Twin Lakes (south east)

[duksnfish]

Lol, rants are good, let's others know what is happening at places they're not familiar with. What restrictions did they put on those lakes? I have read somewhere that it cost around $20 to launch a boat on Twin.

It's between the $20 and $25 to launch at both Twin and Glendale.  At Twin you can get your boat inspected for compliance with state law on spot, but if you are going to fish or recreate on Glendale, you have to have your boat inspected at one of the boat inspection stations, and down that way means going to Franklin or over to the boarder south of Malad. And then, once you get to Gendale, you have to pay your fee just to have them look at your sticker to make sure you were inspected. They wont get certified like they did at Twin Lakes to do an on site inspection, so it's basically a launch fee that Glendale charges.  The other reservoirs that are under management by the same canal companies, there is no one on site to do the inspection, but,  you have to leave proof of inspection in your window (the booklet that gets stamped at the inspections station) and if you dont, then the canal company can have you cited for trespass since those are private waters (supposedly - no one has taken this on because of minimum pool requirements on most of these reservoirs). And the Sheriff does make rounds and checks to see if you have been inspected, but, not sure how or if they do cite anyone without the canal company actually seeing you on the water without an inspection.

It gets spendy going down that way from up north way, Idaho Falls and even Pocatello to have to travel the day of your inspection, unless you want to get inspected the day before and not launch, and go back home. And then drive past Glendale to Franklin to get inspected then back track to go fish Glendale or another associated body of water.

A number of years ago, I tried to fight this restriction alone, I couldnt get any support to push on site inspections like Twin ended up doing, but, even F&G at the time just let it go through.  I understand they want to protect their waters from the mussels etc from coming in from Utah and other states, that is why there are inspection stations on the state lines, but, if you are in Idaho and havent left the state, you are incompliance with state law so why should you have to pay a launch fee for just looking at your sticker?

This whole thing got out of hands years ago, but, the Canal companies have pushed and won over a couple of local legislators down that way and they have their support.  Initially, Franklin County supported them and gave them like $10,000 a year seed money to get up and running because they thought it would help their economy, but, at least 2 or 3 years ago, Franklin County realized that the money was drying up because of reduced recreation visits to the county for water recreation and they stoped giving the canal companies this money.  I think this is why they have stopped opening up as early as they used to open and have started closing in August, much earlier than normal. They used to close after Labor day anyhow, where there still is great fishing to be had but, they stop inspections and actually block the ramps. 

The ramp at Glendale and the sportsmans access parking lot was actually put in with grant money on F&G prpperty in conjuction with the County years ago as was the boat ramp, but some how, the canal companies have been able to close the boat ramp even though, as I have been told by F&G, the ramp is actually on lands owned by F&G. So, go figure, just another head scratcher on this one.

i know for years Twin Lakes used to charge just a $5 day use fee to use Twin Lakes, ok that is fine, but once they started this sticker program and saw they could make a little money on the side of that, they then started charging I believe $20 a day for the inspection and to use the lake.

I could go on and on on this because as I said, years ago, like 9 or 10 went to a meeting or two and sent letters to them and also tried to talk to the local legislator down there as well as F&G and I got no where with my attempts to do something.  I suggested at the time to put an inspection station at the Inkom gap weigh station and that went no where, but, as I hear now, F&G supports this but it's now Idaho DOT that does not like it or wont let the State, yes another state agency, put up an inspection station on the south bound weigh station. Go figure that one out.

If there were an inspection station at Inkom, it would allow a huge number of recreation folks to stop going south towards Preston to get inspected without having to travel clear to Franklin or to the North bound lane of the interstate south of Malad. You actually have to travel into Utah get off the interstate turn around and come back up the interestate to the rest area to get inspected.  Thats just rediculous and is also a safety issue doing turn arounds like that.

So, I will stop there, but, where you cant get all of the water recreation people to come together to support pushing some sort of resolution to help the pubic, even pushing f&G to stop stocking the reservoirs if we cannot fish via a water craft, then it will continue to impact a heck of a lot of use who love to fish and just recreate on the water.  So, go enjoy what you can when you can but dont expect Twin or Glendale to open until probably around Memorial Day this year if not later due to the virus.