THE OUTDOORS : Outdoor Notes / Pete Thomas : Blue Marlin Arriving in Big Numbers Off Baja Peninsula

One of the biggest blue marlins ever taken from the waters off the Baja Peninsula highlighted the species’ springtime arrival, which has spiced up some of the best striped marlin fishing in years.

Striped marlin are apparently so plentiful in some areas--basically from Los Frailes to the Gorda Banks--that hotel boats are averaging up to 18 hookups a day.

Farther south, in the Cabo San Lucas area, boats are averaging just over two billfish a day. “They’re biting not too far away,� Mario Gonzalez, a Cabo San Lucas panga owner, said by telephone Tuesday. Gonzalez said fishermen aboard his panga have been catching most of their fish two to three miles south of the marina.

Meanwhile, boats from as far north as Rancho Buena Vista on the East Cape are reportedly making the two-hour ride to the Gorda Banks area to get in on the bite. “Conditions are just prime,� John Doughty of Bisbee’s Tackle in Newport Beach said. “Some fishermen are seeing 100 fish a day.�

Jack Haige, visiting from Norwalk, Conn., and fishing aboard the Juanita V near the outer Gorda Bank, will take the one fish he caught June 23, a 959-pound blue marlin that took him to hours to land.

Haige trolled a 15-pound dorado he caught earlier to attract the fish, which he reeled in on 80-pound tackle.

Sport fishermen at the popular resort have yet to catch a blue marlin weighing more than 1,000 pounds, but several have been close.

Jim Edmondson, Region 5 manager for the conservationist California Trout organization, calls Crowley Lake “the black hole of fishery management�--meaning that nobody really knows what’s going on beneath the surface of the Eastern Sierra reservoir.

With the balance of the Crowley catch shifting in recent years from brown trout to Sacramento perch, the Department of Fish and Game wants to know what happens to the 350,000 sub-catchable trout it plants in Crowley each year. In collaboration with Cal Trout, the DFG has launched a fish-clipping program in hopes of finding out.

Volunteers at the Fish Springs Hatchery near Big Pine recently clipped the fins of 17,969 Kamloop, Coleman and Hot Creek rainbows--a different fin for each strain, so they can be identified when caught.

“We have to do 25% (of 350,000) to make it viable,� Edmondson said, adding that the purpose is “to determine which are best suited to survive.�

Curtis Milliron, a fishery biologist and project leader for the DFG, said, “We’ve had fin-clipped fish going into Crowley for many years,� but not in enough numbers to provide a solid analysis.�

Fin-clipping is scheduled to resume this weekend and that of June 17-18.

Efforts are under way to save the financially troubled hyperbaric chamber on Santa Catalina Island, one of the most popular diving areas in the country.

The chamber, operated by USC, has treated 591 divers since it went into operation in 1974, and many feel that without it there would be a dramatic increase in diving-related fatalities.

“We save lives,� Director Andrew Pilmanis insists. “A lot of people would die unless a chamber is close by . . . we’ve had people come in here in full (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and they walked away.�

Pilmanis said that during a busy summer weekend divers make anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 dives off the Catalina shoreline. The next closest chamber is at Northridge Medical Center.

Los Angeles County has provided funding since 1974, but because of budget restraints it can presently cover only about half the operational costs, according to report by USC’s Hancock Institute for Marine Studies.

The rest comes primarily from private donations and diving-safety programs offered by the volunteers at the Catalina Chamber.

Briefly

National Fishing Week will be observed June 5-11, with 27 states offering residents a chance to fish without purchasing a fishing license. California’s “free fishing day� is June 10. . . . Proceeds from the first annual Santa Monica Bay “Top Rod� Fishing Tournament, hosted June 4 by the Santa Monica Yacht Club Anglers, will go to Heal the Bay, a non-profit organization dedicated to a pollution-free Santa Monica Bay. . . . Calendar: Central Coast Salmon Enhancement, fund-raising salmon barbecue and celebration of arrival of 50,000 fingerling King salmon for rearing and eventual release, June 4, Avila Beach Pier. Contact: (805) 773-3316; The 15th annual Marina del Rey Boat Show, June 7-11, Burton Chase Park; California Angler Magazine’s Inshore Fishing School, emphasis on local species, June 17, Kona Kai Club on Shelter Island, San Diego. Contact: (714) 261-9779; Quail Unlimited’s chapter development meeting and Director Mike Mathiot on state and federal quial management plans, June 8, 7:30 p.m., Newport Marriott Hotel. Contact: (619) 473-8592; Striped Bass seminar by Frazier Park Visitors and Recreation Bureau, June 17, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Frazier Park Community Hall.