trophy regulations

[wormandbobber]

Prompted from a discussion on another forum, I am curious as to what you guys think are some lakes that would benefit from trophy regulations. And, what are trophy regulations? Any ideas and suggestions would be appreciated.
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[Carp_Punisher]

[#505000]I know this won't be popular especially with some of the old codgers who like to keep everything they catch, but I wouldn't mind seeing a slot limit go up at Scofield. You can catch some decent fish up there but I wouldn't mind seeing some Strawberry sized monsters come out of there. [/#505000]
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[#505000]I think it would need to be different from the Strawberry regs though. Maybe keep no more than two fish under "X" length or two over "X" length. That lets the harversters (which I sometimes am) take some home but limits the folks who keep everything that will take a hook.[/#505000]
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[doggonefishin]

"and what are trophy regulations?".....That is a subject that could be endlessly debated. I assume most people interpret that to mean harvest restrictions with artificial lures/flies only. I can offer a couple suggestions from lakes I visit.

1. Scofield; A minimum size limit or slot on the tiger trout and cutts. The bows can be left with general regs. Control the chubs and shiners and the bows will do nicely on their own. The cutts and tigers will grow rapidly as well if protected and offer "trophy" opportunites too.

2. Koosharem; Slot limit or minimum size limit on cutts. Same deal, the place needs chub control badly, but if done, bows (and cutts) will thrive.

3. Panguitch; Ditto, We apparently will have a 22 inch minimum on the cutts, which is good. I would like to see the tigers protected too.
Sheesh, it always seems to be about rough fish control.

I am not sure any of these would require artificial fly restriction to do this. Other lakes that I fish probably wouldn't grow trophy fish or are already "protected".
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[gshorthair]

Some kind of slot is needed to keep the fish in any lake. There is a limit on size on lake trout harvest at fish lake. I am sure it helps. I think koosharem would be a poor choice to target as a trophy lake. The lake has the potential to grow large fish at a fairly rapid rate, similar to the otter creek. The problem is the water users control the water and unless it is a very wet summer the resevoir is empty by late summer. When it starts to fill in late fall it is planted with small rainbow that grow rapidly and are big enough to catch the next spring. There is almost no carry over from year to year. gshorthair
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[CROSSINEYES]

SLOTS ARE GOOD FOR PRODUCING TROPHIES AS WELL AS PROTECTING A SPAWNER BASE OF FISH IN ANY WATER. BUT ALOT OF PEOPLE HATE THEM. I DO LIKE THEM MYSELF BECAULSE I DONT KEEP MANY OF ANY KIND OF FISH.
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[bassrods]

Many of you think the chubs and shiner should not be in our lakes...

Your wrong we need a food soure if you want bigger fish....

The problem is that trout need to get over 20 inches long before
they can eat on them that much, And on most lakes the water is used for other things and pulled out of the lakes....And all we end up with is planters.....


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[doggonefishin]

[size 1]"The problem is the water users control the water and unless it is a very wet summer the reservoir is empty by late summer." ...... This is an excellent point about Koosharem. Purchase of a conservation pool would probably do as much for that pond as any regulation change. Nevertheless, it has predictably overgrown with chubs and needed rotenone treatments repeatedly in my lifetime. I suppose that I see it to have more potential than it currently does when good water is in it and don't want to see DWR money shelled out for rotenone so much. [/size]
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[size 1]Bassrods; The issue of forage has been debated endlessly enough on this forum for me to know that we don't really disagree very much about the general principles. However, it is an undeniable fact that many of our trout fisheries have an overgrowth of "rough" or "bait" fish and swing out of balance with the predators such that the lakes can't return to good production without rotenone treatments. (Especially the rainbow trout fisheries.) I also know that you will then say to have the DWR plant some smallies in, a solution that I very often agree with. I don't believe though that it is the solution for every trout lake, and I do think that the prey fish can be brought into good balance with proper management of trout predators like Bear Lake cutts and tiger trout. The result can yield plenty of fat bows for the harvesters and big predatory trout for the trophy angler. See ya at Jordanelle. [/size]
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[wormandbobber]

[reply]Many of you think the chubs and shiner should not be in our lakes...

Your wrong we need a food soure if you want bigger fish....

The problem is that trout need to get over 20 inches long before
they can eat on them that much, And on most lakes the water is used for other things and pulled out of the lakes....And all we end up with is planters.....


.[/reply]

This is not necessarily true...trout do prey on chubs and shiners, and often get bigger as a result. But, trout do much much better and get very large without forage fish to prey on. They do need a good food source, but many of our lakes/reservoirs have a good food source and the ability to grow large trout and would do so more often without the chubs. Just look at what happens in lakes immediately following chemical treatments...the fish grow large very quickly without the forage fish. Minversville is the perfect example...right now the chub population is very very low, but the number of fish around 20 inches is high after only 2 years. By the end of the summer, the reservoir will be forking out numerous fish up to about 22-24 inches without the chubs.

But back to my original question...can anybody think of any lakes/reservoirs within a 2 hour drive of Salt Lake that would be good candidates? Scolfield was already mentioned...a good choice, but the DWR has already decided to up t he harvest on it. Any other ideas? What about Burch Creek? Causey? Tibble Fork? East Canyon? Lost Creek? Spanish Oaks? Vernon? Grantsville?

What about trophy waters...does anybody believe we have trophy trout waters in the North that don't necessarily have the C&R/slot limit regulations?
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[Fishrmn]

Wormandbobber,
Are you holdng out on us? Do you know something that we don't? I filled out a survey on Saturday, provided by the UDWR, asking for input about Scofield. While it seemed that the DWR was open to any and all possibilities, it didn't seem to favor any specific regulation changes. It left open the possibility for little or no harvest, or relaxing the regs to allow as many as 8 fish to be kept. It did not, however, imply that anything had been decided yet.

