Outdoor Notes : Only 69 Bucks Are Taken on the Opening Weekend

Eastern Sierra deer hunters experienced roughly the same success rate last opening weekend as they did a year ago, Department of Fish and Game biologists and wardens reported.

Biologist Tom Blankinship said bucks taken last weekend were in “super excellent” condition.

“They’re always in excellent condition up here, but this year, probably because of the low number of yearlings taken, they looked better than in past years,” he added.

Blankinship also said that fewer yearlings were taken this year because of dry-weather conditions last year, a situation resulting in fewer young deer living to the forked-horn stage. He said that 50% of the bucks killed last season in Mono County were yearlings, but that only 27% of those checked last weekend were yearlings.

Hunter pressure was up. In the West Walker herd area, Zone X12, 705 cars were counted, compared to 674 last year. The buck count was almost the same--69 deer last weekend, compared to 70 on last season’s opening weekend. In more southerly Eastern Sierra hunting areas, both hunter success rate and pressure were down by about 50%, the DFG said.

A meat locker in Bridgeport reported that by noon last Saturday, opening day, it had 35 deer on ice.

Fifty citations were written on the opening weekend, most for hunting in the wrong zone and having a loaded rifle in or near a vehicle.

Lyman’s Concrete Co. of San Clemente was fined $4,700 for unlawful pollution of an Orange County flood control channel recently.

The judgment was handed down in South Orange County Municipal Court, after the DFG had filed a formal complaint against the firm. A game warden, Darryl Avila, found a grayish substance in Sequnda Desecha Canada Creek flood control channel. It was determined to be waste material from wet concrete that was washing into the channel from Lyman’s. The polluted portion of the channel was void of plant and animal life, Avila said.

The DFG is attempting to simplify many state fishing regulations and is considering asking the Fish and Game Commission for the following changes:

--Allow night fishing in most state areas.

--Allow a single bullfrog season statewide, rather than the two current seasons.

--Allow the use of dead ocean fish as bait in most freshwater fishing areas.

--Clarify striped bass size and bag limits to make them more consistent statewide.

Briefly Applications for 650 whistling swan hunting tags are now available at sporting goods stores in Nevada, one of three states where whistler hunts are held. . . . Arizona game wardens report increasing complaints about misuse of off-road vehicles during deer season. They will begin special patrols aimed at enforcing off-road regulations. . . . Two men caught by a game warden fishing for striped bass inside the restricted zone below Davis Dam were fined a total of $750 in Bullhead City, Ariz., Court recently. . . . Nevada Department of Wildlife officials say 1,171 buck and antlerless deer tags remain unsold, but even more remain in Arizona, where 13,476 tags are still available.