Outdoor Notes : Public Gets Its First Say on Proposed Trout, Salmon Limits

The Department of Fish and Game proposes to establish the statewide trout and salmon limit at five a day, and anglers will have their first opportunity to tell the State Fish and Game Commission what they think of the idea Friday at the State Building in San Diego.

The proposal wouldn’t change anything in Southern California, where the limit has been five since 1974, but could cause some ripples of discontent upstate, where the limit has been 10.

The next commission meeting is scheduled for Nov. 6-7 at Redding, followed by a vote Nov. 30-Dec. 1 at Long Beach.

The department cites surveys indicating that anglers average only 3 1/2 fish, anyway.

“The reduction in daily bag limit is intended to spread the trout harvest between more anglers and accommodate department efforts to plant fewer but larger catchable trout,� a news release said.

Fewer but bigger fish? The anglers may not buy that until they see it.

The first half of Southern California’s split waterfowl hunting season opens Oct. 14 and closes Nov. 8. DFG biologists are predicting mediocre success by hunters.

Duck hunting could be slightly better than last year, especially for mallards, according to the DFG. Goose hunting should be productive, but Pacific Flyway duck populations remain suppressed by nesting-territory problems in the north.

Public lands open for waterfowl hunting Oct. 14 include:

--The DFG’s 4,000-acre Wister Unit of the Imperial County Wildlife Area (Note: Hunters should take care not to mistake white pelicans for snow geese.)

--Riverside County’s San Jacinto Wildlife Area, now considered poor habitat with improvement expected by the middle of the season, when reclaimed water will be added to the low supply of well water.

Of the three public hunt locations in western Riverside County, Perris Lake--open on Sundays and Wednesdays only--is expected to be the most productive. Access is on first come, first served.

The Colorado River zone begins the first part of its season Oct. 13 and will run through Nov. 19.

Catalina’s eighth annual Gold Cup Marlin tournament was won by Mark Mitchell of Orange, who was fishing as part of a team aboard the Big Bad John.

Mitchell’s catch of a 230-pound striped marlin, the largest in tournament history, earned $40,000 for the team. Of the 90 fish caught, 59 were weighed in by Avalon weighmaster Rosie Cadman. The rest were tagged and released.

This has been a banner year for marlin fishermen in Southern California waters. Cadman has weighed in 319 stripers at Avalon, and the Balboa Angling Club reports that 402 marlin have either been brought in or tagged and released.

An 18-foot great white shark feeding on a 40-foot whale 4 1/2 miles off the Palos Verdes peninsula? Few would believe the story if there weren’t videotape to prove it.

Dan Fink of Woodland Hills, a tackle manufacturer’s representative, thought fishing buddy Tony DeCristo was exaggerating when he came into Marina del Rey last week telling the tale, so the next day Fink went back out with DeCristo in a 38-foot trawler to see for himself.

He saw not one but two, and possibly three, great whites feeding on the dead whale in intervals, with “hundreds of blue sharks eating constantly,� Fink said.

DeCristo said he saw one of the larger sharks take a two-foot-wide bite out of the whale.

Briefly

The Department of Fish and Game is appealing a Tehama County court ruling that validated an environmental impact report and would allow a gravel mining contractor to remove 265,000 cubic yards of gravel a year from Cottonwood Creek. Salmon spawn in gravel. The DFG says the Sacramento River tributary is a major spawning site. . . . Officer Marc Cobb of the Long Beach Police Department won the highest honor--the revolver championship--in two days of competition among almost 700 entries at the National Rifle Assn.’s National Police Shooting Championships at Jackson, Miss. Cobb scored 1,495 out of a possible 1,500 points. Officer Robert Kolesar of the LAPD also scored 1,495, but Cobb outscored him on shots in the center of the target, 107-98.

The DFG, in conjunction with the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep and Department of Parks and Recreation, is asking for volunteers Oct. 7-8 to help with the building of a barbed-wire “cattle exclusion� fence in the Santa Rosa Mountains in Riverside County. For details, call (213) 256-0463. . . . The Pasadena Casting Club is organizing a work party for the West Fork of the San Gabriel River on Saturday, Nov. 4, 8 a.m. Volunteers welcome. Details: (818) 445-5481.