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Steven T. Callan at the helm of the Fish and Game Patrol Boat Marlin
June 26, 2014
in Fish and Wildlife
by Steve

Those Amazing Elephant Seals

Steven T. Callan at the helm of the Fish and Game Patrol Boat Marlin

Author at the helm of the Fish and Game patrol boat Marlin, 1959. Photo by Wallace Callan

My first opportunity to see a northern elephant seal was in October of 1959, as an excited eleven-year-old passenger aboard the Fish and Game Patrol Boat Marlin. My father, California Fish and Game Warden Wally Callan, was the Marlin’s rookie boarding officer, responsible for patrolling California’s offshore waters from the Mexican border to Point Conception. The previous summer, he had returned from a patrol to San Nicolas and Santa Barbara Islands with tales of the massive elephant seals he had seen hauled up on some of the isolated beaches. I hoped to see those amazing creatures for myself on what was to be the ocean adventure of a lifetime.

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Photo of Yosemite Falls
May 12, 2014
in Conservation Issues
by Steve

America Needs Parks Now More Than Ever

Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park

Recently, my wife, Kathy, and I arrived in Sonora for our first Outdoor Writers Association of California (OWAC) conference. We were a little apprehensive, being new kids on the block, but by the end of the first day, we felt a kinship with everyone in the room. And what a room it was−filled with authors, columnists, radio hosts, photographers, newspaper reporters, adventure guides, and media experts from all over the Golden State. The common thread that wove this gracious group of professionals together was a reverence for California’s vast natural resources and a desire to tell the world about them.

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Yelloweye Rockfish
April 25, 2014
in Conservation Issues
by Steve

Saving Yelloweyes

Yelloweye Rockfish

Yelloweye rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus). Photo by Retired Fish and Game Warden Larry Bruckenstein.

Imagine you’re fishing somewhere off the California coast and you hook into a big one. You finally hoist the monster to the deck and discover it’s nearly three feet long, brilliant red-orange in color, with bright yellow eyes the size of fifty cent pieces. Hard to imagine this fish could have been swimming around in the ocean when Roosevelt was president−not Franklin (1933-1945), but Teddy (1901-1909)! Yelloweye rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus) are known to live up to 118 years. Very slow growing, they don’t reach sexual maturity until they’re between ten and twenty years old.

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Rock Creek, Feather River Canyon, California
March 13, 2014
in Personal Stuff
by Steve

A Tribute to Streams

Rock Creek, Feather River Canyon, California

The other day I came across a thirty-year-old photograph I had taken of my younger brother Matt. Matt was diving into Rock Creek, a tributary to the north fork of the Feather River, located about an hour southeast of Chico. Kathy and I had picked Matt up for a day of hiking in Northern California’s Feather River Canyon.

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