Carmel River Sport Fishing

Rainbow Trout Caught May 1, 1933

Carmel River and tributaries above Los Padres Dam:     Last Saturday in Apr. through Nov. 15. No rainbow trout less than 10 inches or greater than 16 inches total length may be kept. Only artificial lures with barbless hooks may be used.     5 trout, no more than 2 of which may be rainbow trout allowed.

Carmel River below Los Padres Dam:
(A) Carmel River tributaries below Los Padres Dam and main stem from Los Padres Dam to the bridge at Robles Del Rio/Esquiline roads (Rosie’s Bridge).     Closed to all fishing all year.
(B) Carmel River main stem below the bridge at Robles Del Rio/Esquiline roads (Rosie’s Bridge). Dec. 1 through Mar. 7, but only on Sat., Sun., Wed., legal holidays and opening and closing days. Only artificial lures with barbless hooks may be used.  2 hatchery trout or hatchery steelhead allowed in possession  

Text From: 2013-2014 Freshwater Sport Fishing Regulations
Photo from: http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/imageserver.x/00000000/ebayseller33/B0577.JPG

Carmel Bay State Marine Conservation Area

Carmel Bay

Carmel Bay State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) is a marine protected area in Carmel Bay established in September 2007. The  area covers 2.12 square miles. This designation allows some recreational and/or commercial take of marine resource.

MARINE LIFE PROTECTION ACT of 2004
(c) Coastal development, water pollution,and other human activities threaten the health of marine habitat and the biological diversity found in California's ocean waters. New technologies and demands have encouraged the expansion of fishing and other activities to formerly inaccessible marine areas that once recharged nearby fisheries. As a result, ecosystems throughout the state's ocean waters are being altered, often at a rapid rate.
(g) Despite the demonstrated value of marine life reserves, only 14 of the 220,000 square miles of combined state and federal ocean water off California, or six-thousandths of 1 percent, are set aside as genuine no take areas.
Carmel Bay State Marine Conservation Area
MARINE LIFE PROTECTION ACT of 2004

Veeder Pond: Carmel Valley Vernal Pool

Veeder Pond in Garland Park

Vernal pools are seasonally flooded depressions found on ancient soils with an impermeable layer such as a hardpan, claypan, or volcanic basalt. The impermeable layer allows the pools to retain water much longer then the surrounding uplands; nonetheless, the pools are shallow enough to dry up each season. Vernal pools often fill and empty several times during the rainy season.
As winter rains fill the pools, freshwater invertebrates, crustaceans, and amphibians emerge.

From: California Wetlands Information System
Picture from the NatureID Blog

Anaxyrus californicus

The Arroyo Toad, Anaxyrus californicus prefers sandy or cobbly washes with swift currents and associated upland and riparian habitats.
Status: Endangered as of  16-Dec-1994.
Photo by: Andrew Borcher 

The Green, Surging Arroyo Seco River

Arroyo Seco River Swimming Hole

200 feet above the green, surging Arroyo Seco River, the mountainside reveals a striking juxtaposition of fire-swept death and spring’s wild resurgence.

Starting from the gorge parking area above the campground, the river winds narrowly for about 10 miles. Hiking upriver is the purest way to fully immerse oneself in the Arroyo Seco’s cool waters, but the Indians Road also offers easy access to several killer swimming spots.

The best swimming hole – though by no means the most secret – is about a 45-minute hike from the parking lot. The trailhead is uphill from the first creek crossing next to two trashcans. A steep walk through scorched chaparral lands you on a small beach where a deep and wide channel surrounded by smooth granite offers the perfect reprieve from the dry south county air.

From: Monterey County Weekly

The Padron [mounted horseman]

The clearest and most significant expression of Spanish fears of French interference appears in a 1751 series of memoirs by Don Fernando Sanchez Salvador, a captain of the Sonora and Sinaloa cavalry. Sanchez Salvador argued that France was eagerly seeking the Pacific. He warned that, in their exploration of the mountains around New Mexico, French scouts might find and descend the Colorado River.  He contended that the river divided into two branches, one called the Carmelo River which he believed emptied into the Pacific Ocean on the coast of upper California.

