Outdoor Notes : Hurricane Kiko Blows Through Baja Peninsula

Hurricane Kiko swept across the southern Baja peninsula over the weekend and, although it may be gone, it won’t be quickly forgotten, since power outages and water shortages could last up to two weeks.

“We’re all very warm and very smelly,” Lowanda Josephson of Cabo San Lucas’ Tortuga Sportfishing said Tuesday. “Some (resort owners) are taking water out of the pools for showers.”

Cabo San Lucas, on the tip of the peninsula, was less affected than areas north to La Paz and people were even out fishing on Saturday--just hours before the hurricane hit--despite 10- to 14-foot swells. The port captain closed the harbor on Sunday after the hurricane had already passed, fearing it would reverse course and head back to the popular resort city.

Luis Bulnes of the Solmar Hotel said there was minimal damage, adding: “Fishing is still very good.”

Farther north, however, people weren’t so fortunate as 115-m.p.h. winds shattered windows and sand-blasted houses and hotels. Hardest hit was La Rivera, where heavy rains caused flash floods and mudslides, which destroyed several homes.

Richard Castaneda, representative of Hotel Spa Buenavista, about eight miles north of La Rivera, said that as far as he knew there weren’t any boats lost in the chubasco .

“We got ours out of the water in time so we’re OK,” he said, adding that they were back in operation Monday morning.

But, he added, “There are a lot of damaged homes. We have seven rooms out . . . there’s a lot of sand. There’s a major cleanup going on right now. The worst part is that there is no air conditioning.”

Castaneda did say that fishing is expected to improve in the next few days because of floating debris left by the the storm and minerals swept into the ocean in the runoff.

“It’s normally very good after a storm,” he said. “Two years ago we had a good rain and there was a floating tree stump and this big ball of bait under it. There were literally hundreds of small dorado right under it and further down there were bull dorado, wahoo and yellowfin tuna.”

Josephson agreed, saying: “Fishing will be fine but there are not a lot of folks around to find out about it.”

Without electricity, not a lot of folks will be able to get fuel, either. And with tropical storm Lorena having developed off Southern Mexico, and tropical storm Manuel hot on its heels, it may be a while before things get back to normal.

The long-awaited hearing on Assembly Bill 1, which would provide for the phasing out of gill nets off the Southern California coastline by 1993, will be held Nov. 10 at the Long Beach City Council Chambers, said Assemblywoman Doris Allen, the bill’s author.

The Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee will hear only testimony during the hearing, and will withhold a vote until the Assembly reconvenes.

Sea World Research Institute’s mariculture team announced that in the first six months of 1989, it has released more than 23,000 white sea bass into Mission Bay--an all-time high in the Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program’s five-year history.

The recent recapture of a marked white sea bass estimated to be 523 days old confirmed the survival of one of the earliest OREHAP releases.

In a separate project aimed at enhancing Southern California’s marine fisheries, researchers at the institute are asking for the sportfishing public’s help in monitoring two Fish Aggregating Devices they placed five and 15 miles off Mission Bay last March.

The FADs--marked by yellow buoys and reachable at a heading of 226 degrees from Mission Bay’s entrance--produced their first sport catch last May, a 36-pound thresher shark.

Response cards can be obtained at local landings and bait shops or by calling the institute at (619) 226-3870.

Eight hunters were chosen from 2,545 applicants in a public drawing by the Department of Fish and Game for this year’s bighorn sheep hunt. The eight--at a cost of $200 for California residents and $495 for non-residents--will be allowed to hunt either San Bernardino County’s Marble Mountains or the nearby Kelso Peak-Old Dad range.

An additional permit was auctioned off earlier for $40,000, which will be put in a special account for research and habitat projects for the animals.

Since a ban on hunting the bighorn sheep in California was lifted in 1986, the annual hunts have become a focal point of animal rights activists, whose efforts to interrupt the hunts have gained statewide notoriety.

Briefly

The 31st annual Hawaii Island Billfish Tournament, held last month off Kailua-Kona, pumped $6 million into the area, the Hawaii Visitors’ Bureau announced. The event, with 80 teams from 20 countries participating this year, is widely acknowledged as the World Series of deep-sea fishing . . . Two teams from the Soviet Union are expected to enter the 1990 Iditarod sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome, race officials said.

The DFG is looking for volunteers to assist in a trout census project in the Eastern Sierra. For more information call (213) 337-6114. . . . Per capita consumption of fish dropped this year--from 15.4 to 15 pounds--for the first time in five years, the National Marine Fisheries Service reported.

Fly fishing: Charlene Hansen will teach “Proper Fly Tying” Mondays from 7-10 p.m. at Marriott’s Fly Fishing Center in Fullerton. Jack McKenzie will discuss New Zealand’s trophy trout fishery at the South Bay Flyfishers’ meeting Sept. 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Westchester Townhouse in Westchester.