I think time of year makes a big difference, this time of year I’m very pro minnow, earlier in the year they were slow and not so hot, so keep in mind that day to day things change and so make sure you keep your arsenal of tricks for when the flavor of the day changes… Later J
Pre-spawn browns in a certain popular, overfished river snag up Gulp minnows like nothing else. Non-AFL stretch only, of course.
I know I need to try them while fishing is good and learn how to use them, but I don’t remember I have them most of the time. Must be old age or too many options and not enough time to use them all. Thanks for the tip. J
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There are chubs, fathead minnows and small pond carp in the Deer Valley lakes…sometimes. They go in cycles. But I have had some good harvests there…with cast nets and with minnow traps.
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It appears that the availability of bait minnows may be somewhat limited at Deer Valley Lakes next year. There is a proposed change for 2016.
*Deer Valley Lakes, Summit County (community fishery) Limit two fish
*The 2015 proclamation addresses community fishery limits as follow:
*Community fisheries (The limit includes fish of any species…)
*So it seems that source may soon be unavailable.
That would be a long drive from the SLC valley to get two bait fish.
I doubt those rules apply to non-game fish. If you limited chub and carp to two fish in those lakes, they’d be useless holes of garbage fish in a couple years at most. Maybe I’ll call the local DWR office and clarify…
I have asked the DWR before if two fish for the community fishing ponds means two fish of any species (game fish or non-game fish) and they have answered yes. Hopefully, they don’t make this a community fishery, just change the rules to be two game fish for these bodies of water.
**It was a community fishery before and it was left open to the harvest of nongame minnows.
But if it goes back to the community status it would pay to get an exact ruling before running afoul of some zealous CO.
I haven’t tried it for a couple of years and did not get much the last couple of trips there. But on previous visits I got a grundle.
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Maybe they are counting on a good forage base for a few years, or maybe it was oversight.
It doesn’t seem to me that such a forage base is much needed for a simple community fishery stocked with hatchery rainbows.
**In previous years they had both cutts and bows. The bows always suffer in the same waters as chubs. The bows were supposed to be a control element. But they were skinny and the chubs were fat.
Hard to say what the “management” plan is.
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