DWR proposed fishing rule changes

[Kent]

A few interesting proposed rule changes for fishing:

https://tinyurl.com/DWR2025

[RockyRaab2]

Didn't see anything there that I'd disagree with.

[Cowboypirate]

Did a quick scan. Nothing rubbed me wrong but need to read it closer, later.

Dropping the perch limit at Willard was a suprise but likely a good thing. Wish they would consider something for the crappie spawn Massacre that occurs at Willard.

Really getting aggressive changes at Flaming Gorge. Wonder how our Koke brothers see these changes.

[Mildog]

How about allowing anglers to fillet Kokanee at Strawberry!!
Leave skin attached! If a biologist or CO can’t tell a Kokanee fillet from a Cutthroat, We have bigger problems! Something needs to be done on cutthroat at strawberry in general as well. The other day I walked over to the cleaning station and a guy has 4 cutts all in the slot. I told him those were all cutts and not legal to keep. He said they are rainbows, I looked them up! I told him I could tell they were cutts from 20 feet away and it was almost dark! I assured him they were illegal cutts. Then a guy on other side of cleaning station said they are cutts, here is a rainbow and held it up for him and pointed out the differences!! The guy looks them up and still can’t tell he’s cleaning cutts!! That happens pretty much every day multiple times at soldier creek and strawberry! I have seen it countless times myself. I swear they could make a 3 trout limit of any size and discourage catch and release, less cutts would be killed than all the mishandled abused cutts released by caring and non caring anglers! Let people take 3 each and leave and probably less cutts killed overall.

This is my opinion and many others I know feel the same way, Bear Lake cutts are great fish in BEAR LAKE, not so much in strawberry. Last trip up I saw tons of chubs/minnows in the weedy shallows, and we could not keep cutts off our lines at 40 feet on downriggers. I don’t think they are doing the job on chubs because they only seem to be at similar depths spring and fall. I quit fishing I got so tired or releasing cutts and or dragging them around cause they are so wimpy many didn’t even release some 16-17 inchers. We Got a couple “slot busters” but let them go too.
Sorry rant over!

[Bubman1]

I was just wondering if the perch in Willard would stunt like they do every where else. I understand stand they go in cycles. I would think a smaller bag limit would help keep some of those big gals swimming around.

[BearLakeFishGuy]

A couple of the proposed changes are puzzling to me:
1) Is there that much pressure on Pelican Reservoir that they need to effectively put a 5 fish limit on bluegill? Unless you lived in Vernal, it wouldn't be worth the drive to even fish it. Bluegill are so prolific that I just don't understand that one.
2) Was there a push by anglers to allow up to 6 fishing lines for ice fishing at Causey and Porcupine? Or is this some type of "trial" regulation that has no biological implications? It sure would be nice to hear the reasoning to why this regulation was proposed and what the regulation hopes to accomplish. It might have been mentioned at the RAC meeting, but lets be honest.....not a lot of people go to those. But having the reasoning in print along with the proposed regulation would make a LOT of sense.
Even though 5 lines are allowed in Idaho through the ice on a lot of waters, I have only seen a scant few anglers using more than 2 poles at once.

[Mildog]

Bear lake you make some Great points, it would be nice to see the reasoning behind those proposals. Several are curious for sure.

[DjHill16]

A couple of the proposed changes are puzzling to me:
1) Is there that much pressure on Pelican Reservoir that they need to effectively put a 5 fish limit on bluegill?  Unless you lived in Vernal, it wouldn't be worth the drive to even fish it.  Bluegill are so prolific that I just don't understand that one.
2) Was there a push by anglers to allow up to 6 fishing lines for ice fishing at Causey and Porcupine?  Or is this some type of "trial" regulation that has no biological implications?  It sure would be nice to hear the reasoning to why this regulation was proposed and what the regulation hopes to accomplish.  It might have been mentioned at the RAC meeting, but lets be honest.....not a lot of people go to those.  But having the reasoning in print along with the proposed regulation would make a LOT of sense.
Even though 5 lines are allowed in Idaho through the ice on a lot of waters, I have only seen a scant few anglers using more than 2 poles at once.

Bearlake, I was the one that got the ball rolling with the six rods change. It started with a conversation with Chris Penne about what it would take to be able to use six rods. After going back and forth for a bit he said it could be beneficial for some of our smaller lakes that have kokanee in them. So then it got pushed up to Craig Walker the sport fish coordinator. He was all for it since the creel limit dictates how many fish are taken from a body of water and not the number of rods being used. If you care to read everything we discussed shoot me a message with your email and I can forward our conversation to you.

