Bear Lake Fishing Report & Conditions 1/9/2014

[BearLakeFishGuy]

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Bear Lake Fishing Report:

Surface water temperature is 32.7 degrees and the lake is totally open water. Boats can be launched at the Utah State Park Marina as well as at 1st Point and Rainbow Cove boat ramps. No courtesy docks are in the water at the east side locations due to ice build up on the docks. All ramps have been plowed but new snow may affect the launching conditions. We expect the Bonneville cisco to run around the weekend of January 25-26. The UDWR Bear Lake biologist will begin making observations along Cisco Beach on January 15th and update the report either every other day or every day, depending on weather and fish-run conditions. Anglers fishing from boats are reporting some nice cutthroat trout catches with some fish in the 8lb range. Anglers are catching cutthroat trout and few lake trout by jigging with tube jigs tipped with cisco on the bottom in about 40-45’ over the “rockpile” and also off the rockpiles just north of the Utah State Park Marina. GPS locations for the rockpiles north of the marina are attached below. Remember, in order to keep a cutthroat trout from Bear Lake it must have a healed fin clip (usually the adipose fin). Cutthroat trout with all fins intact have to be released, including fish that are tagged with all of their fins. Consider releasing large lake trout in order to maintain the fishery. Lake trout can easily live to over 35 years old in Bear Lake. PLEASE ONLY CALL AFTER 5pm each evening, in order to keep the business lines open during the day. 435-946-8501.

Garden City Community Fishery Pond
The pond level is completely full and it is frozen. Anglers ice fishing for cutthroat trout and rainbow trout with good luck coming on ice flies tipped with wax worms or night crawlers. There are two air bubblers in the pond as well as the spring inflow which either keep the water open or the ice is very thin in these areas. Do not get close the bubbler or spring inflow!

Laketown Reservoir
Pond level is full, and the reservoir is frozen. Anglers are catching rainbow trout through the ice with ice flies or small jigs tipped with meal worms, wax worms, and night crawlers. You may need to use a snowmobile for access, but as of today only a 4-wheel drive vehicle was needed.


Bear Lake Rockpiles Approximate GPS coordinates
degree, minutes, seconds
Lat Long Name
41o 58' 5.80" N 111o 23' 40.90" W Cisco
41o 58'11.20" N 111o23'43.70" W Cutthroat
41o58'17.50" N 111o23'45.90" W Sculpin
41o58'25.10" N 111o 23'47.90" W Whitefish
41o54'49.86" N 111o23'21.72" W Ideal Beach
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[cuthroat_guy]

If everyone is so concerned about the lake trout in bear lake, what can we do to change the harvest of them.
2 trout limit, one clipped fin cutt and one lake trout?
Slot on the lake trout?
I think the healed clip fin on the cutthroat is an awesome rule. I have seen a lot of big cutts that had to be realesed cuz of it!
Maybe we can change the lake trout limit to one over 30 inches?

Or maybe only healed clip fin lakers can be kept too[] hahaha

Idk just a thought!
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[CoyoteSpinner]

There is a 2 trout limit at Bear Lake, though I don't think they have slots, just the nipped fin rule.

[cuthroat_guy]

Yes, there is a two trout limit !
But I was just asking a question about the lake trout.
Regulations say two trout any species , cutthroat with no healed clip fin to be realesed.

If there is concern about the large lake trout in bear lake, why not change the regs on it.
What I said in prior post was some ideas to that.

I see alot of comments on here about releasing large lake trout....
So If the regs say two trout, then it's legal to catch and keep two 38-40 inch lake trout. In some cases, people dial in on big lakers and take them home...

All I'm saying is, if there is concern to continue the quality of lake trout in bear lake, why not change regs on lake trout ? I can't wait 35 years !
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[CoyoteSpinner]

No, I get it. And I like your idea. Maybe the Laker lakes should have slots.
Everyone says the bigguns aren't good eating anyway, and you can get a better mount from pics and measures and leave the beast to swim again.

How big is too big? They'd do it by length not weight, I'd guess. Maybe a limit where you could have two lakers, but only one over - some length.

[pookiebar]

The difficulty with a slot at the two main lakes that have lakers in them, i.e. Bear Lake, and Flaming Gorge, is that the lake is split by state borders. So both states would technically have to agree to the changes. That is not super likely to happen.
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