Chicks Who Fish

On Sunday, 188,000 people were evacuated from the towns surrounding California’s Oroville Dam, after the discovery of a hole in the main spillway raised fears of flash floods and large-scale deluge. How dangerous is the situation? What’s being done to fix it? How long are the evacuation going to last? These are just a few of the questions we’re looking to answer.

Where is the Oroville Dam?

The official Lake Oroville website (lakeoroville.net) informs us that the Oroville Dam was built between 1962 and 1967, standing tall at 770 feet, the tallest dam in the United States. It is situated about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The main purpose of the dam is to supply water, generate electricity and provide flood control, by keeping in check Lake Oroville, one of the biggest lakes in the state of California.

What’s happening at the Oroville Dam?

After heavy rain this winter- Lake Oroville water levels have risen considerably, threatening to overflow the dam, which has led to water being evacuated through the main spillway.

The dam has two spillways to release water in case of overflow, but both spillways seem to have problems. Last week, a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole was discovered in the main, concrete-lined spillway. The hole is believed to have appeared because of erosion and negligence, and, because of its dimensions it cannot be fixed quickly. (more…)

Have you ever been to Alaska in the summer? Chances are you haven’t. I imagine many people haven’t had the privilege and opportunity to see the last frontier in the summer. It is something else to say the least. What a beautiful place. Picture a place with 20 hours of light in the summer. You read that right, 20 hours of light in a single day. Being in Alaska is nothing like the wintertime there. Summer in Alaska will be quite different, nothing like the frigid temperatures and severe snowstorms.

If you have ever had any ambition to travel to Alaska, the best time is during the summertime when it’s best suited for people to be outside. With the crazy weather, and lonely dark nights; Alaska in the summer time is perfect for anyone regardless of what you are trying to do outdoors. In my case, I had the opportunity to fish off the Alaskan coast. It was an amazing experience. For any aspiring fisher out there, definitely spending the time to see the last American frontier will be a great thing.

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Once we got back to the main camp we gathered some more tools and brought them back to the rest of my group’s volunteer area. Once we unpacked the tools, I was asked to climb a ladder and trim the trees from up top. I did that for about half an hour, while the rest of my time I continued to mulch, which was my favorite activity. During my last hour was where I did a lot of communicating with this man from Japan. He was a very young looking 25 year old who said he moved to United States just a few months ago. He said he was here to be a minister in a local Church. He said it was his first time in the Land Park cleanup, but said it would not be his last because volunteering is one of his passions. I got to know a lot about him and he seemed like a very good person and I learned a lot from him.

Once it was 12 o’clock, we all walked back to the beginning station together. Once we arrived we were treated to complimentary sandwiches from the Sandwich Spot. I had a turkey avocado sandwich with chips and a soda. I hung around for about another half hour talking with some fellow volunteers at a table while we shared a meal together.I had a very enjoyable time volunteering and I really think I would like to do it again over summer. It made me feel really good about myself and I got to have a lot of thinking time to myself, which is something I do not get too often. I am happy we this was a part of our classwork and it pushed me to meet some new people and figure out some things in my life that I can do to be happy. I’d be struggling with my happiness lately and giving back and being proactive with my life made me start to feel a little better again.

My other two thirds had just gotten an internship in the Sacramento County area, so I figured I would make myself useful and while I was there with them, I wanted to continue to work on my major, Environmental Science. I had taken up a class at Sacramento State, and one of the assignments was to do a service project to help the community. Knowing my passion for fishing, I wanted to do something to help keep the waterways clean. The Sacramento River leads to the Bay Area, and I wanted to make sure there would be less trash entering that river as best I could. For my Volunteer Project for my Environmental Science class, I decided to participate in the weekly Land Park Cleanup, taking place in William Land Park. On certain Saturdays at 9am, community members of Land Park volunteer their time to help “tidy up” William Land Park for 3 hours, or however much time each person can volunteer. For the kindheartedness of the volunteers, the hosts of the event provide a breakfast in the morning, then sandwiches in the afternoon to the volunteers.

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When is it not fishing season in the bay area? In California, many of the streams and rivers that lead away from far inland and close by reservoirs, as well as over flooded areas, just about all the ones in Northern California make their way to the bay area. All around the bay, and on the way to it, there is basically an unlimited amount of spots you can go to fish. It all depends on if you are looking for peace, if you are looking for a certain species of fish to catch, where you want to be fishing from, and what kind of gear or boat you have to fish from. This all plays a factor in where you can fish, but let me tell you, for a good fishing time, you will always have that fishing around the bay area.

Of many of the random kinds of fish to catch all around here, it’s still somewhat seasonal and the fish will vary depending on what you are looking for. I have had a lot of luck catching sturgeon, trout, freshwater bass, halibut, striped bass, albacore, and salmon, usually in that order for my seasons.

