Outdoor Notes / Earl Gustkey : Fish Net Ban Proponents Given Right to Circulate Petitions

Proponents of a state initiative to ban fishing with any “entangling net” within 75 nautical miles of the California coast have won the right to circulate petitions.

Secretary of State March Fong Eu’s office said Thursday that Kenneth J. Kukuda of Santa Ana, the chief proponent of the initiative, will have until April 13, 1987, to gather signatures equivalent to at least 8% of the number of votes cast for governor in the last election. Unofficially, the number of votes was 7,264,828, 8% of which is 581,186.

The measure would prohibit the use of any long line, gill net, trammel or any other entangling net, and prohibit the possession, offer for sale or purchase of any fish taken with such nets.

Violation would be a felony punishable by a fine of at least $5,000 or the retail value of the fish, whichever is greater, and one to five years in prison.

Sport and commercial fishing groups have battled over many issues in the past, but the gill net issue has been the most contentious in recent years. Sport fishermen claim that gill nets kill too many nontargeted marine species, including mammals and birds.

Sespe Creek in Ventura County was designated as an official California Wild Trout Program stream at the Fish and Game Commission’s recent meeting in Redding.

A 25-mile stretch of Sespe will be protected from projects that would negatively affect the fishery or the aesthetic quality of the stream. The portion of the stream designated for wild trout status extends from Lion Campground downstream through the Sespe Condor Sanctuary, the entire stretch located within Los Padres National Forest.

Sespe has a five-fish limit in force and there are no special tackle restrictions. Regulations may change after 1987, however, when the DFG has evaluated data from a Sespe census project now under way.

Among the commission’s rulings on roughly 100 other proposals was one reducing bag and possession limits at Crowley Lake from seven fish a day to five, from the last Saturday in April through July 30.

In addition, a two-fish limit will be in effect from the last Saturday in April through June 30 and for all of October in all of Crowley’s tributaries, including the Upper Owens River, Crooked Creek, Convict Creek, McGee Creek, Hilton Creek, Whiskey Creek, Deadman Creek and all subordinate tributaries. The regulations apply only to tributary waters between Crowley and California 395.

Malibu Creek, the state’s southernmost steelhead fishery, will be restricted to a limit of zero, and tackle will be restricted to artificial lures with barbless hooks.

At Bear Creek in the San Bernardino Mountains, the limit on brown and rainbow trout was dropped from five to two fish.

New regulations will take effect March 1, 1987.

Gil Kraemer, board member of the Balboa Angling Club, won the high angler award at the recent Hawaiian International Billfish tournament at Kona, Hawaii. He caught a 1,062-pound blue marlin and was inducted into the International Game Fish Assn.’s 1,000 Pound Club. His big blue was caught on 50-pound test line and will be, if accepted, an IGFA world record.

Joyce M. Kelly, president of Defenders of Wildlife, has called for new taxes to fund an “affirmative action plan” for nongame species of wildlife.

Ducks and deer for hunters, and trout and bass for fishermen get far more federal money than other species, even though bird watchers and wildlife photographers outnumber sportsmen, Kelly said this week.

“Ninety percent of our wildlife species are nongame, but just 10% of our wildlife dollars are spent to understand them,” she said.

Among the group’s proposals for raising tax dollars for nongame species are increased taxes on minerals produced on federal land, increased fees for leasing ski areas and utility rights of way on public land, boosting fees for oil extraction and use of off-road vehicles and creating an excise tax on equipment used by wildlife photographers and bird watchers.

The National Coalition for Marine Conservation, a group that raises money for marine hatchery research, will hold its Fish for the Future barbecue Saturday at Sea World. Its goal is to fund a kelp bass hatchery program. Last October, NCMC money funded the first release of hatchery-produced white sea bass into the ocean.

Tickets at the door for Saturday’s fish barbecue dinner and festivities are $25. The event starts at 5 p.m.

Plenty of geese and ducks remain at the Department of Fish and Game’s Wildlife Area at the Salton Sea, according to unit manager Cris Gonzales. He advises hunters that 90 hunter sites are open, with 10 more due to open this weekend. About 130 sites should be available before the season ends in January, he said.

Briefly Dan Loros, Costa Mesa, caught a 275-pound swordfish off Newport Beach recently from a 20-foot aluminum skiff. He used 80-pound test line and the battle took four hours. . . . A fall salmon run, more common in coastal streams, is under way northeast Utah’s Green River, upstream from Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Kokanee salmon are migrating upstream from the reservoir to their birthplace, below Fontenelle Dam. . . . Joe Maslach of Tonopah, Nev., recently became the first hunter in this century to bag a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep on Mt. Wheeler in White Pine County, Nev. Records show the last previous bighorn taken in the area was in 1899. . . . Joseph G. Frame of Sparks, Nev., paid a steep price recently for the illegal possession of two deer and failure to properly validate a deer tag for a third. Bail was set at $3,220, and Frame faces fines up to $2,000 and a year in jail on each of two counts. . . . In Minnesota, five deer hunters died during a hunting season opener marked by accidents. In one non-fatal accident, a man fired at a deer but hit his mother in the hip in their house, 250 yards away. In another non-fatal mishap, a shotgun slug fired by one hunter passed through a deer and hit another hunter in the leg.