Outdoor Notes / Pete Thomas : Fishing at Zihuatanejo Said to Be Equal to Cabo

Cabo San Lucas may be more popular, but it is not necessarily the best place to fish in Mexico.

Linda Knowles and her husband, Lynn, stopped going there 5 years ago. The Orange County couple felt it was becoming too crowded. Instead, they make their twice-annual fishing trips farther south to mainland Mexico’s Zihuatanejo, near the resort city of Ixtapa.

The fishing there, the Knowles say, is every bit as good, if not better.

The pair returned recently from a panga fishing trip that Linda Knowles organized with 16 others. In a few day’s fishing the group claimed a total of 5 blue marlin, 1 black marlin, 33 sailfish and 91 yellowfin tuna.

Big fish included a 180-pound yellowfin tuna caught by Frank Kondo of Costa Mesa, a 156-pounder caught by Jerri Flannigan, a 250-pound blue marlin caught by Phil Ginsberg of Riverside and a 200-pound black marlin caught by John Murphy.

Lynn Knowles, using a customized 2-speed Penn International spooled with 80-pound test line, landed a 134-pound yellowfin in just 6 minutes.

“(At) Cabo San Lucas we’ve either had no luck or have been winded out,” Linda Knowles said. “This was our fourth trip (to Zihuatanejo) and there’s virtually no wind, and no chop.

“It’s still kind of primitive down there, though,” Knowles said of the quaint fishing village. “This is the first year they even had a scale, so we weighed all the fish and brought home lots of meat.”

What Kona is for blue marlin and Christmas Island for bonefish, the North Fork River in northwestern Arkansas has become for big brown trout.

According to Splash, the publication of the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame, a century-old dispute over the all-tackle world record for browns ended recently when a 38-pound 9-ounce catch by Michael H. Manley of North Little Rock was verified.

That topped the 34-pound 6-ounce brown Robert Henderson caught at Arcadia Bar Lake, Mich., in 1984 that was recognized by the Hall of Fame; the 35-pound, 15-ounce catch by Eugenio Cavaglia in Argentina in 1952, recognized by the International Game Fish Assn., and a somewhat mythological 37-pounder supposedly caught somewhere in Scotland in the mid-19th century. Manley also set a line-class record by using 8-pound test line. He was fishing near the confluence of the White River, the same area that yielded the world 2-, 4- and 6-pound test records since 1977. A week later, Dave Wooten caught a 34-pounder on 17-pound test near that spot.

Manley’s bait: Marshmallows and corn kernels on a No. 16 treble hook.

Gray whales are migrating south from the Bering Sea to breed in the warmer waters off Baja California, but on their way they will have to contend with gill nets laid out by commercial fishermen.

With this in mind, a coalition of volunteers has organized a gill net watch program and is asking boaters to help.

Anyone coming across a whale, sea lion or dolphin entangled in a net--since 1981 there have been several documented whale entanglements from Point Conception to the Mexican border--is urged to radio Vessel Assist on channel 16.

Vessel Assist, a towing and assistance company based in Orange County, will relay details to the Whale Rescue Unit, formed in 1985 and sanctioned by the National Marine Fisheries Service, that is on call day and night.

The WRU then will coordinate the rescue efforts with the guidance of the NMFS.

Arthur Dubs, a Medford, Ore., man who paid $47,500 at an auction for a special bighorn sheep hunting permit, bagged a potential record book ram in early December at Arizona’s Aravapia Canyon area.

One biologist said the ram’s horns were unofficially scored at 195 points, and taxidermist John Boyle, who scored the ram at 198 5/8 points, said its horns had 11 annually grown rings, indicating that it was about 12 years old.

Points for bighorn sheep are awarded through a complex scoring process based on the length and circumference of the horns. Desert sheep scoring in the high 180s are considered rare.

The official scoring on Dub’s sheep must wait for the mandatory 60-day drying period, but it should have no trouble making the book.

The Boone and Crockett Club, the governing authority for North American big game records taken with firearms, founded in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt, requires horns scoring at least 168 points to make its record list.

Briefly

Redondo Sport Fishing is offering daily whale watching trips aboard the Voyager, a double-deck excursion boat. All trips are narrated by volunteers from the American Cetacean Society. . . .California resident sportfishing licenses for 1989 are available at DFG offices and most sporting goods stores. The price has increased 25 cents to $19.25. . . .Showtime: The 24th annual Anaheim Sports Vacation and RV Show, featuring more than 600 outdoor exhibits, is scheduled for Jan. 7-15 at the Anaheim Convention Center; The 33rd annual Southern California Boat Show, exhibiting more 1,000 boats and featuring a boat-a-day giveaway, will run Feb. 3-12, 1989, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. . . .A seminar for salt water anglers on how to catch winter calico bass will be held Jan. 5 at 7 p.m. at the Angler’s Tackle Box in Seal Beach. . . .Adventure 16 Outdoor & Travel Outfitters is offering free seminars on cold weather camping Tuesday at its Tarzana store and Jan. 10 at its West Los Angeles store. Both clinics start at 6:30 p.m. . . . Flyfishing: The Pasadena Casting Club will hold a 7-week fly tying course beginning Jan. 10 at La Casita del Arroyo in Pasadena. For more information call (818) 286-2743; A 4-week class in flyrod construction will be conducted by the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers at the Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Senior Citizens Center, beginning Jan. 11 from 7:30-9 p.m.