Outdoor Notes : Dam Plan Could Cut Shore Fishing at Crowley

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is studying the possibility of raising the height of Long Valley Dam, the impoundment that makes Crowley Lake, by 10 feet.

If such an alteration is made, many popular shore fishing sites will be lost, among them Benton Crossing on the Upper Owens River.

The study, scheduled to be completed in mid-1986, will be followed by further studies, if the current study shows that such a project is feasible, said LeVal Lund, DWP engineer.

“If the study showed such a project was structurally possible, we’d then look at the benefits to be obtained, any environmental problems that might ensue, and finally the costs of actually raising the dam,” he said.

The DWP is looking for ways to increase storage capacity in its Owens River system, Lund said. It has reduced the water level in South Haiwee Reservoir, near Olancha, since the dam there was determined to be unreliable in the event of a maximum-strength earthquake.

Crowley, the Eastern Sierra reservoir near Bishop, is the state’s most popular fishing hole. It measures three by five miles and draws more than 15,000 trout fishermen to its traditional opening day, the last Saturday in April.

Biologist Phil Pister of the Department of Fish and Game said that a higher water level in Crowley Lake could result in positive impacts on fishing there.

“As long as the lake is operated as it is now, with no drastic water level changes throughout the year, it could be a plus, fishing-wise,” he said. “Anytime you talk about more habitat, it has to be a plus.”

A French firm, SEDEIC, says it has been given permission by the French government to develop French-owned Clipperton Island, 700 miles south of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and 900 miles off the coast of Guatemala.

Clipperton, a small island presently uninhabited, is visited several times a year by U.S. sportfishermen aboard San Diego-based boats on 23-day trips for 100-to-300-pound class yellowfin tuna.

A Mammoth Lakes schoolteacher was struck in the arm recently by a deer hunter’s bullet that police said had traveled about two miles.

Patricia Holland-Suppa, 25, was treated at Centinela-Mammoth Hospital where she underwent surgery to cleanse the wound and remove a bone fragment.

A seventh-grade English teacher at Mammoth Elementary School, Holland-Suppa was struck by a round that crashed through the classroom’s south wall, deflected off a chair and hit her on the elbow.

Police investigators police theorized from the entry hole in the classroom that the round made an arc in the air from the Sherwin Creek-Mammoth Motocross area, about two miles distant, before hitting the classroom.

Officers went to the area, interviewed deer hunters in the area, and found a group of three hunters in a van. It was determined that one might have been responsible for the stray shot. Officers tentatively matched the bullet to a 7.62 rifle found in the van, determined that the incident was accidental and filed no criminal charges.

The Kenai River, on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, had quite a salmon season this year. First, one of the first salmon caught on the river last summer was a world-record, 97-pound 4-ounce king, caught by Soldotna auto dealer Les Anderson.

But Tim Berg, who owns a Soldotna fishing lodge, Alaskan Fishing Adventures, said that monster salmon were caught all season long.

“People at our lodge caught three over 80 pounds,” he said, “And there were probably a half-dozen others I know about over 80 that were caught on the river. My best day guiding all season was Aug. 3, when I had five fish in the boat that averaged 64 pounds.”

Briefly Quail and chukar hunting season in Southern California will begin Oct. 19 and end Jan. 26. . . . Hundreds of pounds of litter and at least 20 man-made rock dams were removed from Piru Creek on a recent workday at the stream by the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers. . . . First baseman Steve Garvey of the San Diego Padres will be joined by several sports-entertainment celebrities in Kona, Hawaii, for the Steve Garvey-Penn Reels Billfish and Golf Classic Oct. 23-26. . . . Saltwater fly fishing guide Nick Curcione will present a seminar at a San Gabriel Valley Fly Fishers’ meeting at the Whittier Narrows Visitors’ Center in El Monte Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m. The Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep will hold its annual dinner at the T&J; Restaurant, Rosemead, Nov. 9. . . . Finals of the regional championships of the National Shoot to Retrieve Assn. will be held Saturday at 3 p.m., at the Winchester Pheasant Club near Elsinore. . . . Mexico’s white-winged dove season will start Oct. 26.

The Fish and Game Commission is considering a recommendation from the DFG that anyone be permitted to keep up to two live rattlesnakes in captivity without a permit, as is now required. . . . The U.S. Coast Guard is warning prospective buyers of foreign-built boats that sometimes substantial alterations are required to bring the boats into compliance with Coast Guard safety regulations. . . . Sturm Ruger & Co. has donated a $45,000 gold-inlaid, engraved rifle to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to help raise funds for the museum’s collection of arms and armor.