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California Camp Meat Act?
Question: I wonder if you could settle the subject of a discussion.
Recently, I mentioned in camp that it was legal in California to kill “camp meat” under certain prescribed rules. For instance, if there were 10 men in camp for 11 days or more (perhaps 11 men, 10 days), then they could kill any one deer for “camp meat.”
Such meat must be prepared and consumed in camp and no meat could be removed from the camp’s vicinity. All of my friends flatly stated no such law existed, or ever had.
I am almost certain that such a law was in effect up until at least the 1970s, dating back to the late 1800s.
Could you tell me the current standing of said act, correct wording, whether or not it is still in effect, or when rescinded, if it ever was? (Tom W., SoCal)
Answer: We checked Fish and Game Code books from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and they all require a tag when taking deer in California. We couldn’t find any reference to “camp meat” or the ability to kill deer strictly for camp meat purposes. In California, at least, we believe this law never existed.
Lobster limits with a multi-day permit?
Question: What’s the total number of lobsters a recreational fisherman is allowed to possess?
A friend contends that with a three-day multi-day permit purchased from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) that the limit is 21 lobsters (three days times seven lobsters).
My understanding from reading the regs is that it is never to exceed seven legal-sized lobsters. If so, why do they sell a multi-day permit? (Bill P.)
Answer: Multi-day permits may be issued to fishermen who will be away from the mainland continuously for three or more consecutive days, including a minimum period of 12 hours or more at sea on the first and last days of the trip (California Code of Regulations Title 14, section 27.15).
In addition, the permit prohibits berthing or docking within five miles of the mainland shore. The usual lobster bag limit is seven lobsters per person unless the person has secured a multi-day permit prior to their trip. Daily bag limits always apply for these trips.
With this permit, if the person is away from the mainland at sea for at least three days, they can take and keep up to three days of lobster bag limits (3 x 7 = 21) like your friend said.
The person may then retain those 21 lobsters in their possession but should keep the approved permit with those lobsters until at least two of the bag limits (14) are consumed or gifted.
Why fish Dungeness crabs at 200 feet?
Question: Why in Monterey Bay must we set pots at 200 feet or deeper to catch crab? (Rick B.)
Answer: There are no regulations requiring you to fish your pots at a certain depth, you’ll just need to figure out what that best depth is. Adult, legal-size Dungeness crabs are often found in deeper water.
You should check with other crabbers to see what depths they are finding success in. It changes all the time. I just spoke to a commercial crabber this weekend and he’s fishing his traps from 150 to 500 feet.
Live marine rocks for home aquarium?
Question: Is it legal to take any marine life or rocks from the California coastline for use in an in-home aquarium? (James H.)
Answer: Finfish may not be transported alive from the water where taken, except under the authority of a scientific collecting permit or a marine aquaria collector’s permit.
The removal of “live rocks” (rocks with living marine organisms attached) is also prohibited in many areas, including federal marine sanctuaries, state marine protected areas and state parks.
Also, only the following tidal invertebrates may be taken in any tidepool, where not otherwise prohibited: red abalone, limpets, moon snails, turban snails, chiones, clams, cockles, mussels, rock scallops, native oysters, octopuses, squid, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, sand dollars, sea urchins and worms (except that no worms may be taken in any mussel bed).
All legal size limits and possession limits must be followed and a fishing license must be in possession in order to take. All other tidal invertebrates may only be taken outside 1,000 feet seaward from the high tide mark.
Please note that most of the smaller rocks exposed and surrounded by water above mean high tide are within the California Coastal National Monument – where all objects, including rocks, are protected and it is prohibited to collect or remove them or organisms on them.
Carrie Wilson is a marine environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. While she cannot personally answer everyone’s questions, she will select a few to answer each week in this column. Please contact her at
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Carlé would like to welcome three new students: Monica Clifford, Luis Tean and Davis Bejar. Welcome to Carlé. We hope you will take advantage of the opportunities Carlé has to present.
Student Candice Safreno presented her portfolio for graduation on Thursday, March 9. Congratulations, Candice, and good luck with pursuing your career, we at Carlé hope you do well.
Diana Reyes presented her portfolio for graduation on Thursday, March 16. Diana has shown that she is driven to graduate. Good work, Diana, and we at Carlé wish you luck.
A new student council event called the Carlé 500 will be held on Friday, March 17, during this event students will be designing cardboard cars for a race to be held on Friday, March 24.
During this race students will wear the cardboard cars which they designed and race around the school. After making one lap around the school the “driver” will have to stop and pull over at his “pit crews station” and be given water for fuel, a towel to clean their “windshield,” and check that their tires or shoes are ok to continue.