I like Minersville. I fish it as many as 40 to 50 times a year. I agree that the fish do extremely well WITHOUT chubs. They also start to utilize chubs at a much smaller size than most people think. I use a small minnow imitation when the chubs start to reproduce, and catch lots of 15 inch trout that are convinced that they are getting a chub for a snack. But it is easier to have a balance without a forage fish than it is to try to balance predator and prey. Inevitably one species outpaces the other.

Fishrmn

[wormandbobber]

No, I don't know any insider info on Scolfield...I just read the article about the proposal to change the harvest limit to 8. I am assuming that it will eventually go through despite some angler complaints.
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[Fowl-Hook]

A VERY big difference to use a slot to preserve or establish trophy fish, or like Strawberry try to establish a Bear Lake Cut Hatchery by protecting every fish!
Makes me reluctant to see the misuse of this approach become more wide spread.
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[wormandbobber]

So, what about some suggestions or ideas of lakes that would benefit from a slot used to "preserve or establish trophy fish"? When you say the "misuse of this approach" what approach do you mean? The first or the second. Give me some specifics of what you mean...how about an example of where "this approach" could be "misused"?
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[Fowl-Hook]

I believe that Strawberry is an example of the Misuse of a slot limit. The overwhelming majority of the fish (Cuts) in this body of water are within the slot and the slot has repeadily changed to make sure that remains to be the case. With regulations allowing the use of baited hooks you are supposed to release the vast majority of fish caught, GO FIGURE. Make No sense to me!
Nothing like the slot on Macs at the Gorge allowing the harvest of any fish in the lake for the obvious purpose of establishing more Large fish, by limiting the removal of large fish.
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[wormandbobber]

Although I disagree, I won't argue...let's just agree to disagree. I would like ideas, though...how about some other lakes in the north that would benefit from some kind of trophy regulation?
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[cat_man]

So do you or anyone else have any idea why they would raise the limit at Scofield to 8 fish? I really don't see the point! It seems like a TERRIBLE idea to me! It's just a way to deplete the fish supply faster!

If a family of 3 go up there to fish (mom and dad licensed, and a kid under 14 who can take a full limit, then with 4 fish limit they could keep 12 trout! That is more than enough for a family for a trip.

Now, if it's increased to 8, they could (and you know dang well many would) keep 24 trout! What the heck?

No, 4 trout limit is MORE than enough. Let's not add more madness to the regs than is currently there!
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[RiverRat77]

I think some of our warmwater fisheries could benefit from some management also. There are a few that I know have been talked about that are now apparently suffering from a lack of the "original" gamefish that resided in some of these waters. I know places like Jordanelle, Deer Creek and Utah Lake have nice bass restrictions on them. Utah Lake could use some white bass regulation I think... since the days of catch and keep them all have apparently put quite a dent in the population there. But there are a couple small bass holes that I fish in where the carp have taken up residence and driven the bass into non existance or substantially smaller populations anyway. There is one water that has been hammered and now has, apparently, a resident population of Tilapia but the surrounding ponds are filled with small stunted gills, small bass and tilapia. I think some regulation in little waters like that might help. I think some of our regulations are becoming a little outdated, like releasing all bass under twelve inches.... there should be a slot I'd think. From seeing some of the posts on here, apparently decent bass are not in short supply any more up at Deer Creek and Jordanelle. Well, I take that back. They're not in short supply at Jordanelle. I've not caught the bass at Deer Creek in a while like I used to. I would say something about the catfish at Utah Lake but I think they're ok in there.... It would be cool if we had a managed "trophy" catfish water but I doubt thats in anyones future. [cool]
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[doggonefishin]

Ok W&B, I went and read the thread and poll on the OTHER forum. Interesting stuff. While I will agree that the goal of having some more trophy trout stillwater is commendable, I do have to agree with you that the pickings are pretty slim in the North for additional stillwater that would fit the bill. At least the lakes I fish. I think the anger about Mantua remains.

For discussion sake, there is one lake here that I am familiar with that already regularly produces trophy trout. That is Jordanelle. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the bows and browns were protected at sizes between 13 and 18 inches. I bet we would see more trophy (20+) bows and browns. There is plenty of food and the smallies and perch keep the chubs in check. The down side is that a lot of people fish there to harvest bows and might not like a change. Of course, trout will always play second fiddle to the mighty smallies in this lake.
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[UtahDaveII]

Since I started all this on another board.

How many of you guys would support the dwr looking and trying to identify lakes that could grow some nice fish and still maintain a good catch rate. The biolgist would then Put a plan in place that may or require an artificials only designation, would probably require a slot and may require less stocking. We're talking about 3-6 waters around the entire state.

IF the plan the biologists come up with does lead to less stocking of these "Trophy" Stillwaters maybe the fish could then be transferred to Wastach front waters like Echo, Rockport, Deer Creek or the ever expanding # of urban fisheries. Interested to hear your guys thoughts.

Also how many of you guys are already fishing these types of waters up in Idaho.n
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[wormandbobber]

[reply] We're talking about 3-6 waters around the entire state.

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I thought this was for the north...not the entire state. And, don't you mean 3-6 MORE waters around the state?

We already have Minersville, Kolob, Barney, the Boulder Mountain, Quail, Sand Hollow, Strawberry, Jordanelle, Flaming Gorge, Panguitch, and a bunch of others that already have restrictive harvest regulations placed for the sole purpose of protecting trophy sized fish...
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[trollboy8]

I am personally all for whatever restrictions or guidelines will help me catch more, bigger fish. Having said that, I really don't like to eat fish unless I accidentally kill it, then I will choke it down. But since I am pretty much an exclusive catch and release fisherman, restrictions don't really bother me.
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