Sports

  “The finest gift you can give to any fisherman is to put a good fish back, and who knows if the fish that you caught isn’t someone else’s gift to you?”

—Lee Wulff

  The weather man, the calendar, and even the fish are all in agreement: Spring is here. The weather is getting warmer and the fishing is starting to pick up.

  But before we get to the fishing there is a more important issue to report.

  Fishing, and especially the gentle art of fly-fishing, is not often associated with crime. But these are hard times and nothing seems immune from the greedy and destructive reach of the hardened criminal.

Chester’s Lanee Hansen prepares to throw the ball from first base during the Volcanoes’ game against Redding Christian last Tuesday. In a close game, Chester lost 9-8. Photo by Tony Cordero

James Wilson

  Two local high schools softball teams were up and at ‘em last week, playing a couple games each.

  The Greenville softball team had to cancel its games against Westwood due to unfavorable field conditions, but both Chester and Portola played on.

Portola

  Last Friday, March 22, the Tigers traveled to Reno and continued their winning streak, beating Hug by a whopping 20-1. Portola started its week March 19 at Incline, dominating the field to win 13-3. The win boosted Portola’s record to 7-5 overall.

  Good pitching was in a lot of ways responsible for the Tigers’ stomp against Hug. Sandra Kibble, the team’s starting pitcher, showed she had what it took to shut Hug down with seven strikeouts. Kibble now has 47 strikeouts from the last 12 games, averaging four per game.

  “(Kibble) did great,” said Portola’s coach Karl Popish. “She’s doing really well this year. She’s definitely my number one pitcher.”

  The Running with the Bears Marathon in Indian Valley out did its self last August, becoming a Boston Marathon qualifier and attracting runners from all over the country. In addition to the marathon, the event offered a half marathon and a 10K race.

  Now entering its third year, the race recently attracted national attention, being picked by Marathon and Beyond Magazine to be the featured race in the March edition of its e-zine (electronic edition).

Apprehending poachers

  Question: I support the work of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and want to congratulate and say thank you for all your services. However, I was watching an episode of “Wild Justice” recently and something did not seem right about the way the game wardens carried out a couple of operations. On the show, game wardens busted a poacher with 42 abalone. The wardens spied on a group and knew they were fishing illegally, so why didn’t they stop them when they came back to the beach? Why did the game wardens allow the group to pull the abalone away from the beach and wait? By the time you guys busted the group, all 42 abalone were dead. My 4-year-old daughter could not understand why you did not catch the poachers as soon as they hit the beach so the abalone would not have had to die. Can you please give me an answer so that I can explain it to her?

—Christopher R.