Utah Fishing Guide

Tips from Brian Losee of Cabela's in Lehi, on catching burbot. Good luck to those fishing in the upcoming fishing tournament at Flaming Gorge's Burbot Bash.

Since burbot, sometimes called ling, was illegally planted in Flaming Gorge, there has been a negative impact on sport fish, particularly smallmouth bass. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department is doing what they can to remove the fish. The most promising effort has been to hold the Burbot Bash, a contest to see who can catch the most burbot. Last year's tournament was a great success.

"A total of 485 participants registered for the tournament and collectively harvested 4,022 burbot in seven days," says Ryan Mosley with the DWR. "Total weight of all those burbot was over three tons! That's impressive removal of an unwanted species and a good investment.

"If the two management agencies were netting to remove burbot, it would take over 90 nights and numerous personnel to remove that much biomass."

This year's tournament will be held January 25 to 28. It will include a fishing expo starting at 1:00 at Buckboard Marina. The expo will feature prize drawings and fishing tips. Presentations about ice fishing safety and the current status of fish in Flaming Gorge will also be given.

The fishing expo is free, but the fishing derby that follows the expo isn't. If you want to participate in the quest for prizes, you need to register at www.flaminggorgecountry.com and pay a fee. Teams of up to four anglers can complete for more than $10,000 in cash and prizes.

A unique feature of the Burbot Bash derby is the opportunity anglers have to catch tagged fish.

A select number of burbot have been implanted with internal tags that can only be identified with specialized electronic readers. State fish biologists hope to learn more about the extent of the burbot problem in Flaming Gorge based on tag-return data. Information from the tagging program will allow biologists to obtain a variety of information about the species, including movement, migration, survivability, growth rates and population estimates.

The catch? Tournament anglers will not know if they've caught a tagged fish or not. Therefore, all burbot caught will need to be checked in and scanned for tags at the check-in sites that will be open daily throughout the derby.

All anglers catching a tagged fish will be entered into a drawing for cash prizes. The grand prize drawing for catching a tagged fish is $2,500. "This tagged-fish drawing allows anglers who can only fish one evening to still win in this derby," says Craig Collett, president of the Flaming Gorge Chamber of Commerce.

Prizes will also be awarded in youth categories and for the most fish caught and the biggest fish caught.

The derby will conclude on Jan. 28 with a burbot-filleting competition, a free burbot fish fry and the prize-award ceremony featuring the tagged fish drawing.

The prize-award ceremony will be held at the Manila Rodeo Grounds in Manila, Utah.

"Both opening and closing events are open to all the public," Hartford says. "You do not need to enter the derby to come out with your family and have fun at this great winter event."

A 30-pound striped bass was caught at Lake Powell by Mike Wall of Tempe, AZ. He was trolling a Lucky Craft Aurora Black Pointer using a downrigger set at 22 feet. The whopper was caught in the back of Last Chance Canyon.

A way you can help your favorite community fishery is by releasing all largemouth bass you catch.

Penne explains, “Bass help keep bluegill populations under control and ensure that some bluegill grow to a decent size. Without the bass, the bluegill population would boom, producing thousands of tiny fish too small for an angler to keep.”

This change isn’t mandatory, but the Division encourages you to release all bass at community waters.

You can now follow Utah Fish Finder on Tweeter. Find out when the site has been updated as well as other news by following us @UtahFishFinder.

Vernal — Anglers are raising their eyebrows at Steinaker Reservoir. "What is this fish I just caught?" many of them are asking. "It looks like a ghost. Is it radioactive?!"

The Division recently stocked about 15,000 of these white rainbows into Steinaker Reservoir. Note: The greenish glow comes from the camera's flash (much like the red-eye effect in photographs of people).

Photo courtesy of the Kamas State Fish Hatchery, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

No, the fish isn't radioactive. And it's not a ghost, either. It's just a strain of white rainbow trout the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has developed and raised to give anglers an unusual and unique fishing experience.

"We've stocked white rainbow trout for years in the Uinta Mountain lakes along the Mirror Lake Highway," says Roger Schneidervin, DWR regional aquatics manager. "Anglers and wildlife watchers really like the fish. The fish are easy to see. And they're quite unusual."

After Schneidervin learned that one of the DWR's hatcheries had some extra white rainbows, he asked the hatchery workers if they would put them into Steinaker and the Kids Canal in northeastern Utah this fall.

"They stocked a few into the canal and roughly 15,000 into Steinaker a couple of weeks ago," Schneidervin says. "It's been fun talking with the anglers who have caught them. Some are familiar with the fish. Others have asked if the fish are radioactive!"

If you catch a fish that's white at either water, don't panic. It's not a ghost, and it's not radioactive. It's just an unusual genetic variation that's sometimes found in rainbow trout. DWR hatchery managers have managed to isolate some of the fish. Now the fish are being bred and raised in Utah's fish hatcheries.

For more information, call the DWR's Northeastern Region office at (435) 781-9453.

In order to launch boats at Lake Powell, federal inspectors will now check boats for zebra and quagga mussels. The "self-certification" program put in place in 2007 has proved inadequate. Some boaters were launching without going through the process. Fourteen staff members have been assigned to do the screening and decontaminate boats as necessary at each of the four marinas.

The mussel were originally introduced into the Great Lakes when ocean-going vessels brought them in their bilges from the Ukraine. Their rapid growth make them an eco-disaster. When they were discovered in nearby Lake Mead, warnings were issued for Lake Powell and other Utah waters. Now inspections are mandatory for Lake Powell.

Night fishing with a light has the fish in this video literally jumping into the boat. Here, a fishing pole would only get in the way.

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Utah fishing reports, news and fishing techniques updated weekly.