[MrShane]

I was just wondering if the perch in Willard would stunt like they do every where else. I understand stand they go in cycles. I would think a smaller bag limit would help keep some of those big gals swimming around.

They shouldn’t.
Willard combined with Perch have something I don’t believe any other Utah lake can offer to keep them big:
Shad.
If we do Willard right, we could grow Perch to rival Cascades Perch.

[BearLakeFishGuy]

Djhill16,
I appreciate the offer, but my question was for the UDWR folks and hoping they would chime-in with why they don't post the reasoning along with the proposed changes. It would make things a lot easier for the public to try to understand the reason behind the proposed changes. However, the 6 rod thing just makes no sense to me...given the reason you said, "limits are not dictated by the number of rods you use, but by the regulations". Using that same rationale, then why not just have unlimited numbers or rods permitted at all Utah waters? The UDWR was hell-bent, for many years, on making fishing regulations as simple as possible since there was a time when it seemed as if every water had its own special regulations. I even tried to get the Bear Lake regulations simplified and I had input to several other waters around northern Utah too in my 31 years with UDWR. The Fishing Guide (formerly called proclamation) has a lot less special regulations now, but I think it could still be vastly simplified. Permitting 6 rods on a few waters is once again making things more heavy for special regulations. On top of that, it makes law enforcement more complicated too since they will need to check for names/addresses on every rod, and try to equate who's rods belong to who. Especially, when maybe a father has a few kids with 6 rods each? Anyway, if you are capable of controlling 6 rods, you're a better fisherman than me.

[SkunkedAgain]

I can't pull that up, but sounds really interesting from everyone's comments.... Interesting that Chris Penne changed his position, last I talked with him, he was pushing for less rods since he felt with the new sonars that the fishermen were getting too much advantage already... I asked him about more rods on Cutler since the fish are so hard to find there through the ice... He pretty much shot me down... What did they propose for the Willard Perch limit? I think that is good to drop that limit, with the predators at Willard I suspect that will keep the numbers down from over populating and hopefully it will help keep these nice sized fish available... They are a lot more fun to catch... Later J

[wiperhunter2]

   What did they propose for the Willard Perch limit?  

15

[SkunkedAgain]

   What did they propose for the Willard Perch limit?  

15

Thanks Curt, that's still to high to me... Should be half of that as long as they stay big....  Just my take...

[dubob]

FYI - I submitted the following to the RAC through the on-line function at the link given above.  I would encourage you to use that function for any of the proposals that you disagree with.  It is unlikely that anything you say on this forum will be seen by any DWR folks working these proposals.

"I’m very concerned about increasing the hole size through the ice on Flaming Gorge, and my concern is this.  Ice fishing is very much a family sport that can and does include many children of all ages.  Allowing holes through the ice larger than 18” is creating an unwanted safety issue.  Younger children are constantly roaming and playing on the ice while the parents are attending to fishing, enjoying adult beverages, and conversing with other adults.  Parents may be unaware of the existence of holes larger than typical ice auger size (generally 10” or less) through the ice in the area they are fishing.  Very young children would not be aware of the dangers of these holes and could possibly fall into one of them undetected by the parents.  My thoughts are this.  Wyoming should be reducing the hole size to that which Utha has, not Utah increasing to that of Wyoming.

Another consideration would be that this could also impact the safety of a person riding an ATV/UTV and have one or more tires go through causing an accident that would likely cause injury or death to one or more passengers in/on the ATV/UTV.

It appears on the surface that this is aimed at allowing spear fishing through the ice at Flaming Gorge.  Why?  The number of people that spear fish is likely less than 1,000 in either state.  Compared to the hundreds of thousands of line anglers in the state (Utah had 604,000 plus license sales in 2023 not counting combo licenses), spear fishing involves about one half of one percent (0.5%) of the total fishing population.  Why would either state cater to such a small percentage of the recreational user?  This makes no sense to me at all.

Please feel free to contact me with regard to this issue.  My phone number is (801) XXX-XXXX."

[TubeDude]

No need to regulate the perch limits in Willard.  With all of the shad in that lake they have better food and habitat conditions than in any other lake in Utah.  And their population has been growing tremendously every year.  As with most perch lakes, angler pressure alone has little effect on the population. 