A new attendance/punctuality reward system has been established at Carlé by Principal Koehler and the staff. In this new reward each student that arrives on time will have his or her name put into a mug and drawn at random.
The winner will receive a hot beverage of their choice. All of the winner’s names will be kept track of and at the end of the month are eligible for a larger prize.
A fundraiser for Carlé was held on Monday, March 13, at Fire Stone Pizza. During this fundraiser, Fire Stone customers had access to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet after paying a flat fee of $8; any of the money raised during this fundraiser went to Carlé for student council activities and events.
To show our thanks for Fire Stone’s kindness, Taylor Churchill from our Student Body Enterprise program designed a plaque to give to them. Thank you, Carl and Tamara Wienke, all the students at Carlé appreciate it.
Pat Knowles, who substitutes for the Carlé staff a lot, brought a treat for the students to have at break. Pat is a wonderful teacher and human. Thank you, Pat, we at Carlé appreciate all you have done for us and we hope to see you in the future.
Student of the week was Juan Carlos Octaviano who was nominated by Olga. Olga said, “Juan Carlos has show that he is completely driven to learn English, and he’s shown that he is really absorbing the information.” Congratulations, you’ve done a really great job at Carlé, please keep it up.
Nicholas Phipps is a student at Carlé Continuation High School.
This article has been updated. In spite of water remaining on the roadway, the cutoff has been reopened.
NICE, Calif. – Lake County’s Water Resources and Public Works departments are in the midst of a pumping project meant to improve conditions so the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff can be reopened in the weeks ahead.
The road has been closed since Feb. 22, when a nearby state-maintained levee was overtopped due to the flooding taking place at that time, as Lake County News has reported.
The overtopping of the levee led to water filling up the water basin to the north of the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff, a portion of which also has remained under water, officials said.
Rather than wait weeks or months for the water to naturally drain off or evaporate, Lake County Public Works and Water Resources, which had been discussing options with the California Department of Water Resources, began a project on March 11 to pump the water out.
County Public Works Director Scott De Leon said the pumping is taking place around the clock, but there’s still water on the road.
“We can't open it until it's completely dry,” De Leon said Friday.
Water Resources Director Phil Moy said the water level is dropping about an inch per day. “We need to dry the road bed, not just the surface.”
He said people also need to stay off the road to prevent road damage.
There have been ongoing problems with people simply ignoring the signs and driving through the closure. The California Highway Patrol said its officers will ticket individuals they find driving through the closure.
As for when they estimate the road could reopen, De Leon on Friday, said, “Hopefully in the next few days.”
Moy, however, was more cautious, estimating, “Another week plus.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Friday, the Calistoga Joint Unified School District confirmed that it has hired the Lakeport Unified School District superintendent as its new leader.
The announcement came the day after the Lakeport Unified School Board voted to begin a recruitment process because of Superintendent Erin Smith-Hagberg getting the job offer in Napa County, as Lake County News has reported.
Smith-Hagberg has served as Lakeport Unified’s superintendent for 12 and a half years, and has spent her 30 years in the district in roles including middle and high school English teacher, middle school principal and Lakeport Elementary School principal.
Smith-Hagberg will succeed Dr. Esmeralda Mondragon, Ed.D., who announced last year she was retiring from Calistoga Joint Unified.
In the Friday announcement, Calistoga Joint Unified Board President Jeff Maxfield said the recruitment process that led to Smith-Hagberg’s hiring included a nationwide search that resulted in more than 40 applications and the final interviews of six top candidates.
He said Smith-Hagberg has been offered the position “pending a few final steps in the process.”
One of those steps is a site visit by a delegation of Calistoga Joint Unified Board members and district office personnel to Lakeport Unified on Monday, according to statements made at the special Lakeport Unified Board meeting on Thursday night and the Friday announcement.
In selecting Smith-Hagberg for the new job, Maxfield cited accomplishments including her leadership on the $17 million Measure T bond, passed by voters in November 2014; her leadership in curriculum and instruction initiatives; and community involvement in groups such as Rotary, with Smith-Hagberg having been selected to be Lakeport Rotary Club’s president next year.
Maxfield said reference checking also has confirmed his district’s feelings about Smith-Hagberg. In talking to people from Lakeport Unified, he said feedback has lauded her for being collaborative, open and transparent, a strong leader and a professional.
“We are grateful to all who participating in providing input regarding what is most desired to see in our next superintendent. We are confident you will find that Ms. Smith-Hagberg is a perfect match,” Maxfield said.
