01-19-2021, 03:36 PM
Recent update. First let me say I'm not trying to intentionally sound negative, I'm just stating the facts, and then you can do what you want with that. Minersville got absolutely hammered over the weekend. Friday evening wasn't too bad, but Saturday a small city formed on the lake. There were around 200 people out there, and it's not that big of a lake. There wasn't a lot of fish catching going on either. Just a few here and there, and many got skunked altogether. I talked for a while with the DNR officer that was there. He was surprised the amount of traffic on the lake as well. It has been getting relentlessly pounded since last March when most of the state quarantined, but Minersville reservoir never did. It is taking a toll on the lake. The Beaver River below the lake is more or less completely destroyed as far as any decent fishing goes. This not an exaggeration. Year before last one mostly caught browns with the occasional rainbow. Some of those fish exceeded 20". If you go down there right now. You will be lucky to catch any fish and if you do it will be a small planter rainbow from last fall. There are almost no browns left in the river and anything of trophy quality would be a total fluke at this point. I talked with the fish biologist over the area and he concurs that the river is in tough shape right now from excessive fishing pressure. I also ran into a rancher yesterday that was celebrating his 89th birthday by driving around in the West Desert and getting some fresh air. He mentioned that in his 89 years he has never seen the Tusher mountains is such bad condition or with such little snow pack. All the local farmers are very concerned about the water situation as is the DNR. The drought is for real folks and if that snow doesn't happen in the next few months it's going to be a very bad situation.