Not sure why this is a good idea

[BearLakeFishGuy]

We admit the nets are definitely long, but the set time is very key here.  When the UDWR nets as part of the regular assessment, the nets are set for 24 hour soaks.  It is not necessarily designed to keep the fish in the nets alive.  It is a logistial and cost effective means to sample the fish population.  The lake trout study has net soak times 1/12 that.  The goal is 1-2 hour soak times; and this IS designed to minimize motalities on ALL species of fish.  It is extremely labor intensive, but it is necessary to ensure the high survival that we desire.  

I want to address Stanley Lake now.  I have never been to Stanley Lake,  let alone sampled it.  But the lake trout (diploid) fish that are/were in Stanley Lake most likely came from an illegal introduction.  That is why IDFG spent a lot of money, time and netting effort to reduce and/or eliminate the diploid lake trout from Stanley Lake.  It is not a lake that could be treated with rotenone, one obvious reason is due to the endangered sockeye found there.  Anglers enjoyed the lake trout fishery and IDFG wanted to use triploid lake trout for a few reasons.  One is make sure there is no future natural recruitment of lake trout, and thus reduce uncontrolled predation on the endangered sockeye by the expanding population of naturally recruited lake trout.  Another reason was is to maintain a fishing opportunity for lake trout (the anglers up there like the lake trout too).  We've been asked why not wait for the triploid lakers stocked by IDFG to grow instead of supplementing them with larger triploid lake trout from Bear Lake.  Adding larger, sterile lake trout from Bear Lake may allow the existing sterile lake trout to mate with any remaining diploid fish (which would likely result in either no survival of eggs, or at least reduced survival of eggs).  This is referred to as "swamping" and has been shown to work with other fish species such as rainbow trout.

Finally, I do agree that anglers on Bear Lake encourage other anglers to release the large lake trout since they do take 20-30+ years to reach the "trophy" size fish that are highly desirable.  Most anglers are aware that larger lake trout also aren't the best tasting fish out there since they are quite oily and fishy tasting.  The currently daily catch limit on trout (lake trout and/or cutthroat trout) is two fish on Bear Lake.  If someone wants to keep a limit of large lake trout, they are permitted by law to do so.  That conservative limit is in place to protect the lake trout fishery from overharvest.  However, with the current number of lake trout stocked in Bear Lake annually, we feel the daily harvest limit is biologically sustainable even if we saw people harvesting lake trout (which many do not).   

I can't promise I can address every and all questions, since I would be on BFT all day doing so and neglecting my other job responsibilities.  I also plan to enjoy this weekend out camping somewhere away from TV, internet, etc.    Thanks everyone for your comments. I hope the comments I provided (and those by Chris earlier this week) were informative.