Redwood Reader

 Before Derrek Aneuby's little plastic boat is in the slack water of the Eel River, the pikeminnow can be seen thick above the gravel bottom.
Hundreds of 3- to 4-inch pikeminnows flash about in the shallows across the river from sandstone bluffs and the rusting rails of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad.
"When they shine their bellies, that means they're squaws," the 18-year-old says.
Squawfish, often called pikeminnow these days. A Sacramento River native, the voracious predator of salmon and other river critters is one of the biggest problems facing the beaten-down Eel River.
Aneuby has registered in a derby meant to haul out as many pikeminnow as possible this summer. He's one of the leaders in his age class, and as of Friday he was probably the guy who'd turned in the most in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, where Friends of the Eel River and the Round Valley Indian Tribes have placed a bounty on pikeminnow for the fifth year.
Using a slight aluminum paddle, Aneuby pushes the boat across the river, over algae-covered rocks crisscrossed with the shadows of pikeminnow. In the holes Aneuby has been fishing for years, are the big pikeminnow, 14, maybe 16, inches long.
He threads a fake worm on a hook, and casts. Within seconds, the bite is on.
Pikeminnow get a lot bigger. They can reach 30 inches long; up to 7 or 8 pounds. These giant salmon eaters tend to congregate in the deepest holes of the river.
The California Department of Fish and Game has tried blasting them with dynamite cord, netting them and spearing them.
Trouble is, the fish is canny about danger. Or rather, it is adapted to avoid it. When big fish are stressed by a hook in the lip or from being herded into a net, they secrete a pheromone that scatters the others.
Longtime Fish and Game biologist Scott Downey remembers trying to net a bunch of big ones in a hole in the Eel. The first haul was good, the second one markedly decreased. That was the end of it. He couldn't catch any more.
This quality of the fish is apparent. The bite for Aneuby is hot, then stops. He drifts upstream with the wind, gets into another batch, and the bite turns off again.
Victim of its success
The pikeminnow is a member of the Cyprinid family, one of the world's most successful fish families. Reeking havoc when they aren't native to a watershed, a pikeminnow species in the Colorado River is endangered, and affects management of the dams on the river.
"When we found out they were in Lake Pillsbury," Downey said, "I was physically sick for a while."
It was in the early 1980s that Fish and Game learned pikeminnow was there. No one is certain how they got into the reservoir on the Eel, but some suspect a fisherman may have been using them for bait.
Pikeminnow eat insects like pincher bugs until they are about 4 to 5 inches long, about the maximum length of its twin at that age, the California roach. After that, Downey said, they switch to meat.
Adult lamprey, mice and frogs have been found in their bellies. One Downey saw speared had a 10-inch steelhead in its gullet. The big females leave the generally preferred slow-water spots to stalk salmon and steelhead in faster moving riffles and runs.
The unwieldy pikeminnow problem was a hot debate during the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's hearing on relicensing the Potter Valley Project. The Pacific Gas and Electric project produces only a smidgen of electricity, but it diverts billions of gallons to the Russian River each year, where many grape growers, towns and businesses of Sonoma, Mendocino and Marin counties find their water.
The project, along with floods, overfishing and land use problems -- and now the pikeminnow -- have decimated the once-famed salmon runs of the Eel River.
Two fisheries agencies squared off. The National Marine Fisheries Service insisted a cut in the diversions would be better for salmon, who need more habitat. Fish and Game, however, argued that more water would just mean more pikeminnow.
Earlier this year, FERC cut the diversion by 15 percent and ordered PG&E to spend $60,000 a year to suppress the pikeminnow.
Many salmon advocates have argued that's not nearly enough. But what is enough?
"There's no fantasy out there anymore of getting rid of them," Downey said.
Still, he and others think that by rounding up the big pikeminnow every year, they are preventing thousands of steelhead and from being eaten. Downey acknowledges that might not be easy to prove.
He also said that since pikeminnow don't seem to like to swim up tributaries where steelhead and coho salmon spawn, opportunities to improve habitat in those areas should be taken.
Save a salmon -- kill a pikeminnow
Ten salmon saved per day for every pikeminnow taken. That's the idea behind the pikeminnow derby.
"For every one that you get, you're making a dent," said Friends of the Eel River's Susan Thorington.
The group and the tribe are not only giving out prizes for the first, most, largest and smallest fish, but also for the location of pikeminnow hangouts.
With that kind of intelligence, Fish and Game can ambush pikeminnow in the low flows of fall and use nets to get the big numbers. (No, the biologists won't be eligible. The derby ends on Sept. 3.)
Aneuby, he just likes fishing. He didn't know there was a $100 cash prize for the most fish until he was told, but he suspects he's got a good chance at winning it. Last week, on the first day he was registered, he brought 61 fish into Grundman's Sporting Goods.
Despite spending a summer Tom Sawyer-like hauling in pikeminnow, Aneuby hopes the salmon and steelhead might someday rebound. The trend appears the opposite, he said. When he began fishing as a kid, the pikeminnow were there, but not like now.
"You could tell they were here," he said, "but they weren't swarming. I mean, 60 fish? Gimme a break."
While it's hard to know how big a difference dedicated squawfishermen like Aneuby are making, his operation could see a boost. The $20 boat he uses might just end up with a trolling motor if he can win the derby.
He caught 20 in about an hour Friday. What if he can get to other holes on the river?
It might be overfishing that works.