Casa Anglers release trout into SF Bay

By JOHN JACKSON

ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

Students in the United Anglers program at Casa Grande High School continued their hands-on learning experience last week, helping release steelhead trout into the San Francisco Bay, trout that had been held in floating nets in the bay since May.

Although there is a hatchery at the school, the fish released last week were raised as part of the Department of Fish and Game program at the Romberg Center in Tiburon. They were hatched at the Feather River Hatchery and placed in holding nets at the Romberg Center to acclimate them to the salt water.

The Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies is San Francisco State University's marine and estuarine research facility. It's a place where scientists and students work together on education and research programs.

"It went really well," said Untied Anglers teacher and advisor Dan Hubacher. "The Department of Fish and Wildlife did a good job, and we had a lot of young students and their parents involved.

"It is amazing how big the fish are getting. They were only 3- or 4-inches long when they went into the pin (net) and now they are around 8-inches long."

Once the fish were released from the nets into the bay, the nets were pulled on shore so the students could pick all of the crabs and other sea life out of nets before returning them to the water. The Casa Grande students were helped in this chore by students from nearby elementary schools, who got their own first-hand and hands-on education on sea life.

"We had kids of all different ages helping," Hubacher noted. "All the kids helped take the animals out of the net. It also gave us a chance to discuss man's part in creating habitat, and how it affects wildlife."

The Casa Grande students temporarily delayed raising their own steelhead this year while they continued a habitat-typing project in the Petaluma watershed. The students, working with representatives from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, are surveying the entire Petaluma River watershed. The program is designed to determine what type of habitat exists in each of the watershed's creeks, the extent of each stream's fish-carrying capacity and other environmental factors. The project is extremely detailed, and involves extensive field work as students meticulously record the environmental characteristics of each section of each creek. This year, the Casa students completed the habitat typing of Adobe Creek.

Meanwhile, they have been working hard preparing for their one big fundraising effort of the year, the annual pasta feed coming up Saturday in the Community Center at Lucchesi Park. Dinner will be at 5:30 p.m. with other events, including a silent auction and raffle, beginning around 7:30 p.m.

The big event features not only the dinner, auction and raffle, but also a slideshow presentation of the Anglers' history and activities. Two annual special features - the wine room and cake auction - ?are also included in this year's lineup. At the cake auction, bidders will battle for cakes baked by the Anglers and staff members.

Dinner tickets are $10 per plate and will be available at the door on the night of the event.

(Contact John Jackson at johnie.jackson@arguscourier.com).