THE OUTDOORS : Outdoor Notes / Rich Roberts : Albacore Are Taken 95 Miles Off San Diego; Also a Run on Bluefin

Top Dog, skippered by Bob Taft, claimed the first albacore taken within range of day boats this year when he brought back three to Fisherman’s Landing in San Diego Tuesday.

The albacore had been holding about 200 miles south of San Diego for the last month, but Taft said he was only 95 miles out. However, the fish were relatively small--eight to 10 pounds--and operators were reluctant to declare that a run was on until more boats tried the area.

More exciting to some anglers was an apparent surge in bluefin tuna activity 70 to 95 miles south of San Diego. One was taken Sunday, then the three area landings combined for 89 Monday.

A hunter in Washington state and a land owner in Alaska survived attacks by grizzly bears last weekend, the Associated Press reported.

“I could just hear his teeth grinding against my skull,” Steve Nordness, 39, said from a hospital in Everett, Wash.

He was released Sunday after being treated for wounds on his head, hands and buttocks that required more than 100 stitches.

In Alaska, Donald Covertson, 32, was in satisfactory condition in a Fairbanks hospital with stitches in his scalp, face, neck and ankle.

“The bear had his head in its mouth and shook him,” said Marge Nord of Cantwell Volunteer Ambulance. “It left and came back and shook him again. He said he could hear the bones crunching.”

Covertson, of Palmer, waded across the icy, swift Chulitna River and fought his way through woods to the Parks Highway between Anchorage and Fairbanks. He collapsed in view of passing motorists, Steven and Betty Ballek of North Pole, Alaska, who took him to a gas station for help.

Nordness, of Clearview, Wash., said he shot a black bear with a .30-06 caliber rifle in the Beckler River Valley near Skykomish. But the animal, which he estimated at 400 pounds, ran off into trees and thick brush. The state’s bear season opened Aug. 1.

Nordness, who was alone, went to a nearby campground to get help before going after the wounded animal. A young man he remembered only as Kelly agreed to go with him.

About an hour later, Nordness spotted the bear charging only a few feet to his left. He fired point-blank into the bear’s chest, but it kept coming and knocked him down.

“Oh God, make him stop, make him stop,” Nordness said he thought as the bear stood on his back, tearing into him.

Then Kelly ran up, and the bear ran off. Despite his wounds, Nordness walked with Kelly a quarter-mile to his car and drove himself to Skykomish for help.

“I wish I could find the bear that got me,” he said. “I’d like to have that carcass for a rug.”

Shark derbies have become a popular activity in Southern California, but one scheduled Aug. 26-27 by the United Anglers of Southern California has a twist: It’s catch and release.

The recently organized group is conducting the Mako/Blue Shark Live Tag and Release Derby to raise funds for shark conservation and to monitor the commercial long-line fishery. Entries will be limited to 300 four-man teams, at $250 each.

There is no base port for the tournament, although an awards barbecue is scheduled Aug. 27 at 6 p.m. in the new Pavilion area at Newport Dunes on Newport Bay. Because anglers won’t be bringing their catches in to be counted, competition will be on the honor system. Catches will be reported by radio from the individual boats.

Jim Gilmore, council director of UASC, said, “This is indeed an experiment.”

But he said he doesn’t anticipate cheating, especially when one boat is within sight of another.

Each team captain or boat owner will be required to enroll in the DFG’s shark tagging program and will be provided tags and instructions. Tagged fish will earn bonus points, and fish landed on lighter test line will score higher.

For more details, call (714) 674-1841.

Sudden alarm about the depleted winter-run king salmon in the upper Sacramento River has aroused a frenzy of activity by the Department of Fish and Game and the Fish and Game Commission.

The run went from 117,000 to 500 in 20 years and from an angling season to endangered species designation in only one year when the authorities finally conceded they had a problem, which field advisers had been telling them for years.

A 1988 study by the California Advisory Committee on Salmon and Steelhead Trout concluded that water storage and diversion had reduced available spawning habitat from 6,000 to 300 miles in the fishery that produces 70% of the salmon caught in California waters.

The DFG plans to dump 12,000 tons of spawning gravel into the river below the Keswick Dam northwest of Redding, an area of critical salmon habitat. One-fourth of the gravel will be white quartz, which biologists hope to track as it is moved downstream by future high flows, altering the spawning beds.

The department also will install a Denil-type fish ladder--in effect, a water escalator--at the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District diversion dam at Redding to assist adult salmon in their migration to the upper five miles of the river.

The commission has scheduled a hearing Aug. 29 in Sacramento to determine if further measures are necessary.

Briefly

New Zealand hunting and fishing officer Barry Jagger will present a free slide show Aug. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at Marriott’s Fly Fishing Center in Fullerton. He will also be there all day Aug. 19 to discuss and show videos of sportsmen’s opportunities in the country. . . . Fly-tier Andre Puyans, winner of the 1977 Buz Buszek Memorial Award for his craft, will appear at the monthly dinner meeting of the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers Aug. 17, 6:30 p.m., at the Odyssey Restaurant in Mission Hills. Details: (818) 785-7306.

The Irvine and Santa Ana River lakes’ “Cash Catfish Caper” will run Friday through Sept. 4. Heavy stocking for the event has included channel cats up to 20 pounds. . . . The San Gabriel Flyfishers will conduct a free beginners’ fly-casting clinic Aug. 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the Legg Lake-Whittier Narrows Visitors Center. A program on Montana fly fishing by Greg Lilly will follow. Details: (818) 576-2257.

Olympic medalist Dan Carlisle has scheduled Sporting Clays shooting clinics at Raahauge’s in Norco, Aug. 27, Sept. 30 and Oct. 7 for beginners and Aug. 26, Sept. 3 and Oct. 8 for intermediates. Details: (714) 735-4104.