Outdoor Notes : Fishing Boats, Gear on Display

The latest in fishing boats, tackle and fishing vacations will be spotlighted at the Western Fishing Tackle & Fishing Boat Show Wednesday through March 9 at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Displays will include manufacturers’ latest bass, pleasure, family and general fishing boats.

In addition, all major fishing tackle manufacturers will be showing the latest in reels, rods and accessories. Fishing seminars will be held hourly, and fishing and boating films are scheduled.

Show hours: 3 to 10:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.

Recreational Boaters of California points out that two bills recently introduced in the state legislature would toughen laws relating to intoxicated operators of boats. One bill would give peace officers authority to arrest, without a warrant, anyone involved in a boat accident when an officer has reasonable cause to believe a person has been operating the boat while under the influence of alcohol or any other drug.

The Fish and Game Commission has adopted 1986 fishing regulations and the 12-page booklets are now available at most state sporting goods stores. Some of the significant changes for 1986:

--Simplification of rules on the use of dead ocean fish as bait.

--Opening of most waters to night fishing, where lake operators wish to do so.

--Extension of a 12-inch minimum-size limit for largemouth bass to most waters in the state, but not the Colorado River.

--A statewide two-fish limit, 18-inch minimum size restriction for striped bass except for the Colorado River, where the limit remains 10 fish, with no size limits.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is asking for public comment on a proposal by the National Wildlife Federation that would ban lead shot for waterfowl hunting throughout the lower 48 states beginning with the 1987-88 season.

Briefly DFG wardens say they have no leads in their investigation into the Feb. 11 shooting of an adult bald eagle near Big Bend in Shasta County. . . . Bass fishermen are sinking about 4,000 unsold Christmas trees into Lake Pleasant, Ariz., to provide spawning cover for largemouth bass. . . . A Laramie, Wyo., man, Robert Kaess, was recently sentenced to a year in jail and fined $9,367 for poaching three moose and a bighorn sheep. . . . An unknown number of catchable size brown trout were lost when Shasta County’s Pit River spilled over its banks recently and flooded the state’s Pit River hatchery, but biologists are more concerned that the hatchery may also have been exposed to ceratomyxa, a fish disease. . . . The DFG will begin accepting post card applications for pig hunts in April and May on the state’s Tehama Wildlife Area near Red Bluff. . . . The California Wild Turkey Federation will hold its spring turkey hunting clinic next Friday in Oroville. . . . A lightning strike killed at least 80 brown trout at the state’s Mount Shasta Hatchery in Siskiyou County recently.