Outdoor Notes / Earl Gustkey : New Hunt, Trap Regulations to Be Considered

The California Fish and Game Commission will consider recommendations for 1987-88 hunting and trapping regulations at its meeting in Long Beach next Thursday and Friday.

Public testimony on proposed regulations will also be heard at the commission’s meeting in Redding March 6, and final adoption will occur April 10 at another meeting in Sacramento.

The Department of Fish and Game’s recommended changes for 1987 mammal hunting will be heard beginning at 8 a.m. next Friday at the Long Beach City Council Chambers, 333 W. Ocean Blvd. Suggested regulations changes will apply to game and nongame animals, including deer, elk, antelope, bears, tree squirrels, rabbits and other mammals. Shooting hours, bag and possession limits, methods of take and hunting zones will also be discussed.

On Thursday, beginning at 1 p.m., the commission will be apprised of the DFG’s bighorn sheep hunt plan. Legislation in 1986 authorized the DFG to manage a limited hunt of desert bighorn rams. It’s expected that the DFG will ask the commission for a nine-ram Mojave Desert hunt.

The DFG’s annual winter census of pronghorn antelope herds of northeastern California has resulted in the second-highest tally of pronghorns in more than 30 years.

Aerial surveys taken over Modoc, Lassen, Siskiyou and Shasta counties turned up 7,116 antelope, 140 short of the all-time high total counted last year. The DFG uses the survey figures to recommend buck and doe permit numbers for its summer antelope hunts.

Hunters have taken more than 6,000 California antelope since 1963 but the northeastern area’s antelope numbers have nearly tripled.

A Huntington Beach petroleum company has been ordered to pay a $255 fine plus about $500 in costs to the state for illegal pollution of state waters.

A representative of Brayton Petroleum, Inc., pleaded guilty in Central Orange County Municipal Court recently, after the DFG charged that a 60-gallon crude oil spill was the result of a defective oil well pump at a field located at Beach Blvd. and Adams Blvd, Huntington Beach. The oil flowed into a nearby storm drain, the DFG said.

Briefly Poul Jorgensen, nationally known fly tyer from New York’s Catskills Mountains, will present a fly fishing clinic for the Deep Creek Flyfishers at the San Bernardino County Museum, 2024 Orange Tree Lane, Redlands, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. . . . The Sierra Pacific Flyfishers club, maintaining that it also speaks for 25 other Southland fly fishing clubs, has protested the closing of the boat hoist and rental facilities at Redondo Beach Harbor, popular bonito fly fishing area. . . . Showtime: Don Bullock’s Gun-Knife Collector’s show, Anaheim Convention Center, Feb. 7-8. . . . Nevada Department of Wildlife officials say that more than 10,000 resident and nonresident deer hunters risk not being able to apply for 1987 hunt tags if they fail to return either an original card or a follow-up questionnaire to the agency before Saturday. . . . Members of the Havasu Bass Club have submerged artificial brush piles in two Lake Havasu coves to improve habitat for young largemouth bass.

The manager of the DFG’s Imperial Wildlife Area at the Salton Sea reports a “great variety” of migratory waterfowl for bird watchers to see. . . . The Sierra Club and the Audubon Society will co-sponsor a tour of the Los Cerritos Wetlands in southeast Long Beach March 14, from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. . . .The DFG advises fishermen that 1987 California fishing licenses should be available at most state license agents (sporting goods stores). Further, the agency asks that any fisherman having difficulty locating a license agent with ’87 licenses call the DFG’s license office, (916) 739-3553, for assistance. . . . The growing Santa Monica Bay Halibut Derby will be held April 4-5 and the entry fee has been set at $25. Entry forms for the all-charity event are available at many Southland saltwater tackle shops or by mail from John Bourget, Santa Monica Bay Halibut Derby, 2117 Ashland Ave., Santa Monica, Calif., 90405.