I recently joined BFT and work with (chuck) Utwalley. I have been reading up on fishing at the local lakes, most of my fishing has been on smaller streams and lakes along with ice fishing at the Berry. I,m looking for local spots near salt lake city to take the scouts fishing, out of 4-5 boys one has been fishing and no one has caught anything. I took them to Cabelas the other day and now there all excited to go. If all else fails i will have to take them to the springville hatchery.[
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What area of the state do you consider local?
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First off, welcome.
[
] I would reccommend a community pond in your area to get them started. Check the DWR webite for one near you.
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Depending on how far you are willing to drive, Locomotive Springs can be good for the scouts, however they stop planting it about now becuase of the migratory birds moving in and munching all the troutskis.
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The community ponds are very good places to take new fishermen. Willow pond though crowded was good fishing last night.
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The springville hatchery was closed to fishing years ago man. They were worried that whirling disease would spread to the hatchery, because they use that spring creeks water to run the hatchery. I was pretty mad when I got up there one day to see a sign posted. I've had some good times with the bows there. Nothing real huge, but some were pretty.
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I agree that the community ponds are the way to go. Look them up on the DWR website. I would suggest Willow for a starter trip. Maybe have the meeting there and learn the basics. Knots, rigging and species. There are a couple of other small ponds down that way too, Sunset and ?. It's on the website.
After that maybe a field trip to the new pond at Daybreak when it opens or Bountiful pond.
The other thing that would make the scouts look really good in front of any other fishers would be if they picked up trash at what ever pond they fish at.
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Thanks for all the ideas on local ponds,and the dwr's website. I really like the idea of the boys going around and picking up trash and keeping things better than when you got there. Alot of fishing and camping spots i know are not as clean as i remember them being growing up. If anyone hears of any areas being planted within a hour of salt lake let me know. thanks Paul B
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The DWR website has informtion on all the community fishing holes in the state, they also have a booklet out on them too. Here is a website with it on.
www.wildlife.utah.gov/cf
I have taken scout to the following areas before.
Lost Creek Reservoir
Willard Bay
Outlet to Utah Lake
Bountiful Lake
Farmington Pond
Strawberry Reservoir
Uintah Mountains
Vernon Reservoir
Grantsville Reservoir
And there are many more places to go
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I know your in the SLC area but Salem ponds are stalked each year for the impaired kids and it's great for the Scouts as well.
Look at the DWR site (Like was mentioned) you can get all the info from there.
Law
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As a former scoutmaster, I took the all the scouts on a campout to the Buraston Ponds (Mona, UT) about 1 hr south of Salt Lake every April. The fishing was always great and the bird watching was incredible. A couple of times when the spring was warm the boys would even swim a little. We even had coyotes came into camp and scare the boys in the middle of the night. I really loved that camp.
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I know on utahfishfinder.com they have a stocking report but I'm sure they get it from the DWR. If you can find a pond that's recently stocked that's where I'd take them. Fly with a bubble, but bait always is a fallback. I hope you can find a spot where they can catch some fish.
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The DWR has not provided any fish stocking report information yet this year to me. I assume they will resume doing so here in April, since that is when they begin stocking the community fisheries.
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