Utah is participating in a promotion sponsored by Cabelas. Fish have been tagged and released into waters in Utah and other states. If you preregister and then catch a tagged fish you could win up to $1,000,000 (or even double that amount).

Utah's DWR provided the information below. .

Utah is one of 19 states that are holding a "Wanna' Go Fishing for Millions?" contest this year. The contest is sponsored by Cabela's.

If you catch a fish with a contest tag on it, you'll be eligible for some big prizes.

The fish were tagged by biologists with the Division of Wildlife Resources. "We're happy to help," says Roger Wilson, Aquatic Section chief for the DWR. "We wish the anglers who participate in this contest the best of luck. We hope you're one of the prize winners."

See more details.

Utah waters with tagged fish include:

• Bear Lake
• East Canyon
• Grantsville
• Joes Valley
• Lake Powell
• Mantua
• Paragonah Lake
• Sand Hollow
• Starvation
• Utah Lake
• Willard Bay

"Scat from the wilderness near Springville that was supposed to prove once and for all whether the area is inhabited by wolves or wolf-dog hybrids is from ... coyotes."

That quote comes from this new article about the search for wolves in the mountains east of Springville. But the search is not over, by any means. Wildlife experts who have caught glimpses of animals in a remote area are certain they were not coyotes. They speculate that a group of wolves, or wolf-dog hybrids, live in the area, along with coyotes and other native wildlife. If there are wolves they apparently migrated down from the Yellowstone area.

So the hunt continues.

If hybrids are found they will probably be destroyed. If wolves are found then wildlife officials will evaluate options, which might include capturing and relocating the animals.

The article notes that some members of the public have expressed fear because of the possibility of wolves in the area. The fact that nobody has been able to get a clear view of the animals shows that they are shy and avoid human contact. They pose little danger to people recreating in the area. On the contrary, it is the wolves that are in danger.

Utah has sometimes had a hard time finding tiger muskie fry from other states and so DWR began an ambitious program to produce our own. Now that program is paying off, with the first Utah-raised fry being stocked into Bullock and Cottonwood reservoirs.

DWR has this news report about the program. Here are excerpts.

Gusher — "They are small, but they just made history," Barry Nielsen said as biologist Garn Birchell poured the first bag of about 20 tiger muskie fry into Bullock Reservoir.

The tiny tiger muskie released into Cottonwood, Bullock and Newton reservoirs should grow to this size in just a few weeks.

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources photo

"These are the first tiger muskies bred and hatched in Utah," Nielsen said, "and the first I know of to be raised in the West."

The tiger muskie project has been a special opportunity for Nielsen, a hatchery worker at the Lee Kay pond facility in Salt Lake City and his supervisor Randy Harrison, the fish culture coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

"Tiger muskies are an incredible fish," Nielsen said. "They're a cross between a northern pike and a muskellunge or 'muskie.' They get the best from both parents; tiger muskies are an excellent predator, and they grow extremely fast.

"Anglers love them because they're a thrill to catch. They can grow to 20 or 30 pounds within a few years."

Aquatic biologists like tiger muskie because the fish are skilled predators. Biologists use tiger muskie in waters in Utah where the biologists need to control unwanted populations of carp, white sucker and a few other non-native fish. Because tiger muskie are sterile, the biologists can control their numbers, which prevents the tigers from overrunning a fishery.

We fished hard hoping to catch a few walleye. Nope. Did catch several fat rainbows. And surprisingly, we caught two nice browns using walleye tactics.

We fished yesterday afternoon. Launched cabout 3:30 pm and fished until after it was fully dark. Big, bright, full moon so we could have kept fishing. It was pretty on the water.

Launced at the main St Park ramp and worked the shoreline up to the Island, then did several loops along the Island's deep-water shorline. We started catching fish immediately. All of the rainbows seemed to be from the same year-class. They were 12-14 inches long, fat and healthy. They hit hard and found hard. Fun to catch.

We tried all kinds of lures, trying to get something deep to entice a walleye. The most productive as an "Orginal Rapala" in rainbow colors. Small. We couldn't keep the rainbows from hitting the Rapala.

I tried bottom-bouncing along the rocky shoreline but just caught Rainbows.

At sunset, Kevin was casting a Lucky Craft into the rocks off The Island and had a fierce hit. In the water the fish looked different and we really hoped it was a walleye, but nope, a brown. I was trolling deep, trying to brush the tops of rocks and I caught another brown.

It was windy, water was choppy, so we couldn't hold any position to jig deep. After the sun went down it became quite cold. The water surface temperature was about 54 F when we started fishing and fell to about 52 F after sundown.

Rainbow fishing was fast during the warmest part of the afternoon but slowed as the sun went down. After sundown they moved somewhere - we couldn't even see them on the graph.

It was a fun trip.

Brett Prettyman spent time this week fishing Flaming Gorge, north of the Utah border, and reports good action for rainbows, kokanee and small lake trout. He describes the experience in this blog. Below is an excerpt.

"Our intentions were to catch kokanee and we boated several while trolling 15-20 ft with planer boards. We also managed a few bonus rainbows, one of which was about 3lbs, along with some feisty lake trout pups. We caught the fish on a variety of tackle and no one combo appeared to outperform another. Successful gear included Rocky Mountain Tackle (RMT) dodgers in hyperplaid, Bahama-mama, and fusion followed by RMT squids in double-glow pink and pink cotton candy. We also caught fish on Radical Glow tubes in radical red and pink Wedding Rings rigged with the same dodgers. Trolling speed was around 2.0 mph."

Read the complete report.

