Outdoor Notes : Hunting Regulations Will Be Set Next Week

Regulations on mammal hunting for 1987, including the controversial mountain lion hunt, will be set next Thursday and Friday when the California Fish and Game Commission meets in Sacramento.

In Thursday’s session, the commission will receive a report from the attorney general’s office on winter-run king salmon in the Sacramento River. The commission requested information on a petition listing of the salmon as an endangered species.

Friday’s session will deal with the adoption of hunting and trapping regulations. Beside the mountain lion hunt, the commission will consider seasons and zones for deer, elk, antelope, bears, tree squirrels, rabbits and wild pigs. A hunt for Nelson bighorn sheep, as authorized by the state Legislature last year, will also be addressed.

Survival experiments in rough, cold water have shown that the best way for boaters overboard to avoid hypothermia is to get out of the water, even if that means only atop an overturned boat in a storm, according to Cruising World magazine. Hypothermia is the rapid loss of internal body heat and can kill within minutes.

Cdr. Al Steinman, a United States public health physician assigned to the Coast Guard, said studies indicate that direct contact with water removes body heat 25 times faster than air at the same temperature. Being atop a raft, an overturned boat or wreckage is better than being in the water, even in high winds and a breaking sea.

According to Steinman, most people lose the use of their arms and legs when body core temperature falls to 95-94 degrees. At 86 degrees, victims lose consciousness, and at 77 degrees suffer cardiac arrest.

The June Lake Chamber of Commerce’s Monster Trout Contest is set for Saturday, April 25, opening day of the trout season.

Merchandise prizes in the one-day contest will be given for the biggest brown trout, the biggest rainbow, the biggest brook trout, the biggest trout from each of the June Lake Loop lakes--Gull, June, Silver and Grant--and the ugliest fish. The grand prize will go to the monster fish, the biggest overall.

Contestants must have valid fishing licenses--there is a one-day license available for $5--but there is no contest fee and no pre-registration. Fishermen may enter when they weigh their catches at official weigh-in stations at the marinas on each lake.

Briefly

A day-long symposium exploring the protection and recovery of the wolf will be sponsored by Defenders of Wildlife May 22 at the National Geographic Society’s Gilbert H. Grosvenor Auditorium in Washington, D.C. There will be panel discussions on the politics and potential conflicts of the reintroduction of the gray wolf in Yellowstone Park and the red wolf in the Southeast, and the recovery of the Mexican wolf in the Southwest and the timber wolf in Minnesota. . . . The Santa Clarita chapter of Ducks Unlimited will hold its sixth annual banquet and fund raiser May 14 at the Odyssey restaurant in Granada Hills. For further information, call (818) 998-8589 or (805) 252-7927. . . . United Anglers of California will hold their annual meeting April 28 at the Marin Rod and Gun Club in San Rafael to discuss the state of California’s sport fisheries. Congressman Douglas Bosco (D-Santa Rosa) will be the keynote speaker.