Outdoor Notes : New State Mammal-Hunting Regulations Proposed

Applying for deer tags will be simpler this fall, if the Department of Fish and Game’s proposed 1985-86 mammal-hunting regulations are adopted by the Fish and Game Commission.

Under proposed tag application procedures, hunters would no longer be required to enter a lottery for the limited number of B and D zone tags, the method used last year. All A, B and D tags, as well as undrawn X zone tags, would be issued first come, first served. Drawings would be held only for X zones and special hunts.

Five new hunting zones would be created. Four--D11, D15, D16, D17--would be created from existing Zone D11. The fifth, X5c, would be created from portions of X4 and X5a.

Other proposed hunting changes include 56 days added to the bear season and establishment of a wild-pig hunting zone in eastern Tehama County.

Public comment on the proposed changes will be heard at a commission meeting in Redding April 5. New regulations will be adopted April 26, and will go into effect July 1.

The California Fish and Game Commission has called on the state’s Board of Forestry to use its authority under the Forest Practices Act to regulate oak harvesting in the state.

The commission, citing an increased harvest of oaks in California in recent years, noted that hardwoods are important to fish and wildlife resources of California, providing food, nesting and roosting. In addition, the commission said, hardwoods benefit fishery resources by preventing hillside and streamside erosion and helping to regulate stream water temperatures.

A $245,000 addition to an existing man-made fishing reef in Santa Monica Bay--expected to double the reef’s size--should begin March 11, according to the DFG.

The project, financed by the state Wildlife Conservation Board, will add 10,000 tons of quarry rock to a reef built in 1965 off Marina del Rey. The quarry rock will be distributed adjacent to the reef in 16 piles, 10 feet high, in 65 feet of water, about a mile west of the Marina del Rey breakwater.

Said Ken Wilson, biologist in charge of the project: “The augmentation will provide additional rocky habitat that will be utilized by organisms of both direct and indirect importance to sport fish like kelp bass, barred sand bass, sheephead and rock fishes, as well as lobsters, scallops and rock crabs.”

Briefly Showtime: Fred Hall’s Western Fishing Tackle & Boat Show through March 10, Del Mar Fairgrounds; Western Fishing Tackle & Fishing Boat Show, March 20-24, Long Beach Convention Center. . . . The DFG is asking the Fish and Game Commission to designate Grizzly Island Wildlife Area in Solano County as a steel-shot zone, beginning with this fall’s waterfowl and pheasant seasons. . . . Since February, several cases of javelina entering the Phoenix city limits have been reported . . . Nevada biologists are recommending the state’s first Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep hunt for next season. The sheep were trapped in Wyoming’s Wind River Range in 1975 and released near Mount Moriah in Nevada.

An outbreak of avian cholera at the DFG’s Honey Lake Wildlife Area east of Susanville may be linked with the deaths of three bald eagles in northern Lassen County in the past two weeks, biologists say. . . . Relieved DFG fishery biologists say tests show the Mount Shasta and Darrah Springs trout hatcheries are free from whirling disease, the trout ailment that killed several million trout at two Owens Valley hatcheries last year. . . . Seth Nadel, a U.S. Customs Department officer, won the shotgun event at the Invitational Police Match shooting championships at Coto de Caza recently. . . . Jack Dennis, noted fly tyer from Jackson Hole, Wyo., will speak at the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers’ dinner meeting March 21 at the Nob Hill Banquet Center, Panorama City. . . . The Sierra Club’s activities schedule, with more than 500 events listed through July 4, is available for $4.50 from the club.