The worst that can be said of a man is that he did not pay attention.
— William Meredeth
It is the Ides of March, and I am sitting outside on an unseasonably warm afternoon, looking at the Sierra Crest. What little snow there is lies high in the mountains, and there is a lot more rock showing than white stuff. It is hard to imagine that five years ago, I was writing a magazine piece about how to deal with the high runoffs expected following a record snow year. One thing that struck me then was that although we had experienced two successive big snow years, the runoff actually peaked earlier in the year than I would have anticipated. This was because the overnight lows in the high country had been rising over time, and the point when the snowpack did not freeze up at night was coming earlier in the year than normal. This year, as I write, we are looking at peak runoff in early April, weeks before the traditional opening of the trout season.
“Normal” has become an interesting word in this context. There seems no longer to be any such thing. We find ourselves in a fourth year of drought, and as an angler, I am now trying to figure out how to cope with the absence of runoff, rather than a surplus. I am both depressed and frightened when I think about the prospects for September and October, which have traditionally been my favorite months for fishing. I wonder what is going on and what it means to someone who loves trout and the waters in which they live.
I attend a lot of meetings about water, and as I listen to hours of discussions, I find myself wondering whether I need to reconsider my expectations about my fishing experience. Certainly, there are a lot of opinions. Some say that nothing is going on; this is all cyclical, and we’ve seen it before. At my age, I seldom hear the phrase “You’re too young to remember,” but I certainly do not remember these water conditions for this long a period. I find that people’s memory not only can be faulty, but is also selective, seeming to support biases as often as it relates accurate history. We are walking on new ground. The people who plow through records suggest that while it is true that California has experienced this kind of drought in the past, it has not done so for a very long time. This drought comes in the context of our current population, water diversions, water demands, water-quality stressors, and movement in ambient temperature ranges. Whatever the cause of this pattern, there are notable implications for anyone who believes that trout give meaning to their life.
General agreement exists among those who study climate that things are getting warmer, both in terms of the maximum daily high temperature and higher overnight lows. There are more than thirty climate models, and they all predict an increase in the average temperature of between 3 to 7 degrees over the coming 50 years. These warmer days and nights will mean a diminished capacity to maintain whatever snowpack there is in the Sierra, an increase in the evaporation rates of surface water, and drier soils and vegetation, which in turn favors an increase in fire events. Since 1985, the number of large wildfires in the western United States has increased by more than 400 percent. Not surprisingly, these large wildfire events occur more frequently in years with early and warm springs.
Wildfire events release into the atmosphere huge volumes of gases that trap heat like a greenhouse. It is estimated that the Rim Fire, which burned more than two hundred and fifty thousand acres, released greenhouse gases equivalent to those released over the course of a year by 2.3 million automobiles. Thus, the fires contribute to the worsening of the problem that, in part, has likely given rise to them in the first place.
Precipitation patterns in California are also undergoing a change. A look into the future suggests that over the long haul, average precipitation may not change drastically, but there will be a marked difference in the form in which it falls and in its timing. California is dependent upon large storm events. One-third of its precipitation comes from just 5 percent of its storms. It is an absence of these major storms that has accounted for these four years of drought. Predictors say that there will be volatile fluctuations between wet and dry spells. The idea that record wet periods will immediately be followed by severe dry spells could become the new reality. Also, the precipitation that does fall will be more and more in the form of rain, rather than snow. The projections suggest a marked decline in the chances of reaching or exceeding median snow water-level equivalents in the Sierra Nevada.
The April snowpack, traditionally the chief source of California water storage, could be cut in half. What we are seeing in 2015 could be less abnormal in the future than it seems today. The snowpack retains water, collected as falling snow, which then slowly melts through the spring and into the early summer, releasing water gradually into the streams and the groundwater systems that they support. Higher spring temperatures and a more frequent occurrence of rain, rather than snow, speeds up the melting process. Trout are tuned into this schedule and time their spawning and movements to rearing and foraging areas in response to the rise and fall of the waters in which they live.
The effects of these trends will probably not be uniform throughout the Sierra. Changes at Lake Tahoe could be less dramatic than in other parts of the range, because Tahoe sits at the interface between the drier hotter, desert climate zone and the wetter Pacific North Coast zone. For Tahoe, future changes are not expected to rise beyond the range of historical variability. This is not the case as you move farther south in the Sierra, where both higher temperatures and reduced precipitation are expected to exceed those ranges.
Although precipitation amounts could remain in the historical ranges from South Lake Tahoe north, there is expected to be a marked reduction in the springtime snowpack, and later in this century it might be close to nonexistent from South Lake Tahoe to Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta. What snowpack is expected south of Lake Tahoe is anticipated to be reduced by more than 50 percent and to be concentrated at the highest elevations. The view out my front window presages this landscape.
As we have seen in the past two years, there will be increased demands placed on the water available to sustain stream ecosystems. In the Sierra region alone, water demand related to population and development is expected to increase by 25 percent between 2005 and 2060. Population growth in the remainder of the state, coupled with uncertain groundwater resources and increased water-quality stresses, will mean that the competition for every drop of water will be heightened in the future.
All this causes me to wonder about the future of the coldwater fishery and the fishing. Hey, this is all about me — right? I think it will mean that I don’t know what I thought I knew in terms of where, when, and how to fish for trout. As the years go by, I am likely going to have to learn to cope with a host of changed conditions.