Some of the best spots in the winter months for catching sturgeon are right in Suisun Bay. My favorite spot is near Browns Island right above Pittsburg, CA. I have a friend who lives a little southwest of Pittsburg in Walnut Creek, CA. When she’s not working on her company, walnutcreekplumberpros.com, we are on her boat cruising around the East Bay catching sturgeon in the winter. As it gets into the late winter, we start moving a little bit more east towards Discovery Bay. It’s really isolated out there, and there is still a sufficient supply of sturgeon that make it worth out while, but the best part of it, is the peace, and the sounds of nothing that I truly love.

As Spring starts to show its warmth, we move towards the Sloughs, Montezuma Sloughs that is, and that’s when all the fish are biting. We catch trout, freshwater bass, and of course, we are still catching those sturgeon.  (more…)

When I am having a long and tiring day, and I know I have a free day coming up soon, I will plan accordingly. Sometimes I will take my two partners out into the real world and we will enjoy what the environment has to offer us all together. Other days, if the day was tiring because of them, or if I’m looking for some alone time, I will almost always choose to fish first.

Growing up, my dad and I did a lot of fishing together in back creeks and random ponds. Only rarely would we go visit vast lakes, rivers, and the occasional ocean trip to curb our fishing addiction. Nowadays, when I decide that I want to go fish, I will take a short little drive, and take a little boat my dad boat me, and cruise out into the ocean to see what is biting. Only rarely will I catch a larger fish than I expect, but the purpose for me fishing is an activity that provides me solitude and an escape from the trials of everyday life. Sometimes, a girl needs to think by herself for a while without external people or sounds affecting the flow of thoughts. I find living with two other people does not necessarily give you a lot of alone time, and sometimes I have to seek that out myself, which can sometimes be a struggle since both of my lovers are loving and affectionate people, but they understand I need space sometimes.

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After our initial alcohol infused outing was performed, many, many times in that one night, we woke up the following morning all sleeping in the same bed together. Often I will hear people say that after one of these sexual experiences that happen due to the presence of alcohol, the people will wake in the morning with a sense of awkwardness between them. Surprisingly, after we awoke in the afternoon together, there was a sense of unification between us. During that first year at UC Irvine, we had already become close friends with eachother, and shared the same passions. After that crazy night, our bond grew, and we were able to talk about our feelings completely openly with one another. Not a single one of us felt a feeling of regret, in fact, we all seemed to be delighted with what had happened, and Emma even said that it felt right.

Normal society does not really hold gay relationships highly, and certainly, three way relationships are something completely out of the ordinary. After this night, Emma started to hang out with Brett and I much more often. We all lived in the same building, and it got to the point where after about a month of a fling, Brett and I talked, and we asked Emma if she wanted to move in. Now, at this point, we had not had our sexual fling again since the night of craziness, but as the nights came dim, there was always tension between us. I think me being somewhat reserved in sexual communication, and Brett’s seeming commitment to me, and Emma being an outsider in the relationship, nobody wanted to cross any boundaries again. But the night Emma moved in, our sex life came together again, and regularly every night, we were having threesomes.  (more…)

I’ve always been a girl who likes to spend her time outside. My childhood consisted of growing up in the 90’s and early 2000’s, at the point when many of the people around me started tuning into the technology, and away from what the earth had to offer. My parents were the same in my early childhood. They got a computer and were oooing and awwing over the internet and such and wasting a lot of their precious time on fictitious entertainment that in no way was improving their lives. Before this age, and before they had me, both of them were outdoor personalities, spending much of their lives hiking, taking trips, fishing, and enjoying what the earth truly had to offer.

When my parents had me, they said even as a baby, I wanted to break out of the house and go play outside. As i started walking, it was me who forced my parents to humor me. Since I was an only child, I had no other brothers or sisters to spend my energy with, and my parents began acting as my brother and sister. They would play with me outside and we would spend our afternoons playing games like tag, hide and go seek, and other fun little games day in and day out. At this time, we were a middle income family, but my pops was on the rise in his money-making ventures. (more…)

My favorite place to go hang out for an extended period of time is definitely Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is situated about 6000 feet in Elevation near the Sierra mountains, and sits right on the border of California, and Nevada, two states in the United States of America. Growing up in the Northern California area, Tahoe was always one of the best places to go visit during the hot summer days as well as the cold winter seasons. In Lake Tahoe, there is always something to do no matter what day of the year it is.

During the summer seasons, my mother, father, and I would take out the family boat to the lake, and go fishing off of the edge. Granted, I was an outgoing little youngster, so I would probably scare a lot of the fishies away just by jumping off of the boat and into the way time and time again as well as swimming around kicking my feet, no doubt causing disturbances in the water that the fish could easily avoid if they wanted to. But, fish aren’t the smartest creatures, and my dad was an excellent fisherman, and would regularly catch a couple fish each time we took the trip out onto the boat.

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