02-04-2021, 08:30 PM
(02-04-2021, 07:44 PM)Big Sky Wrote: FishfulT, I remember the opening day crowds as well for fishing season. However the numbers decreased pretty fast after opening day and by fall hardly anyone fished as they were too busy hunting. Just a little over a year ago if I fished around here after work on a weekday I rarely saw anyone else except during the summer. Now, as you mentioned, it doesn't seem to matter what day you go there is always a crowd. As for the local river here, it went mostly un-fished during the week prior to the pandemic and only was lightly fished on the weekends. It was a nice place to go after work and not have to deal with people. About the second week of the quarantine is when people started showing up. Large groups from California and Nevada. On any given day every parking spot had multiple vehicles parked there. About 13 months ago is was predominantly a brown trout river with a few rainbows for good measure. Catching a 18"-20"+ fish was expected to happen on nearly every trip. Now there are virtually no brown trout and if you do catch one it will be very tiny. What few fish a person will catch will be finless 10" or smaller rainbows from the most recent stocking. I've fished that river on and off for 30 years and it is as bad as it gets right now. Not even worth fishing at all. It's total demise is purely due to pressure and taking too many fish out of it. It won't be long before this trend will be noticed all across the state if not already.
Sooooo many out of state folks fishing our Utah waters this year. I live in Cedar City so I'm often out on Panguitch Lake, Duck Creek, the forks of the Sevier, etc. and I had never seen these places get so hammered day in and day out like this year. Largely from Nevadans and Californians. I know there's not much to be done about it, but these aren't huge lakes or rivers and there aren't very many of them. This isn't Pyramid Lake or the Henry's Fork. We have small to midsized desert streams and lakes and they can't always take the pressure. It's really been unfortunate to see some places decline. A friend of mine counted 30 float tubes on a small high mountain lake at the same time (!) at one point this summer. :/ idk what can be done. There's too many people these days and too much info on our fisheries.