What are my favorite streams going to look like? Will more and more rivers suffer the fate of the East Fork of the Walker River, where lowered flows due to downstream uses combine with higher temperatures to make angling not only less productive, but also potentially damaging to the fish and fishery? Several states have established water temperature triggers that, when reached, cause a specific water to be closed to fishing. Lacking this authority, in 2014, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife urged anglers to take special precautions to mitigate the impact of fishing on drought-affected trout. The department asked that people refrain from fishing at all in waters whose temperatures exceeded 70 degrees, meaning a curtailment of afternoon and evening fishing. It recommended that fish be fought and landed as quickly as possible and that they be submerged while being released. And anglers were asked to be alert for signs that released fish were suffering from labored recovery or mortality.
Will my favorite stream remain productive? Insect populations, upon which a lot of the enjoyment in my life is dependent, are not enhanced by warmer water and reduced flows. Reduced water-quality factors such as temperature and dissolved oxygen will squeeze sensitive invertebrate species, potentially reducing both the volume and diversity of trout food. The insects may begin to appear at different times of the year, which might not coincide with my current beliefs about when I should fish. Seasonal pulse flows may well be decreased, leading to increasing problems with silt. Siltation can be expected to increase as a result of more frequent and more severe flood events, as opposed to sustained flows, and from the consequences of wildfire damage. Changes in the timing of flows could have an effect upon riparian vegetation recruitment, which, in turn will affect the stability of stream structure, habitat in support of insect populations, and water-quality indicators such as water temperature.
Will my favorite stream still hold trout? Rising water temperatures could mean that trout in general or specific trout species may no longer be able to tolerate the lower reaches of many of the waters in which they currently live. There has been much talk of the retreat of animals such as the pika to higher altitudes as a result of climate change. The same process would apply to trout. Warmer temperatures and decreased levels of dissolved oxygen would also affect the viability of spawned eggs and the resulting embryos, eliminating self-sustaining populations and turning lower reaches of rivers and streams into planting-supported fisheries, at best.
My fishing calendar may have to be rearranged. I used to write off the early part of the traditional trout season, because I do not particularly like to fish in high-water conditions. I would just work in the yard and bide my time until flows lowered to dry-fly levels toward the end of July. In the future, peak water flows are likely already to have occurred by the end of April. My assumptions about where and when and how to fish are going to have to change, or I will run the risk of experiencing a lot of disappointment. I love to fish in the fall. The clear air (absent smoke from major wildfires), cool nights, and the crispness of the days fill me with anticipation, beginning in each year’s winter. That anticipation, though, is now turning to worry.
What are the overall prospects? An increase in the frequency and size of flood events will have significant effects on water management throughout the state. High-mountain meadow habitat will become increasingly important as a water-storage mechanism at the same time that the meadows are stressed by temperature rises. It is important now to think of these meadows not simply as beautiful places, but as water-storage facilities whose function can be maintained and possibly enhanced. It is not likely that it would be possible to “build” new meadows where they do not exist, because of the complex geological and hydrological factors that sustain them. However, it is possible to be more active in developing an understanding of how these meadows function and the conditions under which they would optimally act as sequestration sinks for carbon and storage sponges for what water does fall during the precipitation season.
The state’s hatchery and trout-management policies certainly are going to change. In 2014, the Department of Fish and Wildlife had to release entire stocks of hatchery trout because the water in the hatcheries had become too warm to sustain the developing fish. The viability of the hatcheries themselves could be affected by increased water temperatures. The hatchery program could require reevaluation in terms of species, release strategies, and schedules.
While this discussion has centered on the effects on streams, lakes and their fish are not immune, either. Receding water levels due to downstream demands or reduced inflows result in shallower lakes, meaning warmer water. This temperature change could reduce the viability of existing cold-water impoundments. In addition, warmer shallow waters favor the development of more robust vegetation and algae, which threatens their suitability for trout. Increased water temperatures, even in high-altitude lakes, also have the potential to reduce or eliminate cold-water layers vital to the trout.
I know that every day is not going to be a perfect September day in the Kern River canyon or the high meadows below Mount Whitney, as I knew them from years gone by. Change is a given. But this change is occurring at a pace that suggests that even at my age, and even with the variable weather that occurs every year, I am not going to be immune to its effects. There will be years when I am going to have to pay attention to what is happening each time I go out, rather than just assuming I know what I will find.
Incremental change is a hard thing to which to respond. A little difference here, a shade of something out of place there, and then, all of a sudden, you ask, “What happened here?” That is a part of the dilemma in all of this. Now, though, the drought has brought the effects of change home in a dramatic way. In times of abundance, you do not have to spend as much time thinking about what is important. Now the question of what is important comes up more frequently.
Is there anything I can do about this? This is literally a global phenomenon, but there are things one person can do. Robert Ketley’s article in the March/April 2015 issue of California Fly Fisher has a concise list of actions each of us can consider and act on if we so choose. These kinds of individual actions can make future prospects less grim. There is a need to address head-on the possibilities foreshadowed by this drought period and to avoid the temptation to kick the can down the road and hope for the best. Policy makers at every level of government are making difficult and long-ranging decisions. It has been said many times that almost everything is on the table and needs to be reexamined. As people who fish, we are on the water a lot, looking at conditions and observing effects, so we see things sooner. We need to call attention to what we find when we are on the water. Decision makers need ideas and resolve. Fly fishers can be a valuable source of both. We cannot avert change, but we can play a part in shaping its course.
