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Show Small mouvh Bass planved av Gorge By Bill Kan-Nobody Kan-Nobody needs to be reminded about the world record brown trout that have come out of the Flaming Gorge, nor do they have to be reminded about the excellent ex-cellent rainbow trout fishing or the trophy mackinaw fishery it is proving to be. What people don't know, is that the Flaming Gorge holds a large population of smallmouth bass, and this year is proving to be the year when they are prolific enough and large enough to provide what is termed by the Wasatch Bassmaster club members as "really good" bass fisheries in the state, and that it's presently "turning on". This past week a dozen or so members of the Wasatch Bassmaster club came to the Flaming Gorge to assist the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in a smallmouth project they are implementing. The club members kept their catch alive in their on board live tanks and transported the fish to a holding net on the docks at Lucerne Valley Marina. At the end of the three days they had 110 smallmouths in the holding tank, the average length being 12' inches and the average weight being be-ing 14 pound. There were two fish taken that went 18 inches and 3'2 pounds, both of which were larger than the current Utah state record smallmouth of 3 pounds 1 ounce. Of the 1 10 fish 30 males and 40 females are being be-ing transported to special ponds at the WIIHIHIHIHIHIHIIBIIIHIIHIIIHIIllMIMIIlflBlllllBmilllHIWI Wahweap fish hatchery in southern Utah to spawn out fingerlings to be transplanted to Starvation Reservoir. The remaining fish will be taken directly direct-ly to Starvation for planting. The water is still a few degrees too cold for the smallmouths to be on the spawning beds, but the fishing was still rated as very good. One member of the club caught 22 bass in one day, although the daily average was more in the neighborhood of 10 fish. The best producers pro-ducers for the members were a crawfish crank-bait and an olive green '4 ounce maribou jig with a 4" green mister twister on the hook. According to one of the members most hookups were on the "drop" rather than the retrieve, and the lure was usually taken within the top ten feet of water. Hits were gentle, and a hesitation in the line was the indicator for setting the hook. According to Bruce Schmidt, biologist for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, smallmouths were originally planted in the Flaming Gorge in 1967, and the people who stocked the fish felt it was a failure, as most of the smallmouth fry were dead when emptied into the lake. It was 10 years later before they started showing up in anglers creels, and right from the beginning there were reports of good sized smallmouth being taken. It has just been recently that they have achieved a size to merit serious fishing, imejnflnfliiMi firm and contrary to popular belief that the only productive areas are near the pipeline and Hideout Canyon, Schmidt says there are substantial populations of smallmouths from the dam clear up to the Confluence. The Wasatch Bassmasters will be returning in June lor a smallmouth fishing tournament, and if it's anything like last year they can look forward to some fast bass fishing, and possibly a new state record. Whether an angler prefers trophy trout fishing, bait fishing lor chunky rainbows or chasing the hard lighting smallmouth bass, an anglers hardest decision at the Flaming Gorge will not be if he will catch a fish, it will be what type of fish he will catch. |