Our Spring Newsletter has been delivered to mailboxes and is posted online. If you have not received a hard copy but would like one – send an email to admin@hetchhetchy.org. Read about the follow up with elected officials to our Cherry Report, our early May trip to Hetch Hetchy, and our work with the National Park Service to improve access at Hetch Hetchy.
A bit more about fishing at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. We’d heard rumors that access at Hetch Hetchy for fishing would likely be allowed before we wrote the newsletter, but we did not know when it might happen (the government can take a while to make changes). As we have noted, fishing itself was never explicitly prohibited – rather going below the high water mark of the reservoir was prohibited. So it was not possible to fish in any practical sense for most of the year.
The San Francisco Chronicle published a provocatively titled article about these new rules for fishing in Yosemite: Yosemite National Park’s permissive new fishing policies spark controversy. The article is really two stories. The first story is about the possibility that year round access will lead to overfishing. The second story, which includes some nice quotes from our friend David Gregory of Yosemite Outfitters, involves allowing access to Hetch Hetchy Reservoir for the first time.
We hope park visitors can now climb over the rocks to reservoir’s edge and catch some nice trout. The real fishing, however, will not take place in the reservoir but rather in the Tuolumne River when the reservoir is relocated and the valley is restored.
Also, if you support restoring Hetch Hetchy to its natural splendor, please do not forget to sign our petition. We plan to share a long list of signatures with our elected officials!
