Outdoor Notes : State-Record Largemouth Bass Is Caught at Lake Miramar

At 6:15 last Monday morning, Sandy DeFresco, the concessions manager at San Diego’s Lake Miramar, took a short recess from her job and went fishing east of the boat dock on the south side of the reservoir. Moments later, she had the biggest largemouth bass caught anywhere since 1932.

DeFresco cast an 8-inch black plastic worm only a few times before hooking up with the bass, which tipped the scales at 21 pounds 10 ounces, shy of the 22-pound 4-ounce largemouth caught by George Perry at Georgia’s Montgomery Lake 26 years ago.

DeFresco’s pending California record was weighed by biologist Larry Bottroff of the Department of Fish and Game, who said it was 27.9 inches long, 25 inches in girth and was a female between 13 and 15 years old.

DeFresco’s catch eclipsed the former state record, a 21-pound 3-ounce fish taken by Ray Easley at Ventura County’s Lake Casitas on March 4, 1980.

Dave Chapple, a former punter with the Rams, has won Utah’s 1988-89 waterfowl stamp art competition, beating out 54 others with his rendition of a pair of mallard ducks in flight over a Utah marsh.

Chapple’s painting will be reproduced on the 1988-89 Utah waterfowl stamp.

Preliminary results of the state DFG’s March bighorn sheep aerial survey show the San Gabriel Mountains still have the largest population in California, 600 to 700 animals.

Wildlife biologists estimate the lamb-to-ewe ratio to be 27 to 100, which they say is adequate for the area. Last year’s ratio was 43-100.

The ground observation counts have not been tabulated.

The Air Force Academy grounds at Colorado Springs, Colo., will be opened to limited deer hunting this fall for the first time in 18 years because of a growing deer population and dwindling forage.

Without the hunting season, some of the estimated 1,500 to 2,000 deer could starve to death, according to wildlife officials.

The Oct. 15-Nov. 13 season for antlerless deer will be limited to 80 hunters, 40 of whom will be academy personnel, according to Tom Seamans, regional state wildlife manager. Only rifles may be used.

Mike Babler, academy resources officer, said about 100 deer are accidentally killed by motorists each year on academy reservation roads and adjoining Interstate 25. In 1986, there were 186 reported collisions between cars and deer on or near the academy.

The abalone season began Wednesday along most of the coastline and at the Channel Islands, and will open April 1 on the northeast side of Catalina Island and in northern California.

Last year, more than 70,000 pounds were sold commercially statewide, with prices ranging up to $40 a pound for processed abalone, according to biologist Dave Parker.

The limit is four per person but none may be taken in the area from Palos Verdes Point to Doheny State Beach, just south of Dana Point.

Briefly

The DFG has added a 100-foot boat to its fleet--the first such addition in almost 20 years--to patrol the Channel Islands and long-range areas the department’s boats have had trouble patrolling. . . . Santa Barbara County’s Lake Cachuma has changed its closing time from 5:30 to 6 p.m.