09-09-2003, 11:39 PM
[cool]Always gotta step in to clean up your messes.
My first fishing days in Utah...in the sixties...corn was a standard bait. At some point the DWR decided to ban it. It would be a real challenge to collect all of the excuses, reasons and misinformation that has circulated over the years about why corn is not legal in Utah...about the only state in the union that I can find where it is not allowed.
You can pick from the following: 1. The fish can't digest it. 2. The bottom of the lakes become coated with so much corn (from chumming) that it pollutes the water as it rots. 3. It makes it too easy for people to catch the pampered hatchery pets, who are used to similar fodder.
Mind you, I have not conducted a mass spectrograph analysis of the degree of digestion on the "leftovers" extruded from the nether regions of trout, to see whether or not it provided ANY nutritional value on the way through. But, I have seen enough "evidence" of a completed journey that I doubt that corn restricts the flow of food through trout. In other words, I have taken more than a few trout in waters legal for the use of corn, where the trout were "downloading" partially digested corn. They seemed to be healthy and capable of both eating and excreting.
I have also not suited up to dive in Strawberry, to measure the depth of the corn chum...back in the days when it was supposedly a problem. When they first poisoned Strawberry, in late '61 I believe, the water was covered with every imaginable species...including some healthy carp. Of course there were some giant cutts too, but I don't think they ate corn much. It seems to be a rainbow kinda thing.
If I had gone below, I doubt I would have found the disaster claimed by a few corn detractors. I have heard that the entire bottom of Strawberry was covered to a depth of several inches with corn. Now, I ain't even going to try to do the math. That's a whole lotta cases of niblets. Does not compute.
Bottom line? We must accept the rulings of the DWR until such time as enough logical lobbying could be done to convince enough decision makers that they should change the rules. Until then, I don't really think corn works much better, if at all, than some of the fancy "bottle baits". It ain't nearly as purty...but it costs a lot less.
We always want what we can't have. If DWR passed a rule against fishing with left handed nightcrawlers tomorrow, there would be a big long thread on every Utah board...except maybe the fly guys' boards. They would gloat a lot.
Like a lot of things in life, you don't have to like it, but you do have to live with it.
[signature]
My first fishing days in Utah...in the sixties...corn was a standard bait. At some point the DWR decided to ban it. It would be a real challenge to collect all of the excuses, reasons and misinformation that has circulated over the years about why corn is not legal in Utah...about the only state in the union that I can find where it is not allowed.
You can pick from the following: 1. The fish can't digest it. 2. The bottom of the lakes become coated with so much corn (from chumming) that it pollutes the water as it rots. 3. It makes it too easy for people to catch the pampered hatchery pets, who are used to similar fodder.
Mind you, I have not conducted a mass spectrograph analysis of the degree of digestion on the "leftovers" extruded from the nether regions of trout, to see whether or not it provided ANY nutritional value on the way through. But, I have seen enough "evidence" of a completed journey that I doubt that corn restricts the flow of food through trout. In other words, I have taken more than a few trout in waters legal for the use of corn, where the trout were "downloading" partially digested corn. They seemed to be healthy and capable of both eating and excreting.
I have also not suited up to dive in Strawberry, to measure the depth of the corn chum...back in the days when it was supposedly a problem. When they first poisoned Strawberry, in late '61 I believe, the water was covered with every imaginable species...including some healthy carp. Of course there were some giant cutts too, but I don't think they ate corn much. It seems to be a rainbow kinda thing.
If I had gone below, I doubt I would have found the disaster claimed by a few corn detractors. I have heard that the entire bottom of Strawberry was covered to a depth of several inches with corn. Now, I ain't even going to try to do the math. That's a whole lotta cases of niblets. Does not compute.
Bottom line? We must accept the rulings of the DWR until such time as enough logical lobbying could be done to convince enough decision makers that they should change the rules. Until then, I don't really think corn works much better, if at all, than some of the fancy "bottle baits". It ain't nearly as purty...but it costs a lot less.
We always want what we can't have. If DWR passed a rule against fishing with left handed nightcrawlers tomorrow, there would be a big long thread on every Utah board...except maybe the fly guys' boards. They would gloat a lot.
Like a lot of things in life, you don't have to like it, but you do have to live with it.
[signature]