morning “commute,” which consisted of getting up before daybreak, rolling over in my sleeping bag to crank up the stove, brew some coffee, and grab a bite to eat, then go fishing before heading out on patrol. And if I wasn’t too beat from the day’s hiking, often I did the reverse in the evening. It was an adventure every day and a seminal period in my life. During this time, I hired a now lifelong friend, Bob Holland, who had worked up at the Eagle Lake Marina, north of Susanville. He and a couple of other great guys turned me on to fishing Eagle Lake, and we commenced to do so every fall, without fail, for a 16-year period. The drought threw us off, but we’ll get back to it. I owe it to Bob for taking my growing passion for fly fishing to a whole other level — his family has a cabin at June Lake and a long history of fishing and recreating in the eastern Sierra, which happens to be one of my favorite areas of California. We’ve had some really good times.
Bud: More specifically, most kids, when someone asks, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” don’t answer “I want to be a fisheries biologist and study trout!” How did you gravitate to that field?
Jeff: During the time I was getting into fly fishing, I worked as a seasonal scientific aide for the then California Department of Fish and Game. This was in the couple of years before working as a wilderness ranger, while I was completing my undergraduate degree. I was very lucky, in that I was exposed to a wide range of fisheries fieldwork and survey methods. I ran rotary screw traps and motored jet boats in the lower American and Sacramento Rivers, participated in a multimonth instream movement study of rainbow and brown trout in the Little Truckee River, electrofished to get trout population estimates in the Truckee and Bear Rivers and in Tiger and Panther Creeks in the Mokelumne River drainage, did steelhead PIT tagging in the Big Sur and Little Sur and lower Carmel rivers, and did habitat and snorkel surveys in northern coastal streams, including the Noyo, Gualala, Big, and Garcia Rivers.
Needless to say, the combination of a burgeoning love for fly fishing and being exposed to such rewarding and diverse fisheries work during the same time period had a tremendous impact on my career interests and trajectory. If a permanent position with the U.S. Forest Service became available that would have allowed me to stay in the game of wilderness management, I would certainly have taken it, and things would now be different. In retrospect, I’m glad that never played out, and I decided to go back to graduate school and pursue conservation biology with the intent of becoming a fisheries biologist. My particular interest was in the management and conservation of trout fisheries in California, because of both my love of fishing for trout and my love of the habitats where they occur. Working outdoors in mountain streams and lakes was at the center of my “What do I want to do when I grow up?” plan, and as it turns out, that’s exactly what I now do. At least for a portion of the year.
Bud: There are some careers that can be pursued with a certain degree of institutional independence, but yours seems to have developed largely within the context of state and federal natural resources management agencies. I guess that’s inevitable, given the nature of the work. What are the constraints and the opportunities established by that institutional setting for someone working as a fisheries biologist? Are there other options for someone working in the field?
Jeff: Aside from navigating the bureaucracy inherent in government employment, a principal constraint is the hiring process and associated challenges. Hiring freezes and very limited numbers of permanent positions have hampered both my own career and my efforts to hire others. There were also the unpaid furloughs for a few years, and since both my wife and I were employed by the department, that hit the pocketbook pretty hard. We certainly fall far behind private industry, such as environmental consultant firms, in terms of salary, and that can drive off highly qualified candidates I’d love to hire.
The opportunities, however, are not to be overshadowed by the constraints. Imagine yourself in the position of being one of the key people, on behalf of a state as vast and varied as California, involved in determining how and what resources will be allocated to conserve and protect our native and wild trout fisheries. On an annual basis, I sit down with our staff and develop priorities and projects that range from implementing rotenone chemical treatments to remove nonnative fishes and restore native ones, to determining which waters are up next for potential designation as Heritage and Wild Trout Waters, to drafting conservation plans and strategies for our native trout, to planning and implementing on-the-ground population and habitat assessments. I feel very fortunate to have the managerial support to pursue this important work and the autonomy to do so in a very independent way. Most of the time, I feel the sky is the limit, and it’s just a matter of determining where resources are needed most. I have a hunch you can’t find that kind of wide-open career landscape in the private sector. As for other options, there are consulting firms that do nearly the same type of work we do. A few other agencies, such as the California Department of Water Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service, offer the same kinds of fisheries-focused employment opportunities. In nearly all cases, at least from my own personal experience, you have to put in your time to get a foot in the permanent employment door. Between my early scientific aide work, wilderness ranger days, and return to seasonal work with the department after graduate school performing high-elevation lake, stream, and meadow surveys for amphibians and trout across the Sierra Nevada, I spent 10 years as a seasonal employee. It takes a certain kind of dedication or, perhaps, insanity to stick it out that long with hopes of finally finding that dream job. I couldn’t and still can’t imagine myself doing anything other than natural resource conservation work, so I had to stay the course.
Bud: You’re currently program leader for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Heritage and Wild Trout Program. What does the program offer anglers, and what does it accomplish within the broad mandate of the DFW?
