OUTDOOR NOTES : Supporters Rally for Hunting Season

Battle lines were drawn when pro-hunting state legislators staged a rally on the capitol steps at Sacramento last week. The shooting will start when the dove season opens in the state Saturday.

The rally was held on the day the Fish and Game Commission approved the dove hunt in the face of hunting opposition. It is California’s second most popular hunt, after deer. An estimated 161,000 participated last year. Unlike mountain lions, bears or bighorn sheep, it is a more realistic measure of the hunters’ resolve to pursue their sport.

The rally, organized and led by Assemblyman Chris Chandler (R-Yuba City), drew an estimated 700 to 1,000 hunting partisans. Several legislators spoke, and their comments were strident and inflammatory.

Some said hunting was a “fundamental right” and “a part of California’s heritage and lifestyle.”

In Utah and other states, schools close for the opening of deer season; in California, most people would rather close deer season.

So pro-hunting committees and coalitions are being organized. But unless they stop the theatrics and rhetoric, it’s unlikely that the non-hunters will take them seriously. Also, such a tactic will do little to persuade the anti-hunters to adopt the premise that wildlife should be regarded less as humans--the “Bambi” syndrome--and more as a renewable resource.

It is up to reasonable minds to discuss the issue: The Department of Fish and Game’s contention that hunting is a necessary tool of wildlife management. Must some die so the rest may live?

Bill Yeates, the lawyer who represented the Fund for Animals and the Animal Legal Defense Fund in challenging the DFG’s migratory bird document, said: “I would like to get off the anti-hunting binge and focus on habitat protection, resource protection and stuff like that, and I would like to see Fund for Animals and other groups get involved in those issues.”

It’s difficult to argue with anti-hunters when they say the Fish and Game Commission and the Department of Fish and Game are pro-hunting at heart. Only three of the five commissioners participated in last week’s dove hearing. Jack Murdy of Newport Beach and Benjamin Biaggini of San Francisco were on separate vacations in Europe--hunting grouse and pheasant.

Briefly

DOVES--The Department of Fish and Game has a “Dove Hotline” for information on the hunt starting a half-hour before dawn Saturday: (213) 590-5045. Although cold snaps in Central California and storms in the southern deserts have scattered some birds, reports from Ventura County south indicate the presence of large flocks of white-wing and mourning doves. DFG Capt. Bill Powell said the Imperial Valley has “the highest concentration of white-winged doves that people remember seeing.” White-wings may be taken only in Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Bag and possession limits are 10 and 20.

SALTWATER--Cabo has picked up with a steady parade of dorado to 45 pounds, according to Darrell Primrose of the Finesterra Tortuga fleet. Dave Snyder, Los Angeles, landed one weighing 67 pounds. Striped marlin are slow because, some say, the water is too warm, but Primrose said “sailfish are everywhere” and yellowfin in the 30-pound range are in “the longest run of tuna I have ever seen here.” Blue marlin are running 300 to 400 pounds. . . . Thirty anglers aboard Bob Burns’ Red Rooster III on a five-day trip 200 miles west of San Diego returned Sunday with 231 yellowfin, 191 dorado and 125 yellowtail, among other catches. . . . Bill Roecker of South Coast Sportfishing magazine says the dorado are still in California waters. You just have to find the right kelp paddies. Roecker was with 15 anglers fishing seven miles off Oceanside and Carlsbad last week. Each got his limit of 10, from 5 to 25 pounds.

BOATS--The Coast Guard said 896 Americans died in boating accidents in 1989, and the Labor Day death toll is 73% higher than any other September weekend during the last 18 years. Alcohol is involved in 50% of the fatal accidents, and four of five victims are not wearing lifejackets. Another factor is poor lookouts.

FLY FISHING--The East Fork Fly Fishing Store in Irvine will hold a beginners’ class on Sept. 15 and an intermediate class on Sept. 29, with 1989 ACA national dry fly champion Matt Rickerd as instructor. Fee is $50. Details: (714) 724-8840. . . . Phil Eubanks will teach 1 1/2-day introductory classes each weekend in September at Bob Marriott’s Fullerton store. Charlene Hanson instructs in fly tying each Monday and Friday night. Details: (714) 5225-1827.

RECORDS--California-caught fish recently approved as world records by the International Game Fish Assn.: A 21-pound largemouth bass, 12-pound line class, caught by Castaic resident Robert Crupi at Lake Castaic on March, 9, 1990; a 31-pound white seabass, eight-pound line class, caught by Michael Franklin off Santa Catalina Island on March 17, 1990, and a 27-pound striped bass (landlocked), eight-pound tippet fly rod class, caught by Alfred Whitehurst in Merced County’s San Luis Reservoir on March 24, 1990.

TOURNAMENT--Bill Nott, who organized and lobbied for the interests of the Southern California sportfishing industry during his 17 years as head of the Sportfishing Assn. of California, will be a beneficiary of the third annual Oceans Foundation/SAC Oceans Shoot-Out tournament out of San Diego Oct. 2-3. Successor Bob Fletcher of SAC said he has raised $35,000 toward the goal of $150,000 for an annuity to pay Nott’s enormous medical expenses from respiratory illness. The account will receive half of the proceeds from the tournament, which will have four-man teams on five or more boats. The entry fee is $350 per angler, including food, bunk and Mexican license. More information: (619) 226-6455.