Humboldt Lagoons

**caniretireyet?** · 04-15-2011, 09:05 AM

Originally Posted by Bill Kiene

We stopped in Arcadia once about 10 years ago and around the college we saw lots of modern day young 'hippies' just like we had here in the 1970s.

Really culturally shocking for us...,,,,,,,,,.thought they were all gone by then.

As a proud member of the Humboldt State Class of '89, I can offer my anthropologic observastions of this phenomenon. Most of these kids are delivered by their parents in August neatly dressed, and well groomed. By September, they have blown all their lunch money on the Instant Retro Hippie Package offered at many retailers, mostly on the Arcata Plaza. The truly committed wear this new found garb upon the initial re-introduction ritual known as Thanksgiving break. Many, however, seem to shed the costume at or about the Cal-trans rest stop at the Grapvine on I-5. The latter strategy, it is thought, is in a effort to maintain the ritualistic gifting rite known as keeping on Mom and Dad's payroll. Those who return in costume risk the end of this gifting rite, and after a few months when the last installment has gone the way of the Patchouli and Tie-Dye vendors, can be found working as hostesses or bus-boys at the Denny's in Eureka.

Thanks
Steve

**SHigSpeed** · 04-15-2011, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by caniretireyet?

As a proud member of the Humboldt State Class of '89, I can offer my anthropologic observastions of this phenomenon. Most of these kids are delivered by their parents in August neatly dressed, and well groomed. By September, they have blown all their lunch money on the Instant Retro Hippie Package offered at many retailers, mostly on the Arcata Plaza. The truly committed wear this new found garb upon the initial re-introduction ritual known as Thanksgiving break. Many, however, seem to shed the costume at or about the Cal-trans rest stop at the Grapvine on I-5. The latter strategy, it is thought, is in a effort to maintain the ritualistic gifting rite known as keeping on Mom and Dad's payroll. Those who return in costume risk the end of this gifting rite, and after a few months when the last installment has gone the way of the Patchouli and Tie-Dye vendors, can be found working as hostesses or bus-boys at the Denny's in Eureka.

Thanks
Steve

That's pretty spot on!

From my observations of '89-'91, I noted two distinct subcultures that may mesh with your theory:

Hippies and "horticulturalists" that were drawn to the environmental and political leanings of the area, and SoCal big city kids that wanted to get as FAR away from mommy and daddy as possible but stay in CA. Of course if anyone remembers the trends of the late '80s, there were an abundance of mini-trucks and hip-hop Boys 2 Men and Vanilla Ice wannabes intermixed with the VW microbusses and wool, dreads, and patchouli smelling hacky-sackers all mixed together. Quite a scene....

_SHig

**FlyReelFisher** · 04-15-2011, 10:01 AM

Fyi...looks like you could be fishing in quite a bit of rain.

**Ben J** · 04-15-2011, 06:32 PM

Fully agree, was up north today and the marsh on the east side of 101 at Big is really starting to fill in with water again... pretty thick muddy perimeter around the shore of the lagoon as well... hopefully the waves will settle down.

just curiuos, has anyone been to the plaza at about midnite on halloween? wow.... not that i wasn't a part of it

**kokaneejr** · 04-16-2011, 08:18 AM

Thanks for this post it is really timely for me as I am also considering the coastal cutt for my HTC fish.
ScottV let me know when you are going to fish in that direction as I would like to fish with you again. Seems like the silverfork might be awhile this year...Craig

**Jeff Fisher** · 04-18-2011, 08:39 AM

Well.......not much to report, as I never even got the tube in the water. Got up to Big Lagoon around 8am only to find it "blown out". All the rain on Friday turned the lake into a muddy mess. While chatting up Mike at the flyshop on Friday, he told me that the lagoons must be very clear to fish effectively. So, Big Lagoon was out. Stone Lagoon was just as muddy. And Freshwater Lagoon was not quite as muddy, but only about a foot of visibility. So since I was up there, I took a nice long jog down the beach, then drove home.

Some good info shared by Mike........
If it's windy, the lagoons will muddy up, and take a few days to clear. The green/gray crystal buggers are a good choice fished on an clear intermediate. The reason for the intermediate is becuase the fish will hang in a thermocline and the intermediate line will be able to "search" different depths until you find where the fish are hanging. Steelies will cruise in circles in the north part of Big Lagoon feeding. When you see fish rolling.....it's on! No fish rolling can be tough, but still worth trying.

So now I know.........just another thing added the memory bank about the fishing up here. I should have it figured out in a few years.

**fj40** · 04-30-2011, 05:33 AM

If its running you want to do up there I have that dialed in. Amazing trail runs through ancient redwood forest. James Irvine trail and back on miners loop trail in Prairie Creek State Park.

Mike O · 04-30-2011, 10:29 AM

Shig and caniretire...

We share the same shame. I loved my time at HSU, was there the same years as Shig. I gotta say, HSU is the most beautiful campus in CA, period.

The people, however....suck. I can't stand the fakey hippies beefin' about the Man, all the while taking CalGrant and cheap tuition. I also couldn't figure out how you can be "open to new ideas, man" and at the same time bashing the government, and others who don't agree with you.

As far as the fishin?? Next time you head up there, if the Lagoons are blown, come back to Arcata and fish the little known hotspot right in town.

How many of you have ever heard of fishing the Arcata Sewer ponds?? I caught a 23" rainbow outa the pond you can fish in when I was up there in college. Biggest non-anadromous rainbow I ever caught. They have a really revolutionary water treatment system up there, and they stock the final pond as a "canary in the Coal Mine" sort of thing. If the quality gets bad, the fish go belly up, or something. (You could also hunt ducks down in that area)

Of course, these are catch and release fish....otherwise, eeeewwwwwww.

Mad River was good from the boat launch down in the estuary, to the hatchery. Had a stinkin' sea lion take a nice one offn' my line down at the boat launch one year.

As you can see, I didn't "fit in" to the popular perception of HSU and Arcatans in general...but then most of the people at HSU don't fit into that perception either.