Jeff: The principal thing this program offers is the promotion, management, and protection of high-quality self-sustaining trout fisheries that are formally designated Heritage and/or Wild Trout Waters. We are mandated to write and implement fishery management plans for these designated waters, which puts us into an active, adaptive management mode. There are countless miles of stream and many lakes in California that support self-sustaining trout populations. However, in most cases, the department isn’t actively managing them and therefore can’t really keep a thumb on the pulse of a fishery’s status. That’s the real value in the designation process, along with ensuring these waters will be managed into the future to protect wild-trout populations, the fisheries they support, and the habitats upon which they depend.
We also perform ongoing resource assessments to evaluate candidate waters for potential future designation to expand wild-trout fishing opportunities for the use and enjoyment of the public. We engage in restoration and recovery actions to protect imperiled native trout and ensure they persist into the future, so that future generations can enjoy this important part of our state’s natural heritage. All of our activities are directly in line with the department’s mission, which is to “manage California’s diverse fish, wildlife, and plant resources, and the habitats upon which they depend, for their ecological values and for their use and enjoyment by the public.” We regularly engage in public education and outreach, such as administering the California Heritage Trout Challenge and speaking to fly-fishing clubs and other organizations about our program’s value and functions.
Anyone curious about the program can access our recently published Angler’s Guide to the California Heritage Trout Challenge at https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/ Fishing/Inland/HTC. The link is to the Heritage Trout Challenge page and readers can then get to the guide from there.
Bud: How did the program get started, and how did you become associated with it? What does its future look like?
Jeff: The Wild Trout Program was established within the Department by the California Fish and Game Commission in 1971. As I understand it, Richard May (then affiliated with CalTrout) and a small group of his fishing friends had a strong role in pushing for the program’s establishment. I can’t speak for them, but in my opinion, I think the Wild Trout Program was established as a bit of an antidote to the department’s increasing emphasis and reliance on hatchery production and put-and-take fisheries. There were anglers out there with a visionary approach, perhaps a small proportion of the overall angling community, who recognized the value of wild trout and the fisheries they support and wanted them protected. I personally see it as a convergence between the post–World War II industrialization of the country (embodied in the hatchery system) and the hippie generation wanting to get back to nature, leading to a shift in public opinion into the early 1970s and beyond. It’s no coincidence things like the Clean Water Act (1972) and the federal Endangered Species Act (1973) were passed at the same time in history that our program was established. In 1998, the program was expanded to increase emphasis and awareness about the beauty, diversity, historical significance, and special values of California’s native trout and their habitats, and the name was accordingly changed to the Heritage and Wild Trout Program.
I got a permanent position with the department in 2003, overseeing restoration grants and the projects they supported in the Sacramento River drainage as part of the CALFED Bay-Delta Program. My office happened to be a couple halls down from my predecessor as this program’s lead, Roger Bloom. I had a nice picture of a Lahontan cutthroat trout on the wall next to my office door, and that sparked a conversation that eventually led me to where I am today. I had done some poking around, with high hopes I might someday be fortunate enough to lateral over to the Heritage and Wild Trout Program. However, the positions were few and highly coveted, so I figured I would have to wait it out for someone to retire. As luck would have it, legislation passed in 2006 (AB-7) infused funding into the program via the Hatchery and Inland Fishery Fund (HIFF) and established seven new permanent positions, one of which became mine.
The program’s future is bright, with a dedicated funding source (HIFF) which is maintained by 33-1/3 percent of fishing license revenues allocated to the fund. We have several long-term projects in the works, including the Paiute cutthroat trout restoration project, a comprehensive basin-wide assessment of the Little Kern River drainage, removal of nonnative brook trout in Silver Creek (near Sonora Pass) and Slinkard Creek (near Monitor Pass) to restore Lahontan cutthroat trout to some of their native streams, restoration planning for the South Fork of the Kern River to secure and expand genetically intact California golden trout, and restoration work in the Pine Creek and Eagle Lake basin to, we hope, restore a wild spawning component to the Eagle Lake rainbow trout population, to name a few. There’s no shortage of management, conservation, and recovery work to do, especially given the impacts of this monumental drought on cold-water habitats and the fishes that depend upon them.
Bud: The state has endured an extended drought, followed by uncommon levels of precipitation. What has been the effect of these extreme conditions on California’s heritage and wild trout?
Jeff: Good segue out of the last question. I don’t think we’re at the point to know all of the outcomes yet. We certainly saw drying streams and low lake levels statewide in the past few years and expended a tremendous amount of resources, time, funding, and effort to monitor at-risk populations and, in extreme instances, perform fish rescues of imperiled trout populations. As a microcosmic example, we’ve been working to draft a summary report for our field crew’s efforts to monitor drought-impacted waters in 2015. Our crew alone surveyed 32 waters, in some cases multiple times. That gives a hint at the number of waters and the effort involved at the statewide level. It will probably take a few years, with what I hope will be closer-to-average precipitation and snowpack, to sort out which waters and trout populations have suffered and which have managed to hang on. Certainly, the extremity of the swing from dry to wet is of concern. If a stream goes from five years of contraction and loss of wetted habitat to a raging torrent, that is likely to have a detrimental effect, either on the trout population or on the quantity and quality of suitable habitat, or on both.