Spring fishign remains hot for smallmouth bass. Walleye fishing is good and getting better and striper fishing is on the verge of becoming excellent. That's a summary of the new fishing report by DWR biologist Wayne Gustaveson. You can see the full report here. Below are excerpts:

Bass have mostly pulled off the nests as fry have hatched following a good spawn in mid April.  But males still guard the swimming fry for a time and are in close proximity to the nest.  Bass are seen cruising in shallow water rather than guarding each nest. But it’s not over.  Soon guarding males will abandon swimming fry and reoccupy the nest. They spawn again and start the process over again.  The difference this year is that anglers will be able to see nests in May that are usually covered by murky runoff.  Males will now randomly spawn and guard nests depending on where they are in their individual nesting/spawning cycle.  The end result will be visible bass which are very aggressive on nests shortly after eggs are deposited but slacking off in aggressiveness a day or two after the event.   Crappie follow a similar pattern but their second spawn is weaker than large and smallmouth bass.

Walleye fishing improves each day...

Male stripers have been ready to spawn since early April but females are still holding off, hence the inconsistency of striper fishing right now.  Once in place males don’t move much and are often dormant during the day.  They can be found by trolling and casting near points.  Spawning will not occur until females are stimulated to spawn by rapidly rising water temperature and increased inflow near a flowing tributary.  Historically, the earliest spawn has come near May 10 and has been delayed as late as June 10.  Finding a spawning striper school is the only thing better than fishing a boil.  The only problem is that it all happens at night.  

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(This is a news release provided by Utah's DWR.)

2,100 More Elk

DWR seeks input about deer and elk plans

Plans that determine the total number of deer and elk in Utah are up for revision.

The change Division of Wildlife Resources biologists are recommending to the deer plan would allow them to use the most up-to-date habitat information available to decide whether deer population objectives should be raised, lowered or remain the same.

In the past, the plans for all five regions in Utah were revised once every five years.

Anis Aoude, big game coordinator for the DWR, says the DWR’s range trend crew does extensive on-the-ground habitat analysis in one of the five regions every summer.  Then the next summer, they travel to the next region.

“If deer objectives need to change,” Aoude says, “it makes sense to make the changes as soon as possible after receiving the latest habitat information for a region.  Instead of revising all five regions once every five years, we’re recommending that one region be revised each year, using habitat information the range crew gathered the summer before.”

The biggest change biologists are recommending involves Utah’s elk herds.  “We feel the state can handle a few more elk than we’re currently managing for,” Aoude says.

Biologists are recommending that the total number of elk in Utah be allowed to grow from a current objective of 68,825 elk to 70,965 elk.  If approved, the 2,140 additional elk would be scattered across the following units: Chalk Creek, Kamas, Avintaquin, West Desert, Fillmore and Fish Lake.

The only area where the total number of elk would decrease is the Paunsaugunt unit in southern Utah.  Biologists are recommending that the elk herd on the unit be reduced by 35 animals.

You can see all of the biologists’ recommendations on the Web at http://go.usa.gov/V3y.

After you arrive at http://go.usa.gov/V3y, scroll down the page to the ‘May RAC and June Board meetings’ heading to find the recommendations.

Learn more, share your ideas

After you’ve reviewed the ideas at http://go.usa.gov/V3y, you can let your Regional Advisory Council members know your thoughts by attending your upcoming RAC meeting or by sending an email to them.

RAC chairmen will share the input they receive with members of the Utah Wildlife Board.  The board will meet in Salt Lake City on June 6 to approve revisions to the management plans.

Dates, times and locations for the RAC meetings are as follows:     

Southern Region                               Central Region

May 8                                                              May 15

7 p.m.                                                             6:30 p.m.

Richfield High School                                       Springville Public Library Meeting Room

510 W. 100 S.                                                 45 S. Main St.

Richfield                                                         Springville

Southeastern Region                      Northern Region

May 9                                                            May 16

6:30 p.m.                                                       6 p.m.

John Wesley Powell Museum                          Brigham City Community Center

1765 E. Main St.                                            24 N. 300 W.

Green River                                                    Brigham City

Northeastern Region

May 10

6:30 p.m.

Bingham Entrepreneurship and Energy Research Center

320 N. 2000 W.

Vernal

Email

You can also provide your comments to your RAC via email.  Email addresses for your RAC members are available at http://go.usa.gov/IMk.

The group each RAC member represents (sportsman, non-consumptive, etc.) is listed under each person’s email address.  You should direct your email to the people on the RAC who represent your interest.

I fished Diamond Fork this afternoon - or at least tried to fish it. The stream is running high and is chalky. Many spots that are normally productive holes were just fast water today. Conditions were difficult.

I've been fishing Diamond Fork often and this was the highest water so far this year.

I expect we will see peak runoff on that stream during the next week or so.

Conditions are probably similar on other unprotected streams. During the next couple weeks the best stream fishing will be on stream sections below dams. So that means fish the famous waters with crowds of people:

• The Green
• The Provo
• The Weber between the dams

RexFly.com has posted good information and a couple of videos showing how they catch crappie and smallmouth bass at Lake Powell fishing minnow-immitation patterns using a fly rod. You can see the videos and read the information on this post on www.wayneswords.com. We have embedded one of the videos below. They have 2 videos on their original post and it is worth clicking to see the other one.

Insect hatches are now prolific on the Green River and fish are feeding aggressively. That is producing some of the best fly fishing of the year.

Brett Prettyman, writting for the Salt Lake Tribune, has this new blog post. Here are excerpts.

"Green River Fishing Report - Get There Now!

"I've been running a lot of info on the Green River these days and for good reason. As I mentioned may happen last year, the high flows in the spring/summer of 2011 flushed the river of years of sediment and gunk setting the plate for incredible insect production. The result is fat fish. The great thing about these fish is despite the abundance of food they are still willing to hit fake food so get there now."