THE OUTDOORS : Outdoor Notes / Rich Roberts : Sporting Equipment for Disabled Will Be on Display at Long Beach Show

The California Department of Fish and Game issues free fishing licenses to people who qualify as disabled under some finely worded guidelines. The regular fee is $19.25, but only 8,237 disabled people took advantage of the break last year, according to the DFG.

Judy Pachner wonders how many would be fishing if they knew about the discount and suspected they could fish, despite their disabilities.

Pachner, as far as she knows, is the only distributor of fishing and other sporting equipment for the disabled. Her products, listed in a catalogue of “Products to Assist the Disabled Sportsman,” will be exhibited at Fred Hall’s Western Fishing Tackle and Boat Show at the Long Beach Convention Center March 1-5.

Pachner runs what she calls her “one-woman project” out of her home in Trabuco Canyon in Orange County. She started it in 1985 after her father, Leo Pachner, suffered an aneurysm that left him paralyzed below the waist. Pachner, who had a fishing tackle company in Illinois, found he could no longer go fishing without great difficulty, so his daughter started searching for products to assist him.

Finding none, she went to work developing some and wound up with a line of 42 items, from rod holders that attach to wheelchairs to electric reels for one-handed angling.

“The items were there, but some of them were being made by individuals in their garages or basements for personal use,” Pachner said. “They had a family member that was disabled, or a friend. But they didn’t know how to distribute them.

“Some of the other items, you would find in any sporting goods store, but when the manufacturers made them, they didn’t think it might interest someone who had a specific disability--people with sight impairment, arthritis. The fish grabber is a real good example.”

The fish grabber is a piece of soft plastic formed to fit around a fish, not only to provide a better grip but to protect the fish’s sensitive skin.

“They were thinking of it to protect the fish so you could practice catch and release,” Pachner said. “As soon as I saw it, I’m thinking of it for people who can’t grip.”

Her customers have included a Minneapolis man, Tony Labahn, 25, who has no arms or legs, and an Indianapolis man, Tim Christie, 39, who uses hooks as hands.

“Tony’s fabulous,” Pachner said. “He holds the rod with his chin and flips his shoulder to throw the bait. He uses the electric reel by opening the bail with his tongue and pushing the button with his chin.”

Pachner said that before he got an electric reel, Labahn “was using his tongue to push the handle on the reel. He couldn’t retrieve fast enough to land fish.”

Christie operates his electric reel by a rheostat connected to a pressure tube in his mouth.

Pachner said she has no idea how many disabled fishermen there are in the country.

“But it’s not so much that they’re fishermen as potential fishermen,” she said.

She cites a statistic of 10,000 debilitating spinal cord injuries in the country each year.

A New Hampshire hunter bid $40,000 to win California’s third bighorn sheep hunt auction at Reno last weekend.

The hunter, who asked to remain anonymous, will have an exclusive hunt next winter in advance of eight other hunters who will be selected from about 3,000 applicants and will pay $200 for their tags. The money goes into a state fund for bighorn sheep research and management.

The hunts will be in the Marble Mountain and Old Dad-Kelso Peak areas of the eastern Mojave Desert near Baker.

Killing of bighorns was banned by the California legislature in 1873 when the animals were close to extinction. The ban lasted 113 years until 1986, when Gov. Deukmejian signed a bill to permit limited hunting under the supervision of the DFG.

Briefly

Hands-on experiences will be available to visitors to the Western Fishing Tackle and Boat Show. The Sportmart Fishing and Camping School, noting that show visitors are often shy or intimidated in the presence of experts, will offer free instruction to adult and juvenile beginners in fishing and camping procedures, including how to build a campfire, pitch a tent and tie fishing knots. Also, an outdoor pond will be stocked with trout for free fishing by children 12 and younger. Two booths will offer continuous instruction in fly tying. Admission is $6 for adults. There is no charge for accompanied children 12 and under.

Remington has recalled a limited quantity of 12-gauge, 2 3/4-inch 00 buckshot loads produced during 1988. Some of the shells were found to have been loaded without powder. Buyers may call (800) 634-2459 to determine if their lot is affected. The package will be needed for identification. . . . Jack Irvin Perry, 33, of Paso Robles, received a nine-month suspended sentence, was fined $700 and must serve 100 hours of community service with the DFG for poaching a deer near Ely, Nev., last October.