09-10-2003, 04:37 AM
I was born and raised in Utah, and have fished since 1960. The ONLY reason that corn is illegal in Utah is because there WAS a carpet of corn in some bays at Strawberry and Scofield. Not the whole lake mind you, just those bays that were favorite haunts of the rainbows. I remember the time when the week before opening day that all of the stores ran sales on cases of niblets. I've watched as boat captain after boat captain chucked 5 or 6 cans of the stuff around their boat. Then when they had their limit, another boat would move in and chuck another 5 or 6 cans around their boat. With opening day crowds of thousands of boats (too crowded to troll) there was tons and tons of the stuff chucked on that weekend alone.
The last straw was the drought of the mid seventies. I can remember going up to Strawberry and seeing Mud Creek Bay. There were patches of corn at least a couple of inches deep. Not all over, but there would be weeds and sagebrush poking out here and there. Then there would be an area without much, and alittle farther away, another pocket of tons of the stuff.
If you guys don't think that it would be a big problem try this. Spread 10 cans of corn in your back yard. Keep the birds and skunks out, 'cause they aren't able to get the corn on the bottom of the lake. Put 10 more cans out on Sunday because there's always two big days of fishing each week. Then again the next week chuck 10 cans on Saturday and 10 cans on Sunday. Do this for 14 weeks to simulate the average summer season. Tell me if you still have any neighbors that will talk to you at the end of the summer.
You can't use it for bait, and you can't have it with you because Utahns have proven that they can't be trusted to not use it for chum if they have it with them. Just like they can't be trusted with smallmout bass, perch, and walleyes with live wells.
If you think it is such great bait, you can get powerbait that is corn flavored, and exude makes a corn flavored nugget that looks almost exactly like a niblet. You can make doughballs out of cornmeal all you want. You just can't have or use corn.
It's not a digestion problem. It's not because it's some magic bait. It's because people are people, and there would be a carpet of the stuff in some areas. And if you think it's slow to digest in a fish, wait 'til you see how long it takes to decompose in 45 degree water.
Fishrmn
The last straw was the drought of the mid seventies. I can remember going up to Strawberry and seeing Mud Creek Bay. There were patches of corn at least a couple of inches deep. Not all over, but there would be weeds and sagebrush poking out here and there. Then there would be an area without much, and alittle farther away, another pocket of tons of the stuff.
If you guys don't think that it would be a big problem try this. Spread 10 cans of corn in your back yard. Keep the birds and skunks out, 'cause they aren't able to get the corn on the bottom of the lake. Put 10 more cans out on Sunday because there's always two big days of fishing each week. Then again the next week chuck 10 cans on Saturday and 10 cans on Sunday. Do this for 14 weeks to simulate the average summer season. Tell me if you still have any neighbors that will talk to you at the end of the summer.
You can't use it for bait, and you can't have it with you because Utahns have proven that they can't be trusted to not use it for chum if they have it with them. Just like they can't be trusted with smallmout bass, perch, and walleyes with live wells.
If you think it is such great bait, you can get powerbait that is corn flavored, and exude makes a corn flavored nugget that looks almost exactly like a niblet. You can make doughballs out of cornmeal all you want. You just can't have or use corn.
It's not a digestion problem. It's not because it's some magic bait. It's because people are people, and there would be a carpet of the stuff in some areas. And if you think it's slow to digest in a fish, wait 'til you see how long it takes to decompose in 45 degree water.
Fishrmn