New UT Bass Regs Won’t Work

Who else has seen this movie? Utah recently announced that it enacted a new bass limit scenario to encourage anglers to remove smaller bass. That’s all fine and good, I guess, but it won’t get them where they want to go – because thanks to Ray Scott pushing for it so many years ago, bass fishermen release their bass. We want to!

Here’s the telling info from the Utah press release: “With the exception of Lake Powell, anglers keep only 4 percent or less of the total adult bass population at Utah’s bass waters each year [meaning] anglers release at least 96 percent of the bass they catch.”

I assume the exception is because Powell is a tourist destination, but Utah guys tell me if I’m off base.

I could go on, but the bottom line is: Most of the anglers who fish for bass are bass-specific anglers (I know you know, but apparently some state folks are ignorant of that fact). They are not general frying-pan anglers. So they will release their bass.

Ergo, fish and game departments, if you want to take small bass out of lake, scoop ’em up, shock ’em up, do it however you have to do it, but come up with a different way. Because bass fishermen as a whole aren’t in a hurry to kill and clean a bunch of small bass, and never will be.

Just do NOT stock stripers or pike, dang it!