Predation on their young by themselves and other species is a much bigger factor in maintaining their numbers.   But with all of the shad in the lake the predators pattern on young perch for only a short time each spring until the newly hatched shad reach edible size.  And the shad are present in such great numbers that predators do not have to search out the less prevalent baby perch.  

There are more anglers pursuing perch each year but the perch numbers are growing faster than fisherman can catch them out. In short, perch contribute to the available food base for a short time in the early part of the year because they are the first species to spawn.  But after that they become an increasingly common catch by anglers fishing for other species...as well as a popular target species in the fall when the other species are less cooperative.

[SkunkedAgain]

Hey Pat, I'm interested in the perch cycle and I'm sure you have seen it more times than most. Seems like Utah has been a boom bust cycle that goes from a couple good years and then is followed by a multi year crash. Yet Cascade lake in Idaho seems to keep the big ones going up there. Are you under the opinion that Willard might be able to maintain a healthy population of perch like cascade? I know you have often tied perch to the spawn cycle and water levels, but is there more to that at Willard since the big sized population seemed to show up at the end of the drought cycle? I'd really like to see Utah have a good world class pond like Idaho, but I keep thinking the down turn is on the way... What think you??? Later J

[wormandbobber]

I went up to Manning over the weekend for a couple hours and had a lot of fun, caught a lot of fish, and did a lot of thinking about thie new proposal for Manning and Barney Reservoirs. And, the more I thought, the more I didn't like it. Here's why:

1) The flies and lures regulation has been place for around 30 years and Manning has been a brood stock lake for that same time frame. The current management plan has not only worked to help the state stock loads of bonneville cutts but also provide a nice fishery right off the road. Why fix what ain't broke?

2) With the amount of traffic the road by Manning sees--ATV's, side-by-sides, motorcycles, and trucks--I can't believe that the amount of shore fishing will lead many of those same people to drive up to the shoreline across grassy shorelines, prop up a rod with bait, and then leave after discarding their worm containers, powerbait bottles, leaders, hooks and sinkers on the shoreline. One thing I have always appreciated about Manning is the lack of garbage around the reservoir. But, just down the road at the Box Creek Reservoirs or even a little further down to the Monroe City pond and you will find a different story. I realize that not every bait fisherman is going to do this but the increased shoreline use will lead to it...

3) The close proximity to the Box Creek Reservoirs is particularly concerning...both of these reservoirs have had a history of all kinds of rough fish including shiners and goldfish. I have a hard time not believing that lifting the bait fishing regulations at Manning will lead to someone moving shiners to Manning after using them for bait jeopardizing the entire fishery. To me, it would only be a matter of time. Shouldn't the brood stock program be of highest priority and every management option be used to protect that program?

4) If the DWR would like to increase the limit at Manning and/or lift bait restrictions at Barney as a compromise, I would feel good about it. But, I believe lifting the bait restrictions at Manning is potential for disaster.

[TubeDude]

Hey Pat, I'm interested in the perch cycle and I'm sure you have seen it more times than most.  Seems like Utah has been a boom bust cycle that goes from a couple good years and then is followed by a multi year crash. Yet Cascade lake in Idaho seems to keep the big ones going up there.  Are you under the opinion that Willard might be able to maintain a healthy population of perch like cascade?  I know you have often tied perch to the spawn cycle and water levels, but is there more to that at Willard since the big sized population seemed to show up at the end of the drought cycle? I'd really like to see Utah have a good world class pond like Idaho, but I keep thinking the down turn is on the way... What think you??? Later J

Willard is not a "classic" perch habitat...with deep clear water and abundant shoreline rocky area and aquatic vegetation.  But it does have some vegetation and some rocks...and a lot of food...SHAD.  The abundance of shad alone makes for a good perch pond.  Plenty to eat most of the year...and enough successful spawning to keep the numbers up.  A lot more hospitable for perch than crappies.  

There have already been perch of up to 15 inches taken from Willard.  I'm betting there are some bigger ones in there.  As far as when they show up, the big concentrations come in around the edges of the lake in the fall as the smallest shad begin to move in and die off.  Drought cycles don't play a part in that.  It may affect spawning in the very worst years but the numbers seem to keep growing regardless.  Will need some organized research by DWR to get a definitive read on it.