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Show Would Restore Bass Fishing In Utah Lake BY MARK ANDERSON j Seven or eight years ago bass fishing in Utah lake was good. Many fishermen from Salt Lake and other parts of the country came here to fish for bass. Gradually bass fishing grew poorer and now hardly! any one has the patience to even try for a bass. . Several factors have operated to ! reduce our bass to the vanishing point in Utah Lake. Many thought that commercial seining for carp ! and suckers was responsible for ! Ihe wholesale destruction and il- i legal taking of these choice game fish. And the sportsmen of the state ' were recently u nam ions in their support of a measure to stop sein-Mig sein-Mig entirely on Utah Lake. Some be-! be-! Heve that the radical and frequent variation of the lake level has ruined ruin-ed the spawning beds of the bass. Others believe that the carp and 1 lie catfish destroy the spawn and bas.s fry. Predatory birds are also! blamed for the present depletion of this choice fish in our lake. No : doubt all of these factors together have operated to ruin bass fishing in Utah lake. But regardless of what has brought about this condition condi-tion the bass have just about vanished. van-ished. Of this we are certain. After read-ng of what has been accomplished in other parts of the United States with bass rearing ponds it is my opinion that we should bn honeful P.nss f iKhinp- water four or five feet deep at the raceway. It is necessary to have ponds that can be drained. This in order to free the ponds from vermin and to make it easy to remove fin-gerlings fin-gerlings for distribution. I There is already a man at the fed- j eral fish hatchery at Springville who has had considerable exper- 1 ience in bass culture and is willing to give the idea a test. One pond I is already available for bass. There is room for other ponds if funds can he provided. Proper public senti- j ment will make It possible to get the necessary money once the plan is proved sound by demonstration. jNo doubt supervision costs would be much less at an established hatchery hatch-ery than elsewhere and rearing 'ponds without close supervision and I care will surely fail. Henry A. Schuil, supervisor of ! rearing ponds for the state of Michigan, Mich-igan, has discussed bass culture at some length in a recent issue of Outdoor America. Another article by Harry H. Hilgemann, president of the Fort Wayne chapter of the Isaac Walton league, tells of the accqmplishments of his chapter in rearing sixty thousand baby bass from thirty-nine pairs of adult large mouth bass in a single season. In commenting on the growth of the bass Mr. Hilgemann writes as follows: "We were amazed at the rate a bass will grow. Some individuals indi-viduals we found had erown to con berestored in UtM- Lake in a very short time and '.his with little or no attention iu the destructive factors enumerated above. But it appears that the work must be ac- ci'iiii-lisiK il vif-h ha?. iv ni in,? nonds 1 ; :!' f'tjiy selr-r( i',-r the purpose. Bass are very prolific and best of parents. All they need is ponds free from vermin and other fish that destroy their spawn. A pair of bass will rear from two to ten thousand young in single season. The ponds J"mus"L" be feather edgrd and in the shape of an oyster shell with the eight inches and enormous girth in j nine weeks time". Much has been learned in recent years about bass culture. We should make use of 1 this knowledge. As n tourist nttrnction that will really hold tne touriyt nothing ex.-'. eeeus good fishiug. Not only the , sportsmen but all the persons interested in-terested in increasing tourist trade in Utah should get behind a movement move-ment to bring Utah Lake back as a fishing center. Baseball is known as our national sport. Fishing is an international sport. |