OUTDOOR NOTES : Will Activists Halt This Dove Season?
California dove hunters are awakening to the possibility there will be no dove season.
Long taken for granted as a late-summer rite, dove season ordinarily would start by Sept. 1. But the annual trek into the hinterlands was jeopardized earlier this month when the Fund for Animals and the Animal Legal Defense Fund filed comments critical of the environmental document prepared by the Department of Fish and Game to support the proposed migratory game bird regulations for 1990-91.
These are the same animal rights groups whose challenge last week knocked out the archery bear hunting season, which was scheduled to start Saturday. Anticipating a similar challenge, the Fish and Game Commission postponed approval of dove, band-tailed pigeon and crow regulations until next Wednesday in Sacramento to give DFG biologists time to rework their evaluations and make recommendations. Waterfowl regulations will be considered Aug. 30-31.
David Whiteside of Lancaster, who owns the Antelope Valley Sportsman’s Club private pheasant ranch, said: “The dove opener is the biggest thing for the hunter (in California). This year, a lot of guys are going to be madder’n hell.”
Whiteside, with former legislative analyst Kent DeChambeaux of Sacramento, is organizing the Shooting and Hunting Sports Legal Defense Fund with a goal of $1,000 a day to meet the challenges in court.
He concedes that hunters generally slept through the passage in June of Prop. 117--the so-called mountain lion initiative--and the archery bear ban, but the threat to dove hunting got their attention.
They’re not albacore, but they’re what many Southland fishermen rate as the next best thing--bigeye tuna. And if one boat’s recent catch is any indication, the bigeyes could become a viable alternative to the conspicuously absent longfins.
Bigeye tuna generally are larger than albacore but usually not abundant enough to constitute a worthwhile target for an extended period. Those fishermen on a recent four-day trip aboard the Qualifier 105 learned differently.
John Klein was operating the boat just south of Guadalupe Island--about 210 miles south of Pt. Loma--Saturday afternoon when his meter became clouded with fish.
“It was just a mass, it was unbelievable,” Klein said after returning to port Tuesday morning. “I’ve been fishing long-range since 1975, and I’ve never seen that many bigeye under the boat, and I’ve seen some pretty good bigeye (schools).”
The bite--during which the vessel drifted 36 miles--began at 7:45 Saturday night and lasted until noon Sunday, after 575 fish had been boated.
“And there was still 100 tons of fish underneath the boat when I left,” Klein said.
Bigeye tuna often weigh more than 100 pounds and, pound for pound, have no superiors in strength. The all-tackle world record bigeye is a 435-pounder taken off Cabo Blanco, Peru.
The fish caught aboard the Qualifier 105, however, averaged about 25 pounds, with some going as high as 40.
“Generally, when you see that quantity, they’re going to be smaller, school-size fish,” said Ron Dotson, a migratory species expert with the National Marine Fisheries Service. “When you get fish in the 100-pound range, you frequently find them in singles, doubles, maybe 10 at a time. But usually you don’t find a large school that size, and you’re not going to land 500 100-pound fish.”
Huntington Beach Pier is scheduled to be torn down, and plans are to use its concrete to construct an artificial fishing reef in 70 feet of water off Bolsa Chica State Beach.
Jim Paulk, who helped raise money for the Committee to Ban Gill-Nets, said a news conference will be held Thursday at 11:30 a.m. at the pier “to announce what it will take” to get the project started.
Asked to elaborate, he said this project will also require raising money, as well as approval by the Huntington Beach City Council.
“This is a win-win proposition because we increase the (fish) habitat, and we don’t take up space at a landfill,” Paulk said.
The pier has been closed since being battered by violent winter storms in 1988. Officials say it will be rebuilt by 1992.
