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Big catch at Pine Flat
Keith Brockman, co-owner of the Pine Flat Lake Marina, caught a 14-pound, 4-ounce largemouth bass Monday that is believed to be a lake record.
Brockman and his brother, Carl, were fishing in front of Deer Creek near the marina when they spotted the large bass in clear, shallow water. It took about 30 minutes for the fish to strike the jigging spoon lure.
The 28-inch-long female fish was weighed at nearby Doyal's Store and will be displayed at the marina market.
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Trout stocking stuffers
Fresno-area anglers are getting an early Christmas present this year, gift wrapped by the Department of Fish and Game.
Starting Friday, rainbow trout weighing between 4 and 8 pounds apiece will be stocked in the Kings River at several locations below Pine Flat Dam. The river will be stocked for a second time Dec. 26 and every other week through the end of March until 10,000 pounds are planted.
Each stocking will consist of between 200 and 250 trophy-sized trout. The Coleman-strain rainbows, which originate in Northern California, have spent 3 years at the hatchery fattening up on a high-protein diet designed for maximum growth.
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Federal court hears face-off over fish
Environmentalists on Wednesday again clashed with the federal government and state water contractors over how native fish species fit into the state's two major water projects.
This time, it was about salmon and steelhead instead of delta smelt.
U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger made no decision following a daylong federal court hearing, but agricultural groups and water contractors are waiting nervously.
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New antenas help biologists study salmon
Biologists studying salmon in the Pacific Northwest have for decades lost track of the fish just as they set out on life's last leg, that final upstream lunge to spawn and die in the remote, backcountry streams and creeks in Oregon, Washington and central Idaho.
In many ways, an inability to track the fish has taught them even less about the first year of life, forcing researchers to make assumptions about salmon behavior and the influence habitat restoration and other expensive recovery programs are having on the threatened and endangered species.
That is changing, as crews have installed giant antennas in nearly two dozen rivers and streams across the region to track fish - at least those implanted with a microchip the size of a rice kernal - when they swim by. Researchers hope to learn more, much more, about the species they are desperately trying to preserve.
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Fishing report: Week of Oct. 7
Compiled by Dave Hurley and edited by Roger George, a central San Joaquin Valley native and local fishing expert.
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