Outdoor Notes : Poll Shows 67% of Fishermen Favor the New Trout Rules

While about 15,000 anglers were fishing at Crowley Lake and its tributaries on the opening day of the Eastern Sierra trout season April 25, personnel from the Department of Fish and Game were taking a poll.

Question before the house: How do you feel about the new regulations?

Drastic changes are in effect this season, calling for a two-fish limit--18 inches minimum size--on all Crowley tributaries east of US 395. Gear is restricted to artificial lures and flies with single, barbless hooks.

The DFG said 67% of fishermen surveyed April 25-26 approved of the new regulations, 23% were opposed and 10% undecided.

One pollster, biologist Darrell Wong, said converts became evident as opening day wore on.

“Early in the day, before people began to catch fish, many were against the new regs, but as the day continued into late morning and early afternoon, and they began to catch fish, opinions changed to favorable.”

The survey was conducted at seven tributaries: the Upper Owens River, and Crooked, Convict, McGee, Hilton, Whiskey and Deadman creeks. About 90% of those polled were using the Upper Owens River.

Recent breeding activity among captive black-footed ferrets has led to “guarded optimism” for the success of the captive-breeding program by Wyoming state biologists.

The program was implemented last year in hopes of replenishing the wild population of a mammal said to be possibly North America’s most endangered.

Art Reese, Wyoming Game and Fish Dept. official, said the breeding of a juvenile male and a mature female failed to produce a pregnancy last year and that there still are many unknowns concerning the breeding of captive ferrets. Confirmation of pregnancy in any of the 11 captive females won’t be possible until late June, officials indicated.

A commercial fisherman near Alaska’s Bristol Bay recently caught a tagged white sturgeon from Washington’s Columbia River. The sturgeon, tagged in 1983, had traveled more than 2,000 miles--a record for sturgeon, biologists believe.

Briefly The National Boating Federation recently complained to Congress that proposed cuts in the U.S. Coast Guard budget for next year would weaken boating safety programs. . . . The World Speed Shooting Championships will be held in conjunction with the Budweiser Shooting and Hunting Sports Fair May 15-17 at Raahauge’s Pheasant Hunting Club in Norco. . . . The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, Flotilla 42, will conduct a series of boating classes beginning June 1 at the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey. . . . DFG biologists and Pasadena Casting Club volunteers will begin another electroshock study of wild rainbow trout numbers in the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, beginning May 27. . . . The Balboa Angling Club will sponsor a free half-day fishing trip for 50 underprivileged Southland children June 24.