THE OUTDOORS : Outdoor Notes / Pete Thomas : It Took Awhile, but This Bass Finally Won Out Over Shark

Sam Bass’ latest fish story is a beaut.

The shark fisherman from Lomita, fishing alone recently near the west end of Catalina Island, hooked a mako shark whose size and strength were considerably more than ordinary.

Immediately after Bass set the hook, the shark, he said: “It took off screaming. I mean it must have jumped 10 feet out of the water.”

Six hours later, Bass finally had a chance to gaff the fish. On his first try, he hit the shark in the dorsal fin. The mako took off again and the battle was back on.

“Every once in a while he would come toward the boat,” Bass said. “But I wondered, ‘Am I doing any damage to this shark?’ ”

At about 11 p.m.--12 hours after hooking the fish--Bass began to pick up line as the shark circled closer and closer to the boat. He would soon get another chance.

When the shark was within range, Bass stuck it with a flying gaff--one attached to a rope--causing it to sound. “He blew up,” Bass said. “The gaff handle broke off, and the 50-pound test line (on his reel) snapped and I thought I lost it. But it was still attached to the gaff line at the bow and was pulling the boat under.

“I thought, ‘Geez, this thing’s pulling me under water.’ I had to run to the stern to keep the bow up.”

When the shark surfaced again, Bass gaffed it again, in the gills, and the shark began to thrash about his 20-foot boat.

Finally, Bass gaffed it a third time, in the mouth, and managed a few shots to the head with a .22 rifle before the shark was subdued enough to be roped into submission.

When Bass got back to Redondo’s King Harbor at 1:30 a.m., he dropped his shark off at the scales--where it weighed 687 pounds--and went home to sleep.

The 50-pound line world record mako stands at 1,080-pounds--also an all-tackle record--and was caught off Montauk, N.Y.

Add fish stories: Carl Kylma of Newport Beach recently caught a 136-pound striped marlin while fishing alone at the 14-mile bank off the coast of Newport Beach.

After hooking the fish on a trolled marlin lure, Kylma had to reel in the three other lines he was trolling, then had to maneuver the 35-foot boat while the fish alternately ran from and charged the boat.

“I reeled the other lines in while the fish was taking out my line,” Kylma said. “Then I had to back down (to gain line) . . . it was sheer pandemonium.”

Asked why he had attempted such a feat in the first place, Kylma, who has caught nearly 100 marlin, replied, “Because I’ve always wanted to, to see if I could do it.”

Eight California hunters have each won the right to shoot a bighorn sheep in San Bernardino County mountain ranges in California’s second legal hunt for the animals since 1873.

Names were chosen from among 3,385 applicants in a drawing, and the winners will have to pay $200 each for their licenses.

As was the case in 1987, all the sheep hunted this year will be of the Nelson species, and hunting will be restricted to two mountain ranges in San Bernardino County. The 16-day season opens Dec. 3 and ends Dec. 18.

Biologists said they may never know what caused 20 million fish to suddenly die recently in Delaware’s Little River, which flows into the Delaware Bay.

The fish kill, involving menhaden--a fish used mostly for bait--was discovered last week by watermen in the Kent County town of Little Creek, about a mile up the Little River from the Delaware Bay, said Roy Miller, supervisor of fisheries for the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

The silvery fish carcasses, less than 5 inches long, covered the surface of the Little River and littered the shore of the Delaware Bay up to Port Mahon, several miles north.

“It’s an unsightly mess,” said Miller, who said it was larger the last major fish kill on the river in the mid-1970s. “They’re certainly stacked up everywhere.”

Miller said the cause of the fish kill was probably oxygen depletion in the muddy river, but to pin it down any further may be impossible because of the advanced decomposition of the fish in the summer heat.

The Sportfishing Institute reports that Canada has abolished the use of drift nets within its 200-mile fishery zone. The action, widely appreciated by conservationists, is expected to pressure North Atlantic nations, mainly in Europe, to take similar action.

Drift net fisheries in the Atlantic and Pacific reportedly kill two salmon for every one captured, making it one of the most wasteful and inefficient ways of taking fish.

Wilfred Carter, president of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, called drift nets “the single most destructive piece of gear in existence and they should be banned.”

From Ranger Rick magazine: The sailfish is the world’s fastest swimming creature, capable of reaching speeds of 68 m.p.h., about the same speed as the cheetah, the fastest land animal.