| DWR personnel pull in a net full of chubs at Joes Valley Reservoir, hoping their efforts will reduce the number of nuisance fish in the fishery and improve the fishing for anglers. |
Over the past two weeks, Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) personnel have been netting Utah chubs at Joes Valley Reservoir.
Chubs have been problematic at the reservoir, occupying the habitat and competing with food resources intended for trout.
Fishing regulations have been in place for a number of years, which are designed to help splake get large enough to eat chubs. Although the regulations have resulted in trophy splake, the population of chubs hasn’t been significantly impacted. The trap-netting of chubs by the DWR will hopefully give the splake a helping hand in reducing chub numbers.
Almost every day for the past two weeks, DWR personnel have set trap nets along the shorelines, trapping chubs which school in shallow water as they prepare to spawn. Biologists set and collect nets daily. Yields have approached a ton of chubs every day. The fish are then taken to the Emery County landfill for disposal.
Chubs were probably introduced to the reservoir by anglers using live minnows as bait. Live minnows sometimes get off the hook, find mates and reproduce, creating a horrible problem for the sport fishery. It is illegal to fish with live bait and to carry live fish from one water to the next. This law was implemented in an attempt to end a practice which has had dire consequences on many of Utah’s fisheries.
Anglers who want to keep waters free from nuisance fish species need to stop using live minnows as bait and urge others to do likewise. Anglers that see people using live fish as bait or if they are transporting live fish, should notify the Help Stop Poaching hotline at: 1-800-662-DEER or your local public safety dispatcher by calling 911.
The thousands of dollars spent every year on control of unwanted fish species could be used for much better projects across the state.