05-09-2023, 02:03 PM
(05-09-2023, 01:33 PM)Fritzfishin Wrote: Hey pat what about the prepackaged sucker meat from the stores? I doubt many officers could tell the difference in a strip of carp and a strip of sucker?
That is a technicality for which I do not have the answer. I know that "processed" shad can be used in Willard...where the use of shad is otherwise prohibited. (But it doesn't work worth a hoot)
Packaged sucker meat purchased for bait SHOULD be okay. But since there are likely to be "creative" anglers who simply bring along a used container and freshly caught sucker meat, skeptical COs are likely to stick with the rule of NO SUCKER MEAT on Utah Lake. There are plenty of other good baits so I wouldn't risk a ticket.
And as far as an officer not being able to tell the difference between carp and sucker meat...I wouldn't bet on it. However, in the last 20 years of fishing Utah Lake I have never been checked for ANYTHING. Our DWR folks are spread so thin...with all of the territory and so many different fishing and hunting venues...that the odds are that you could probably fish with freshly caught Junies and never get caught. There are lots of scofflaw anglers on Utah Lake who routinely fish without licenses and keep everything they catch...legal or not.
The obvious goal is to prohibit anglers from catching, killing and cutting up June suckers. But since the genetic lines have been blurred over generations, who is to say whether or not you have caught a pure strain Junie, or a several generations hybrid of Junie and Utah suckers? And when filleted, who can tell the difference? Not me.