CDFW presents Rough Creek restoration plan, urges more angler data for regional fisheries management

Nick Buckmaster, senior fisheries biologist based in Bishop, told the Board the region's fisheries program has three pillars — hatchery stocking, wild trout management and rare/endangered fish work — and emphasized limitations created by decades‑long data gaps. He said recent creel surveys at Crowley Lake allow the department to estimate catches and stocking efficiency for the first time in decades, and described pilot work to mark hatchery trout to track which stocking trucks produce the most sustained angler catch…