From: The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire: 1713 - 1763 By Paul W. Mapp 2011

Oil painting by JamesWalker: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/tf3q2nb43s/?layout=metadata&brand=calisphere

Toxicodendron diversilobum

Poison Oak

Western poison oak occurs only on the Pacific Coast of North America, where it is common. The plant toxin produced by members of the genus Toxicodendron, called urushiol, is known for causing an uncomfortable, and sometimes painful, skin reaction. The active components of urushiol have been determined by Billets (1975) to be unsaturated congeners of 3-heptadecylcatechol with up to three double bonds in an unbranched C17 side chain. "Leaves of three, leave them be. Leaves of four, eat some more."

Text from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicodendron_diversilobum
Picture from: http://bapd.org/hamilton-gulch-long-sequence.html

Ohlone Dancers, 1815

Danse des Californiens [at San Francisco, from a drawing ca. 1815].
From: The Bancroft Library

Experience Carmel River on the the South Bank Trail

The Big Sur Land Trust announced the opening of the South Bank Trail, a 1.5 mile long pedestrian and bicycle path located on the south side of the Carmel River.

The South Bank Trail begins at the intersection of Rancho San Carlos Road and Valley Greens Drive in Carmel Valley. The trail starts on an existing paved private farm road and heads west, meandering off road onto a path that includes a beautiful view of the Carmel River, native vegetation, and a gentle grade that makes for an easy walk or bike ride. The trail gently climbs onto pasture land where it eventually meets the boundary of Palo Corona Regional Park.

While no permit is required to use the South Bank Trail, a use permit is required to pass through the trail’s west gate into Palo Corona Regional Park.

http://www.bigsurlandtrust.org/media/pdf/bslt-carmel-river-project-sept-7-2010.pdf

Steelhead migrate up the Carmel River

Mature Steelhead enter the river from the ocean at the rivers' "Mouth" otherwise known as Carmel River Lagoon. In late November through May, depending on winter storms, small schools move steadily against the flows upriver. The adult Steelhead that migrate up the Carmel River to reach Finch Creek must first jump over "Old Carmel Dam" about 18 miles up the river from the ocean, then pass over "San Clemente Dam" via a rickety old narrow fish ladder until they come to the spot where Cachagua Creek meets the main Carmel River. That "confluence" as it is called is about 5 miles above San Clemente Dam and just below Los Padres Dam by the village called Cachagua.

Text from: http://www.carmelriversteelheadassociation.org/
Photo from: Michael Carl's photostream

The Los Padres Dam’s future is uncertain

The Los Padres Dam, Carmel River

Six miles upstream of the San Clemente Dam... the Los Padres Dam creates a reservoir pretty enough for a painting, but one that’s a prison for steelhead fish whose hearts beat for the sea.
 South Central California steelhead are what biologists call a “distinct population segment,” with unique DNA among the planet’s steelhead. 


The Los Padres is an earthen dam with few hard parts. Rather than tumbling 100 feet, the water slips unassumingly over the dam’s lip and down a concrete spillway, then falls back into the river. 

The Los Padres Dam’s future is uncertain. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wants it to come down, while the state Department of Fish & Game and MPWMD unofficially support dredging it and leaving it up. 


http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/2012/may/31/river-tamed/

Carmel River Being Sucked Dry

The river’s most serious and expensive challenge, though, is that it’s being sucked dry to supply the Peninsula. With 12,000 acre-feet per year diverted for human use – more than three times the legal limit – many of the river’s tributaries wither in the summer, stranding steelhead and parching a lower watershed that depends on it.

 The San Clemente Dam, built in 1921, is a 106-foot-high, reinforced concrete arch bolted into bedrock on both sides, a powerful and imposing structure with an art deco grace, originally holding 1,425 acre-feet of water at the confluence of the Carmel River and San Clemente Creek, in the steep, pine-encrusted ravines southeast of Carmel Valley Village. 
 The San Clemente is now so silted in it holds less than 60 acre-feet of water; the state declared it obsolete in 2003.

Twenty years after the state water board’s order to do something about the dam, its removal is finally poised to happen. The California Coastal Conservancy, which is leading the planning and design, expects road work to begin in late summer. Construction on the river reroute should start in spring 2013

http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/2012/may/31/river-tamed/

California Condor

The California Condor is the largest land bird in North America. An adult can weigh as much as 31 pounds, stand as tall as 4.5-feet, and have a wingspan up to 10 feet. Thousands of these great birds once called California home. The population all-time low was 22 birds in 1982.

Photo From: http://www.levalleyphoto.com/gallery/omw.php
Text From: http://www.ventanaws.org/index.htm