He said she will be in the Calistoga Joint Unified district for several days before the end of the year to begin to meet everyone and to hear about the district, which has about 850 students, just over half of Lakeport Unified’s student count.
Smith-Hagberg and her husband, Dave, are reported to be in the process of seeking a place to live in Calistoga.
She is due to leave when her contract ends at the end of the school year, June 30, according to Lakeport Unified School Board President Dennis Darling.
The Lakeport Unified School Board voted unanimously on Thursday night to hire Scott Mahoney of Mahoney Consulting to lead an abbreviated and confidential hiring process in the hopes of having a candidate selected by mid-May and in place by Smith-Hagberg’s departure.
Mahoney, incidentally, is the consultant who has led the Calistoga Joint Unified hiring process that led to Smith-Hagberg’s hiring there.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – A Willits man was injured early Friday when the semi he was driving crashed into a restaurant in Hopland.
The California Highway Patrol said the driver, identified as 48-year-old C. Hammack, suffered moderate injuries in the crash.
The crash occurred at 3:50 a.m. Friday, according to the CHP.
The CHP said Hammack was driving a Peterbilt semi with two trailers southbound on Highway 101 north of Center Street in Hopland at about 25 to 30 miles per hour.
The report said that, for an unknown reason, Hammack made an unsafe turning movement in an easterly direction and crashed into the Hopland Tap House, located at 13351 Highway 101.
Subsequent media reports have attributed the turning movement to a coughing fit that Hammack told authorities he had.
Due to his injuries, Hammack was transported to the Ukiah Valley Medical Center and later flown to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital for treatment, the CHP said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NASA has begun development of a mission to visit and study the sun closer than ever before. The unprecedented project, named Solar Probe Plus, is slated to launch no later than 2018.
The small car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere approximately four million miles from our star's surface. It will explore a region no other spacecraft ever has encountered. NASA has selected five science investigations that will unlock the sun's biggest mysteries.
“The experiments selected for Solar Probe Plus are specifically designed to solve two key questions of solar physics – why is the sun's outer atmosphere so much hotter than the sun's visible surface and what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system?” said Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington. “We've been struggling with these questions for decades and this mission should finally provide those answers.”
As the spacecraft approaches the sun, its revolutionary carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures exceeding 2550 degrees Fahrenheit and blasts of intense radiation.
The spacecraft will have an up close and personal view of the sun enabling scientists to better understand, characterize and forecast the radiation environment for future space explorers.
NASA invited researchers in 2009 to submit science proposals. Thirteen were reviewed by a panel of NASA and outside scientists.
The total dollar amount for the five selected investigations is approximately $180 million for preliminary analysis, design, development and tests.
The selected proposals are:
– Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation: principal investigator, Justin C. Kasper, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.
This investigation will specifically count the most abundant particles in the solar wind - electrons, protons and helium ions - and measure their properties. The investigation also is designed to catch some of the particles for direct analysis.
– Wide-field Imager: principal investigator, Russell Howard, Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. This telescope will make 3-D images of the sun's corona, or atmosphere. The experiment will also provide 3-D images of the solar wind and shocks as they approach and pass the spacecraft. This investigation complements instruments on the spacecraft providing direct measurements by imaging the plasma the other instruments sample.
– Fields Experiment: principal investigator, Stuart Bale, University of California Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. This investigation will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, radio emissions, and shock waves that course through the sun's atmospheric plasma. The experiment also serves as a giant dust detector, registering voltage signatures when specks of space dust hit the spacecraft's antenna.
– Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun: principal investigator, David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
This investigation consists of two instruments that will monitor electrons, protons and ions that are accelerated to high energies in the sun's atmosphere.
– Heliospheric Origins with Solar Probe Plus: principal investigator, Marco Velli of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Velli is the mission's observatory scientist, responsible for serving as a senior scientist on the science working group. He will provide an independent assessment of scientific performance and act as a community advocate for the mission.
“This project allows humanity's ingenuity to go where no spacecraft has ever gone before,” said Lika Guhathakurta, Solar Probe Plus program scientist at NASA Headquarters, in Washington. “For the very first time, we'll be able to touch, taste and smell our sun.”
The Solar Probe Plus mission is part of NASA's Living with a Star Program. The program is designed to understand aspects of the sun and Earth's space environment that affect life and society.
The program is managed by NASA'S Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., with oversight from NASA's Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Division. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., is responsible for formulating, implementing and operating the Solar Probe Mission.
For more information about the Solar Probe Plus mission, visit http://solarprobe.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . For more information about the Living with a Star Program, visit http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/smd-programs/living-with-a-star/ .