Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources is proposing some changes to Deer Creek Reservoir fishing regulations that will be good news for white bass living there and bad news for anyone who wants to make sure they’re all gone.
Rather than mandating that any of the fish caught at that water body must be immediately dispatched, the potential change will allow anglers to catch and release the species. Folks who do want to keep them will still be able to do so without a limit on how many they’re legally allowed to take.
According to DWR’s sportfish coordinator Trina Hedrick, the change isn’t the result of any white bass population concerns.
“Some fish don’t take,” she said.
She said white bass were actually illegally introduced to Deer Creek over 10 years ago, and this is to potentially allow the game to continue in the waterway, albeit not a lot of it.
“We actually just haven’t seen them in our netting or other sampling, despite that initial observation over a decade ago,” Hedrick said. “We’re just acknowledging that the illegal introduction probably didn’t take, but they may still exist in there in low numbers.”
They’re not sure if there are any more white bass in the lake — they haven’t seen any in 10 years — but if anglers do catch some then they can treat them as they would treat white bass in any other water body in the state.
The proposed change is one among many the DWR has proposed throughout the state. Another potential difference that could affect Wasatch County is clarification that only artificial flies and lures are allowed when fishing in-stream lakes and ponds between the Strawberry Pinnacles and Soldier Creek Dam at Strawberry Reservoir.
Hedrick said determining fishing limits and regulations on certain species is done through a series of equations.
“There is actually a fisheries modeling program that will run the calculations and model (based on your population parameters) what will happen when you introduce a slot limit, increase the size limit,” she said.
The process takes into account information like total mortality, age distribution and growth, and it’s used to determine limitations on naturally occurring and reproducing species.
For other kinds of fish that DWR stocks, such as rainbow trout, Hedrick said determining regulations is different.
“It’s based more on the economics, anticipated catch rates, basic things like that,” she said. “We also try to complete (surveys) on our more popular waters at least once every 10 years. This gives us a really good estimate for the number of fish caught, the number of fish harvested, and this is by species.”
She said DWR works in two-year regulation cycles, so while there may be more proposed changes next year, there will likely be several more in 2026.
“We’re trying to be responsive,” she said.
Other potential changes throughout the state include opening more opportunities, times and locations to spearfishing, allowing anglers to kill and keep fish on the prohibited species list and report their catches to the DWR and allowing people to use airguns that fire arrows or bolts to kill carp in open waterbodies.
The air gun, Hedrick said, was a request that came from the June Sucker Recovery Program to reduce the amount of common nuisance common carp in the state’s waters.
“They’ll uproot that vegetation and typically make waters a lot more turbid or murky because of their foraging,” Hedrick said. “It’s still considered a weapon, so people need to be aware of that.”
June suckers, according to the restoration program, are the only remaining native species in the Utah Lake system. Hedrick said she believes there’s competition between the suckers and carp, so reducing the unwanted carp population will help the suckers eat their fill while also helping to clean Utah Lake.
Hedrick believes the biggest possible impact from the changes could come from changes in limits at Flaming Gorge. The lake, which sits on the border of Utah and Wyoming, has historically been sectioned off so different sections of the lake were under different state codes.
With this year’s potential changes, the only difference between Utah and Wyoming restrictions in the area will be limits on smallmouth bass.
Anglers interested in learning more about the proposed regulation changes can find more information in a video of Hedrick posted to DWR’s YouTube channel. They can give feedback in regional meetings happening throughout late August and September.
The meeting for the central region that encompasses Wasatch County is Aug. 27 at 6 p.m. in Springville.
If voters approve the changes, they will go into effect in Wasatch County and throughout Utah starting January next year.