OUTDOOR NOTES : A Fish Out of Water May Have Set Record

George W. Perry would get a kick out of the fish story that evolved Monday at Lake Castaic.

Leo Bardo of North Hollywood was trolling a Rapala along the west shore of Castaic’s upper reservoir when he hooked into a largemouth bass. He brought it over the rail at about 11:30 a.m. The fish was huge, but Bardo didn’t know how huge.

He made no attempts to keep the fish alive or even fresh. He kept on fishing until late afternoon, finally weighing his catch at an unattended scale at the lake. “It was over 21 pounds then,” Bardo said.

Bardo, 46, took the fish to the Castaic Mini Mart later in the day, where it tipped an uncertified scale at exactly 21 pounds--shy of the lake record by an ounce; shy of Perry’s longstanding world record by only a pound and four ounces.

Had Bardo kept his fish fresh, could he have replaced Perry in the record book, where he has been listed since his 1932 catch of a 22-pound 4-ounce bass in Alabama’s Montgomery Lake?

Possibly.

“I know the fish lost two pounds,” Larry Denny, a tournament fisherman for the past 31 years, said Tuesday. “That large of a fish in the sun, when he dries up and dies he can lose two pounds easily.”

Denny, 47, owner of All-Pro Bait & Tackle in North Hollywood, was the one who found a certified scale for Bardo--almost 12 hours after the catch.

“I finally found one at about 10:30 (Monday) night, and at that time he weighed 20.86 pounds,” Denny said. “You imagine that the fish laid in the air in the bottom of the boat for 7 1/2 hours before it was first weighed in. At that time, all they could tell him was that it was over 21 pounds.”

Larry Bottroff, a fisheries biologist with the Department of Fish and Game, said a fish left out of the water in the sun “could dehydrate to the point it could lose a lot of water.

“If he just left it out of the water,” Bottroff added, “then it’s conceivable it could lose several pounds.”

Bardo’s response: “I didn’t know. If I would have known, I would have kept him alive. I found that out later, otherwise I would have just gone (to weigh the fish). But I kept fishing.”

Who knows, maybe Bardo will get another chance. The large bass in Castaic appear to have awakened well before the start of the spring season. An 18 3/4-pound largemouth was caught last week at the Los Angeles County reservoir, and Covina’s Greg Damore took a 14-pounder Sunday.

If anyone should happen to catch a large bass and have no means to keep it alive, what is the best thing to do?

“All they would have to do is flag a bass boat down,” Denny said. “They all carry aerated live wells. There’s not a soul out there that I know of that wouldn’t help a man keep a fish alive.”

U.S. troops may soon be using off-duty hours to go “fishing.” Shadowfax Software of Fairfield, Iowa, is staging a computerized bass tournament called “Desert Shield Divisional Tournament” and has begun sending copies of Bass Champ to servicemen in the Persian Gulf.

“We figure there are times when any soldier would rather be fishing,” Shadowfax President Scott Hartley said. “Since there aren’t many lakes in Saudi Arabia but plenty of computers, we want to give them the next best thing.”

For $5, individuals and companies can sponsor a soldier, specifically or otherwise, by calling (800) 626-0097.

Hartley said the disk-based tournament will allow computer fishermen to compete with each other in fictitious Lake Stikapig--choosing lures and lure colors, deciding on retrieve rates, etc.--from remote locations by cryptically recording their results during three hours of computer time. Contestants will then mail their disks back to the company where they will be “weighed in” and recorded.

The winner will receive a real-life bass fishing outing with Rich Tauber, a national contender on the professional bass fishing circuit and chief consultant in designing the software.

Briefly

FISHING--Spring hasn’t sprung, but there are signs that it is just around the corner. Private boaters have reported catching salmon off the Newport Beach coast, and white seabass have shown off Catalina Island and locally in southern Santa Monica Bay. Top Gun out of L.A. Harbor reported boating two fish in the 25-pound range and losing a few others Tuesday, while Redondo Sportfishing and at least one six-pack charter boat had a fair run on the fish off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. San Diego long-range: Large yellowfin tuna are cooperating with fishermen at the Revillagigedo Islands off the coast of Mexico. Royal Polaris pulled into Fisherman’s Landing Tuesday with 518 yellowfin, the largest a 184-pounder caught by Bill Nakaki of Tracy. Qualifier Excell returned to port Sunday with 379 tuna, including a 195-pound fish caught by Bruce Kattes of San Diego.

ECLIPSE--The seven-minute total solar eclipse that will occur in southern Baja California on July 11 will draw between 80,000 and 100,000 people, according to estimates of Rodolfo Palacios Romo, who is in charge of coordinating eclipse activities. “If you don’t have a place to stay, don’t come,” Palacios told Mexico West Travel. Hotels from La Paz to Cabo San Lucas are booked, and camping on beaches and public lands will not be allowed without special permission.

OILED BIRDS--More than half of those affected by the Jan. 8 spill into Los Angeles Harbor will be returned to their natural environment, according to the Department of Fish and Game. Biologists have cleaned and rehabilitated 29 of 56 birds--brown pelicans, western grebes, loons, herons and gulls. Eight others are expected to be released “in the near future.”

PROGRAMS--Doug Swisher, Fly Fishing the Big Sky Country, with an in-depth look at the Big Horn, Bitteroot and Missouri rivers, at the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers’ Feb. 21 meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the Odyssey Restaurant in Mission Hills. Information: (818) 785-7306. Swisher will also give an all-day seminar on casting and techniques for fresh water and saltwater Feb. 16 at Greg Lilly’s in Tustin. Cost: $50. Information: (714) 669-1006 . . . Bass fishing techniques, instructed by various bass pros, Feb. 9-10 at Glendale and Orange Coast colleges. Cost: $59 for both days. Register by phone or on site.

MISCELLANY--The launch ramp at Marina del Rey--which handles 20,000 launchings a year--will undergo renovation starting Feb. 11. Two of eight lanes will be open until the work is complete sometime this spring.