Salt Lake City — The Utah Wildlife Board approved some changes to fishing regulations across the state, including classifying roundtail chub as a sportfish and establishing fishing regulations for the species. A few other items were also approved during Thursday's public meeting.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources makes changes to fishing regulations when data collected from biological surveys or angler catch data shows that a fishery is not meeting its objectives. The DWR also conducts an online survey to gauge public support for all regulation changes before formally recommending them to the Regional Advisory Councils and the Utah Wildlife Board. The DWR also considers requests from the public for regulation changes when those requests are supported by biological data, angler catch data and the online public survey.

"One of the changes approved by the Utah Wildlife Board for this next year's fishing regulations is to remove roundtail chub from the list of prohibited fish species to fish for in Utah," DWR Sportfish Coordinator Randy Oplinger said. "We initially started presenting this idea to the public last year, and there was a lot of support for it. These are a fun species to fish for because they take a wide variety of flies, lures and baits. Roundtail chub are found in the Colorado and Green rivers and their tributaries. Those rivers don't receive a lot of fishing pressure, so classifying roundtail chub as a sportfish species provides some new fishing opportunities on some waters that are not heavily visited. While roundtail chub are considered a species of greatest conservation need, they are a conservation success story and their populations in Utah are doing well enough now to withstand some fishing pressure."

The approved change will now allow roundtail chub to be caught in the following areas:

The wildlife board also approved the following fishing regulations:

The DWR will also look at expanding spearfishing opportunities in Utah and will present those recommendations in future public meetings.

The board also approved the new bison management plan for the Henry Mountains herd. The previous bison management plan for the Henry Mountains was written in 2007. The approved new plan will be in place for the next 10 years and includes updated information on the history, status, habitat management, population objectives, and harvest management and strategies for the bison population on the Henry Mountains.

One of the goals of the plan is to maintain the Henry Mountains bison herd as a genetically viable, free-roaming conservation population of bison, while also balancing the population with the available forage resources that are also used by livestock in the area, and the long-term habitat in the area. Another goal of the plan is to manage the bison population by providing diverse recreational opportunities, which include hunting and wildlife viewing.

The management plan can be found on the DWR website.

Previously, some changes to the Landowner Association rule were proposed in the June 2 Utah Wildlife Board meeting. During that meeting, the board voted to give LOA landowners the opportunity to propose future additional program changes to the LOA committee and the DWR. Any proposed changes that had the combined support of the LOAs, the committee and the DWR were shared at the public Regional Advisory Council meetings in August and September and presented to the wildlife board during Thursday's meeting.

The wildlife board approved the following amendments to the LOA rule:

The wildlife board also approved the 2022 Utah Conservation Permit Program audit and annual report during Thursday's meeting. Conservation permits are offered to conservation and sportsmen's groups who then auction them at banquets, fundraisers and other events. The conservation groups provide 90% of the money raised from these permit sales toward conservation and research projects, including:

The remaining 10% of the proceeds are retained by the conservation groups to help cover administrative costs. Over $7 million was raised for wildlife conservation through the conservation permits this year. Since 2001, the program has generated more than $72 million for wildlife conservation in Utah.

The public meeting dates for the 2023 Regional Advisory Council meetings and Utah Wildlife Board meetings were also approved during Thursday's meeting. The board also asked the DWR to put together a guiding document for selecting advisory committee members that can be approved at a future board meeting.

You can watch Thursday's meeting on the Utah Department of Natural Resources YouTube Channel.

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