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Show Outdoor Wisdom by Hartt Wixom along with him, and if he can persuade an attorney to go fishing with him, he will save money. If fishing was once a simple way to forget your troubles, now it may cause them if you don't read the fine print. But this is not a complaint so much as a warning. Take a day off to read the proclamation. Then take another to go fishing. Utah's fishing proclamation proclama-tion is looking more and more like the complicated legal papers issued by Wyoming and Oregon. For example, whenMhe Beehive State opens its general trout season May 29, stream anglers must use artificial flies and lures ater catching two trout or salmon over 13 inches. Porcupine Reservoir ... is closed to kokanee salmon when in their spawning colors. And Provo River in Summit and Wasatch Counties reads thusly: "The creel limit on brown, brook, and cutthroat trout shall be two (2) fish of each species less than thirteen (13) in total length and on rainbow trout shall be eight (8) fish of which only two (2) may be thirteen (13) inches or larger except on May 29 through May 31 when the limit shall be six (6) fish." Other regulations specify you can't fish Panguitch Lake through the ice unless possessing a "special $5 Panguitch Lake ice fishing permit," with the usual terminology on Flaming Gorge and Lake Powell agreements which a Philadelphia Phila-delphia lawyer could interpret inter-pret only with the help of the Supreme Court. But the estimated quarter of a million laymen anglers expected to toss a line opening day better know what it says. And what it means. In most cases, the -intentions are merely to improve future angling, particularly par-ticularly the quality factor. For instance, many wild trout fishermen have known for years the Provo River above Deer Creek was barely beginning to recover some 30 years following flood control channelization. But. when word got out 16-20 inch browns were finding a modicum of habitat once again, the stream was soon heavily pressured. Some restrictions had to be instigated. But I wish we'd think these rules over. Like the old, strictly-enforced one about not fishing Uinta Mountain lakes from any floating device. Then they realized that it resulted in stunted fish. It is as if something is needed to lengthen out the proclamation. proclama-tion. Certainly the sector is which gives that free plug to a "game cookery, gourmet style, famous recipes from around the world," and where to order it. Loving simplicity, I'd have to commend fish-game commissioners com-missioners of Utah-Idaho for their statement on Bear Lake. Basically, it says a license purchased in either state is good in the other, and that the trout limit is six, with only two allowed over 16 inches. If lake trout, the limit is two. The latter should be a statewide regulation, and say so on the first page. Many streams are "quality "qua-lity waters" only, which means no hatchery fish to interfere with the wild trout, and usually a flies-lures only rule. However, the Blacksmith Black-smith Fork exception states any trout over 13 inches must be released. Why fish it then? If you can't keep one whopper, they might as well close it with Newton Reservoir. Reser-voir. Then they've taken off the size limits entirely on the Strawberry River from Soldier Sol-dier Creek to Red Creek, fly-fishing only, meaning fewer large trout there for future anglers. It can sound like a lottery. Just pick a number, and see what has happened to your favorite water. A minimum size limit, allowing only one fish over say 20 inches (as in Wyoming) makes much more sense than killing all recreational recrea-tional reason to be there. It reminds me of the time the commission voted to close Utah's fishing season Oct. 31 because "no one went out after that time anyway." Within a week those com-,, missioners were on the telephone to legally adjust the closure back to Nov. 30. " Catch-and-release on flyfishing-only waters can work, and has in Yellowstone. Yellow-stone. But the average angler with a deeply-hooked fish on lure or bait will have to. be careful, indeed, to release alive. He had better have the 1982 proclamation |