SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Wildlife Board approved changes to the current fishing regulations in Utah and made a few other rule amendments.
In order to accommodate angler feedback from surveys DWR is going to implement some needed fishery management updates at various waterbodies across the state. DWR proposed several regulation changes for fishing. The Utah Wildlife Board approved the changes, and the updated regulations will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.
Here are those changes:
Northern Utah waterbodies
- Willard Bay Reservoir: Reducing the daily limit of yellow perch to 15 at Willard Bay Reservoir and its inlet channel. (Currently, the statewide daily limit for yellow perch is 50 fish.)
- Causey Reservoir: Allowing an angler to use up to six lines when ice fishing at Causey Reservoir, but requiring the angler to check their own lines and attach their name to each line, pole or tip-up if more than two poles are being used at a time.
- Cutler Reservoir: Reducing the daily limit for black crappie to 15 fish. (Currently, the statewide daily limit for black crappie is 50 fish.)
- Echo Reservoir: Removing the catch-and-kill regulation for walleye at Echo Reservoir and implementing the statewide walleye regulation of allowing people to keep 10 walleye, with one fish over 24 inches.
- Pond at Poulter Preserve: Adding a regulation that from the second Saturday in September through 6 a.m. on the third Saturday of the following May, only artificial flies and lures and catch-and-release fishing would be allowed. The rest of the year, the statewide community fishery regulations would apply, which allow the use of bait and allow a daily limit of two fish.
- Porcupine Reservoir: Allowing an angler to use up to six lines when ice fishing at Porcupine Reservoir, but requiring the angler to check their own lines and attach their name to each line, pole or tip-up if more than two poles are being used at a time.
Central Utah waterbodies
- Deer Creek Reservoir: Removing the requirement that white bass caught at Deer Creek Reservoir must be killed immediately, and instead referring anglers to the statewide limit for the species.
- Provo River Delta: Requiring that any June suckers caught at the Provo River Delta be immediately released. Any walleye caught in that area from March 1 through 6 a.m. on the first Saturday of May must be released (while the fish are spawning). The limit on northern pike in the Provo River Delta was removed, and any northern pike caught in that area must be immediately killed. The Provo River Delta area will be closed to nighttime bowfishing (from sunset to sunrise) from the first Saturday in May through 6 a.m. on the second Saturday of July.
- Utah Lake and its tributaries: Allowing spearfishing for white bass (in addition to northern pike) at Utah Lake and its tributaries west of I-15, including American Fork Creek, Beer Creek, Dry Creek, Hobble Creek, Spanish Fork River and Spring Creek Run.
- Stansbury Lake: Stansbury Lake was recently opened to the public and it’s required that any largemouth bass caught there must be released. There will also be a 10-fish limit for bluegill, green sunfish and black crappie (a combined total), and a limit of two channel catfish.
- Yuba Reservoir: Allowing setline fishing at Yuba Reservoir.
Northeastern Utah waterbodies
- Pelican Lake: Keeping the daily limit of 15 bluegill at Pelican Lake, and changing the length limit so only five of the fish caught may exceed 8 inches. An angler may now use up to six lines when ice fishing at Pelican Lake, but may only check their own lines and are required to attach their name to each line, pole or tip-up if more than two poles are being used at a time.
- Strawberry River: Clarifying that the artificial flies and lures regulation also applies to instream lakes and ponds between the Pinnacles and Soldier Creek Dam on Strawberry Reservoir.
Flaming Gorge Reservoir regulation changes
Several updates to fishing regulations were also approved for Flaming Gorge Reservoir. These changes were made to benefit the kokanee salmon population at the reservoir, while also reducing the overly abundant population of smaller lake trout. The updated regulations will also create consistency with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s new fishing regulations for the Wyoming side of the reservoir. The Wyoming regulations will go into effect in October, and the regulations for Utah will go into effect Jan. 1, 2025.
The changes for Flaming Gorge include:
- Allowing the use of lake trout (caught as part of their daily limit) as bait — or legally disposing of them (without violating the state’s wasting laws) — while fishing at Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
- Chumming will be allowed at Flaming Gorge, but only with legal baits, dead burbot or dead lake trout.
- Removing the daily limit for lake trout 28 inches or smaller caught at Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
- Decreasing the daily fish limit for kokanee salmon caught at Flaming Gorge to three fish. (Currently, the daily limit for kokanee salmon at all Utah waterbodies is four fish.)
- Removing the ice hole size restriction at Flaming Gorge. (Currently, there is an 18-inch restriction for ice-fishing holes at Flaming Gorge Reservoir.) The board tasked the DWR with evaluating the new unrestricted ice hole size for the first year of implementation.
- Requiring anglers to label their fishing rods or tip-ups with their names, if they’re ice fishing with more than two lines.
- Allowing anglers to harvest both burbot and lake trout with artificial light when spearfishing at Flaming Gorge Reservoir from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31. No other fish species may be harvested using artificial light while spearfishing.
- Limiting the length of shooting line while spearfishing to 20 feet.
Southeastern Utah waterbodies
- Recapture Reservoir: Closing Recapture Reservoir to underwater spearfishing for largemouth bass from April 1 through the fourth Saturday in June (during the spawning period).
Southern Utah waterbodies
- Manning Meadow Reservoir: Allowing bait and increasing the daily trout limit at Manning Meadow Reservoir to four fish. (The current daily limit is two fish.) The seasonal closure to protect spawning cutthroat trout there would remain in place. The board tasked the DWR with evaluating the change for two years.
- Barney Lake: Allowing bait and increasing the daily trout limit to four fish. (The previous daily limit was two fish.) The board tasked the DWR with evaluating the change for two years.
- Gunlock Reservoir: Allowing a daily limit of six largemouth bass of any size, and increasing the daily limit for black crappie to 100 fish. (Currently, the statewide daily limit for black crappie is 50 fish.)
- Quail Creek Reservoir: Allowing a daily limit of six largemouth bass of any size.
- Sand Hollow Reservoir: Increasing the daily limit for largemouth bass to eight fish of any size. (Currently, the daily limit is six largemouth bass, with only one fish over 12 inches.)
- Mill Meadow Reservoir: Decreasing the current daily limit of eight tiger muskie at Mill Meadow Reservoir to match the statewide daily limit for tiger Removing the “bonus” brook trout limit at lakes and streams in the Uinta Mountains in Daggett, Duchesne, Summit, Uintah and Wasatch counties. (Currently, there is a “bonus limit” of four brook trout.)
- Adding four community fishing ponds across the state, including Dry Creek Highland Pond, Provo River Delta Gateway Park Pond, Jordan River Big Bend Pond and the Willow Spring Pond.
- Allowing anglers to kill and possess the fish they catch that are included on the prohibited species list and asking anglers to report those fish to the DWR. (Currently, anglers must release all prohibited fish species that they catch, including potentially harmful species.)