04-07-2014, 11:40 AM
[quote Tin-Can]TD, here is another of those "Why" questions. I've been in Utah 15 years. And was really surprised when I learned I couldn't use corn or hominy here. I was born in California, and have fished as a kid and adult in Calif, Arizona, N. Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Panama, and Mexico. I can't remember any of those other places out lawing the use of corn as a fish bait. Why here in Utah?[/quote]
[#0000FF]Kent has already provided the two most prevalent reasons/excuses given by DWR. Supposedly there were acres of lake bottom on Strawberry that were inches deep in rotting corn kernels. Never heard of any verification from divers or have never seen pictures. You just gotta accept it.
I have also never heard of any verifiable instances of fish...of any species...that died of "cornitis". But I have caught trout both in Utah and other states that were passing "processed" corn as they were lifted from the water. Hmmmm. Wonder how the Utah fish found their corn munchies. They must come out of the water at night and raid the farmers' fields.
My personal opinion is that the use of corn is like the use of live minnows...a throwback regulation from the earlier times in Utah when trout were about the only fish in most lakes and streams. They were reared and dumped in by DWR in large numbers, but they were "pets" and DWR was very protective of them. So regulations were enacted to remove any possible advantages that anglers might have in harvesting these precious darlings. Heck, we even used to have a season that began in June and ended in November. No ice fishing. Heaven forbid that someone might catch them when they were easy to reach and vulnerable.
Thankfully, we now have year round access to trout but some of the other regulations die hard. And as long as there are high-falutin' excuses for keeping certain baits and tactics forbidden we will just have to live without them. Personally, I don't care about corn, but I know a lot of folks that would like to use it in fishing for carp. But almost all species will readily eat corn, so it is a good bait for other fishies too. As long as it is forbidden...as a deterrent to violating the laws against chumming...we'll just have to do our chumming with nightcrawlers, ground up minnows, hamburger, bread and other things that violaters are currently using. Hope they don't outlaw the possession of hamburgers.
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[#0000FF]Kent has already provided the two most prevalent reasons/excuses given by DWR. Supposedly there were acres of lake bottom on Strawberry that were inches deep in rotting corn kernels. Never heard of any verification from divers or have never seen pictures. You just gotta accept it.
I have also never heard of any verifiable instances of fish...of any species...that died of "cornitis". But I have caught trout both in Utah and other states that were passing "processed" corn as they were lifted from the water. Hmmmm. Wonder how the Utah fish found their corn munchies. They must come out of the water at night and raid the farmers' fields.
My personal opinion is that the use of corn is like the use of live minnows...a throwback regulation from the earlier times in Utah when trout were about the only fish in most lakes and streams. They were reared and dumped in by DWR in large numbers, but they were "pets" and DWR was very protective of them. So regulations were enacted to remove any possible advantages that anglers might have in harvesting these precious darlings. Heck, we even used to have a season that began in June and ended in November. No ice fishing. Heaven forbid that someone might catch them when they were easy to reach and vulnerable.
Thankfully, we now have year round access to trout but some of the other regulations die hard. And as long as there are high-falutin' excuses for keeping certain baits and tactics forbidden we will just have to live without them. Personally, I don't care about corn, but I know a lot of folks that would like to use it in fishing for carp. But almost all species will readily eat corn, so it is a good bait for other fishies too. As long as it is forbidden...as a deterrent to violating the laws against chumming...we'll just have to do our chumming with nightcrawlers, ground up minnows, hamburger, bread and other things that violaters are currently using. Hope they don't outlaw the possession of hamburgers.
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