danbacher Jon Walton, long time conservationist and owner of Walton’s Pond in San Leandro, relaxes after he and sixty volunteers finished the first phase of a fish habitat project at Rainbow Lake in the Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation Area in California on January 8. Photo by Dan Bacher.
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Fishermen, scouts recycle Christmas trees for fish habitat
by Dan Bacher
On January 8, the fish and anglers at Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation Area, located on the border of Fremont and Union City, received a late Christmas present.
As a couple dozen anglers tried their luck for rainbow trout on Horseshoe Lake, over 60 people converged on Rainbow Lake to install 900 Christmas trees as fish habitat in the adjacent Rainbow Lake. The group included volunteers from the Black Bass Action Committee (BBAC) and local Boy Scout and Girl Scout Troops, along with staff from the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD).
The group finished tying the trees to chains before 11:00 am and then went to a barbecue lunch organized by Carter Fickes of BBAC.
“When you talk about a habitat project, most people assume that you’re building bass hotels, habitats for predators to hide,” said Jon Walton of Walton’s Pond, who came up with the idea for the project 21 years ago. “However it’s more complicated and more interesting than that.”
Walton said the intent of the project is to build the “food chain from the bottom up.”
“When you put the Christmas trees in, first the microorganisms, both zooplankton and phytoplankton, arrive,” he noted. “Then the small invertebrates come to feed on the plankton.”
“They are followed by small fish and crawfish, which are in turn followed by the predator fish that feed upon them. The intent is build the ecosystem up from the lowest plankton to the Apex predator,” Walton continued.
The Christmas trees create rearing habitat for small fish, as well as an ambush site for large fish. “The results of the habitat projects are not instantaneous – they take 2 to 5 years to develop,” said Walton.
He said that the installation of the Christmas trees has paid off with healthier ecosystem and an improvement in the warm water fisheries at East Bay reservoirs. The habitat project, originally started at Lake Del Valle, has expanded to Lake Chabot and Quarry Lakes in recent years.
Over the past 21 years, volunteers have worked on 6 projects on Quarry, 12 habitat projects on Del Valle, and 5 on Chabot. The project started in 1990 to improve declining bass and sunfish populations, the results of a diminishing food chain, at Del Valle.
Mike Riehl of the BBAC emphasized that project utilizes unsold Christmas trees donated from lots in the East Bay that are recycled to boost local fish populations while engaging volunteers from the community.
“The Scouts get credit for their merit badges, the students receive credit for public service and the Christmas tree operations are able to recycle their trees while getting tax exemptions for the unsold,” said Riehl. “And the fish are helped immensely by this project.”
Pete Alexander, the park district’s fisheries program director, said the project has improved the largemouth and smallmouth bass fishery at the two lakes in the recreation area.
“Last year we put 1,000 Christmas trees in Horseshoe, so this year we decided to improve the habitat at Rainbow,” he stated. “Today we just put the trees on the shore – later in the season we will drag them into the lake and sink them. This project is working out well.”
The recreation area is a classic example of what can happen when government agencies do something right. The area that includes two fishing lakes, Rainbow and Horseshoe, was a culmination of many years of planning and partnership between the Alameda County Water District and EBRPD.
The first phase of park construction began in 1997, when the water district used grading equipment to flatten the slopes of the quarry pit to make the area more user-friendly. Then in August of 2000 the park district began creating the recreational facilities, including turfgrass lawns, picnic areas, shade pavilions, a swim beach, a boat launch ramp, the handicapped accessible fishing pier, and a trail network.
However, in flattening the slopes, the park district had to eliminate much of the existing habitat of the willow-line, steep sided quarry pits. The habitat projects, along with the planting of a variety of trees and shrubs along the shoreline, provide needed habitat for an array of fish.
Quarry Lakes first opened to fishing in December 2001. My cousin, Tom Mulderrig, and I were among the first anglers to fish Horseshoe. I fondly remember nailing my limit of chunky rainbows in 20 minutes and then showing them to Pete Alexander as he walked the shoreline that morning.
“Is that the first limit you’ve seen?” I asked Alexander. “Yes, it is,” he replied.
The lakes produced a half dozen smallmouth bass and between 20 to 25 fish over 6 pounds during the first year they were was open. However, most of these fish were taken home and eaten; Walton advises anglers to release their big bass to preserve this unique urban fishery.
Horseshoe Lake offers a year round trout fishery, since the rainbows are able to thrive in the lake’ deep waters during the summer. The park district and DFG together stock approximately 41,000 pounds of rainbow trout in the lake annually. During the summer, the district also plants channel catfish in Horseshoe.
One angler who frequently fishes the lake is Fred Mahakian, also known as “Fisherman Fred.” Sure enough, “Fishermen Fred’ was there the day of this year’s habitat project. He had already four rainbow trout to 3 pounds when I saw him fishing off the Peninsula with white Power Egg/Worm combos and had caught an 8.1 lb. rainbow the week before. “The fish lately have been biting early, right after 6 a.m. when I get here,” he advised.
At Quarry Lakes, you never know when that next bite may be from a trophy rainbow. Mike Cassell of San Jose landed the lake record 20 lb. rainbow while tossing out a Kastmaster from shore in December 2009.
Other fish found in the lake include bluegill, carp, tule perch, Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento sucker, Sacramento pike-minnow and Sacramento hitch.
For more information about the habitat project, call Pete Alexander, EBRPD, 510-482-6030, Mike Riehl, BBAC, 925-443-8811 or Jon Walton , Walton’s Pond, (510) 352-3932. For general information, contact: Quarry Lakes Regional Park, 2100 Isherwood Way, Fremont, CA. 94536, (510) 795-4883.
