12-12-2007, 04:38 AM
Glad this discussion came up, as I've always wondered (but never asked) why live minnows aren't allowed here. Minnows were a preferred bait for many of the species I fished in the lakes and rivers in California. You could get them at most bait shops. I wonder if one of the reasons I haven't seen any bait shops in Utah is due to the fact the type of live baits that are generally used here are easy to come by. In California there were bait shops everywhere and minnows were one of the baits that were abundant. Others included mudsuckers, bullheads, jumbo minnows (they were big), crawdads etc. I don't think you could even use a casting net legally to catch live minnows in California so you needed a bait shop to get them.
I would say that not having the option of using live minnows has really made the Utah fishermen/women really productive at using dead minnows for trout. I used dead minnows for the first time last month to catch trout and I was excited it worked. I new it would after reading all of the reports but was skeptical when I first heard of this technique. Live minnows were not one of the baits I used that frequently for trout in California and I had never seen or heard of anyone using dead minnows for trout before coming here.
For other species like bass, live minnows can be deadly. But for trout I think the group on this board has really made dead minnows one of the most effective baits at catching trout.
I still agree it would be nice to be able to use live minnows, but I still think some good has come out of it. It could be worse, you could have to pay 5 to 7 dollars a dozen for live minnows.
My 2 cents.
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I would say that not having the option of using live minnows has really made the Utah fishermen/women really productive at using dead minnows for trout. I used dead minnows for the first time last month to catch trout and I was excited it worked. I new it would after reading all of the reports but was skeptical when I first heard of this technique. Live minnows were not one of the baits I used that frequently for trout in California and I had never seen or heard of anyone using dead minnows for trout before coming here.
For other species like bass, live minnows can be deadly. But for trout I think the group on this board has really made dead minnows one of the most effective baits at catching trout.
I still agree it would be nice to be able to use live minnows, but I still think some good has come out of it. It could be worse, you could have to pay 5 to 7 dollars a dozen for live minnows.
My 2 cents.
[signature]