Bud: More broadly, what challenges do the state’s heritage and wild trout face in the years to come, in light of the uncertain future of existing protections of the natural environment?
Jeff: That’s a tough question to answer, given the high level of uncertainty and the current political climate. I could go off on a tangent here, but will exercise self-restraint. My personal approach is to keep my head down and doggedly move forward with what I believe is important conservation-based work — maybe critical work, if you subscribe to the concept that humans are part of and wholly dependent upon the biosphere that provides us with all the resources we need to succeed and survive as a species. I have always felt very strongly that our biggest obligation to future generations is not to leave the planet in worse shape than it was during our lifetime. I am afraid we are dancing dangerously close to a tipping point from which there may be no return to fulfill that obligation. I want my daughter to be able to enjoy the natural environment that has so deeply influenced who I am and what I do. It would be criminal to deprive future generations of that experience.
If it’s OK to offer a quote that has stuck with me for 25-plus years, I think Edward Abbey said it best:
One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast . . . a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.
Bud: Your life as an outdoors enthusiast and your career as a biologist has involved being out in the field, doing fieldwork or just enjoying the natural environment, but you’re also an administrator running a statewide program from an office. What do you do as the program’s leader, and how much do you get to spend time in the field?
Jeff: As the statewide program leader, I’m responsible for providing oversight and guidance to our staff to ensure consistency, a high level of professional output, that good science and management principles are being employed, and that our program’s operations are in adherence with management and executive-level directives. I’m also the lead person in charge of developing, with staff assistance, statewide survey, management, and restoration activities related to native and wild-trout resources. I used to be in the field most of June through October, with some intermittent fieldwork during the winter months in parts of the state that aren’t buried in snow or otherwise inaccessible. My administrative duties have increased over time, as they tend to do in any career, and I’m not in the field as much as I’d like to be these days. However, we’ve recently gone through a staff reduction that will necessitate taking back on some of those field-based activities. No complaints there.
Bud: And how much chance do you get actually to go fishing? Does being a fisheries biologist give you any edge as an angler? Is there a favorite technique or kind of fishing that you prefer?
Jeff: In similar fashion to fieldwork, my recreational fishing time has been reduced with increasing work and family obligations. In reflecting back over the past several years, I feel my fishing time has been woefully inadequate. This is especially conspicuous to me, given the nature of my job. I keep reminding myself that it’s important to reconnect with the resource now and again to maintain the enthusiasm and passion that carries me forward, both at work and in life in general. But that hasn’t fixed the problem, and at some point, I just need to carve out some time, load up my truck, and get out there to wet a line. I feel especially guilty that I haven’t been taking my daughter out much lately. The drought really put a damper on my spirits, and I knew many of my favorite waters were in pretty bad shape. Now they’re blown out, so I can’t win for losing!
I don’t want to imply any egotism here or suggest that I’m a more highly skilled angler than anyone else, but I’ve had the conversation about being a fisheries biologist and how that influences your angling approach many times with colleagues and friends. I think it is a tremendous benefit, mainly in terms of knowing how to read the water and understanding where fish are most likely to be. Snorkel surveys have been the most instructive in that regard. When you swim in a river or stream and get to sneak up on trout and view their behaviors and habitat preferences underwater, it provides invaluable information on where to cast your fly.
I don’t really have a favorite technique, but I do enjoy casting dry flies on small mountain streams with a 3-weight, fishing for steelhead on the North Coast with my switch rod, and now and again fishing still waters such as Eagle Lake, Pyramid Lake, and Lake Davis. Then again, I’m at my happiest dead drifting nymphs under an indicator in the Pit River and navigating that treacherous stream, so I enjoy most aspects of the sport.
Bud: Here we are at the traditional Silly Tree Question: If you were a tree, what kind of a tree would you be?
Jeff: Ah, that’s an easy one. A juniper. They are emblematic of the high Sierra Nevada and the upper elevations of other Western mountains. When you see a large one, eking out an existence perched on the side of a granitic monolith, roots reaching deep down into joints in the rock for moisture, it is an inspiring sight. There is a massive juniper on the trail into Silver King Creek, which I’ve hiked more times than I care to count as a team leader on the Paiute cutthroat trout restoration project, that makes me stop to admire it every time. My wife, daughter, and I went so far as to name our latest female black lab Juniper. But we tend to call her June or Junie for short. I think they are beautiful trees, especially when a krummholz specimen is gnarled and mostly dead, with gray, very dense wood smoothed by wind and ice and time and a tiny percentage still living on the protected lee side. My mental image of this always looks like a black-and-white Ansel Adams photograph.
