Governor Newsom addressed California’s anglers and concerns about fishing opportunities in his daily video message today beginning at the 22:35 minute mark. Here is the transcript of that section of the address:
“I also want to just want to make a point to others that are anxious on another topic about the delay of the fishing season in the state of California. I may have lost half of you, but if I was watching, I’d start paying attention right now.
I’m passionate about fishing myself. And I am getting inundated by people who are concerned that we’ve canceled the fishing season. That is not the case. We are not canceling the fishing season in the state of California. We just want to delay, not deny that season.
But here’s why and I hope it makes some sense. At least from our perspective it does. I hope I can extend a capacity of understanding at least on the way we are thinking about this. We had two small counties call us up that have some of the greatest fishing in the world. Quite literally in the world, not just the United States. Mono and Inyo county. And they have fishing season coming up and they’re just worried about being overwhelmed by everybody that has a little cabin fever that wants to get out and get on those streams.
There are derbies that are out there, you know, there are people that wait every year at the end of the season for the beginning of the next season. And they felt concerned about the number of people. That is quite rational. And the health care system up there does not have the resources that many other systems do, if indeed people got injured for any reasons, not just coming into contact with others relating to this virus. And we started to reach out to other counties that expressed similar concerns and we realized that we need to process a protocol working with our county health directors and Fish and Game to work on a county-by-county basis to address that anxiety. And that’s what we have proposed to do.
We had a little bit of a problem yesterday (actually this morning), technical problem, because so many people called into the Fish and Game Commission that the system was overwhelmed, and we delayed an official decision on this.
But let me just make this point clear to all the people that love the outdoors, that love trout fishing, and fishing more broadly in the state of California. We hear you. We deeply care about addressing your anxiety and just know we are not ending the season. We just want to delay it a little bit and work with the counties to address the surge of interest and the need to keep everybody protected and everybody safe in this circumstance.
Forgive me. It may have been a deviation talking about fishing at a time with a health crisis, but it’s important. As all of us are trying to find some semblance of normalcy at a time of deep, deep anxiety.”
For more information about today’s California Fish and Game Commission teleconference meeting that descended into chaos, read: fishsniffer.com/...
