Of Note / Pete Thomas : Giant Black Bear Turns Out to Be No Match for Fox

Orange County’s Dan Fox went all out to bag a huge black bear biologists say has been eluding hunters in the San Bernardino Mountains for four years.

The bear, believed to be the largest ever taken in Southern California, measured 8 feet 2 inches long and weighed 650 pounds.

Using eight hounds to track the animal, Fox needed 2 1/2 hours to follow his dogs uphill and through dense vegetation before encountering the bruin in a manzanita thicket.

“I shot him in the neck from 30 feet . . . but it didn’t kill him,” Fox said. “And he started running right at me, not knowing I was there. And I shot him again three seconds later, at eight feet. Pretty thrilling.”

It has been quite a season in the San Bernardinos. Department of Fish and Game biologist Kevin Brennan said 10 black bears, many of them unusually large, have been bagged since the season opened Oct. 14.

LOOKING BACK . . .

To the days when Orange County had actual orange groves and expansive green meadows. When ducks and geese abounded so, they blotted out the sun.

Well, not quite.

But one imaginative duck hunter, taking liberties with his gun as well as with his pen, was obviously impressed during an early 1880s trip to an area called Gospel Swamp--now Upper Newport Bay.

Writing for The Young Oologist magazine in a story reprinted in the current issue of California Waterfowl, A.M. Shields told it as he saw it:

“We were up bright and early and at our posts at sunrise. We did not have long to wait; soon a few straggling ducks come sailing along at an inviting distance over our heads and we give them a couple of loads for luck and bring down a couple of daring old drake mallards.

“Then three or four detached flocks come rushing along, all heedless of their impending doom. We get in a couple of good telling shots among these, and then--Mercy! but what is that dark cloud which comes rushing along with a muffled roar? We do not have to wait for an answer. Soon the ducks are upon us, like a whirlwind, on their way back to the bays. At their arrival bang! bang! go our fowling pieces, but such is the tumult you could not hear the reports 200 yards distance.”

Mercy, indeed.

ACROSS THE POND

The International Game Fish Assn. reports the following “unusual” events in the last few months at the Azores, a remote island chain off the northwest coast of Africa:

--Belgian angler Leo Cloostermans landing a 573-pound blue marlin on four-pound test line. (Yes, if approved, it will be a line-class world record.)

--Three German anglers, with captain Joseph Franck aboard the Shanghai, tagging and releasing three “granders”--marlin of 1,000 pounds or more--in a period of less than four hours; and in six days catching 13 blues averaging 650 pounds apiece.

MISCELLANY

DFG warden Sam Castillo last week apprehended three men who allegedly had abducted a 12-year-old girl, intending to rape her.

Castillo, searching for poachers in Northern California’s Sutter Bypass, noticed a car parked on a levee road, and when he shone the spotlight, the driver started the car. Castillo blocked the escape and four people got out of the vehicle, including the girl, who ran toward him crying for help.

Castillo held the men at gunpoint until Sutter County sheriff’s deputies arrived to take the men into custody.

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The Bolsa Chica Artificial Reef off Huntington Beach was bolstered last week with the addition of 1,200 street-light poles that had been earmarked for a local landfill. Thanks to the United Anglers of Southern California, which funded the project, and the Department of Fish and Game, which provided supervision, the light poles will provide added habitat for various forms of sea life, including game fish.

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L.A. Harbor Sportfishing’s First String on Friday night will head to Santa Catalina Island on a scientific collection expedition. The trip features not only an up-close look at life in kelp forests, the gathering of plankton and chumming up of sharks, but an attempt to capture a primitive-looking hagfish. The public is invited at a cost of $75. Details: (310) 548-7562.

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Fly-fishing expert Chico Fernandez will give a tying demonstration and slide show on opportunities in Alaska for the Wilderness Fly Fishers and general public next Tuesday at 6:15 p.m. at the Olympic Collection in Santa Monica. Details: (310) 280-3459.