Chubs Take Over Otter Creek and Koosharem Reservoirs (1999)

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Category: Otter Creek Reservoir


(Published Jan., 1999, Utah Outdoors magazine)

By Same Webb Chub.jpg (13722 bytes)

A couple of weeks ago I fished Koosharem and Otter Creek reservoirs as part of a quick tour through southern Utah to see how the fishing was holding up.

Fishing at Koosharem was fast and furious. It was difficult to get my bait to the bottom (nightcrawler or meal worm on an ice fly) without getting a bite.

Catching a fish, on the other hand, was tough until I started fishing with a tiny piece of bait on the hook. Then I caught all the chubs I wanted. I caught a chub every time I got the bait to the bottom.

The chubs were all between four and six inches long and the whole reservoir was crawling with them. I am sure that there must have been some trout somewhere but they were being overrun with chubs.

Needless to say, we didn't spend much time fishing Koosharem and I wouldn't suggest that you spend much time either.

Next we moved down to Otter Creek. I have always enjoyed fishing Otter Creek and have usually done pretty well. I've never caught a lot of fish but the fish I have caught have been big - fat 18 to 20 inchers.

There was between six and eight inches of ice where we drilled our holes. The ice near the bank was melting and we had to jump over some rotten ice to get out onto the hard stuff but that wasn't a problem. We got a few bites in the first holes we drilled but couldn't hook any fish. We moved out into the lake a little further and drilled some more holes. Immediately we started catching - chubs.

These chubs were bigger than the ones at Koosharem. They were 10 to 12 inches long and boy were they hungry. We caught chub after chub after chub. Fishing was great but not for trout.

I called Dale Hepworth (Southern Region fisheries manager for the DWR) and he said that the chubs have taken over both waters and pretty well squeezed out the rainbows.

Hepworth said that as soon as the reservoir levels drop low enough (hopefully this fall) both waters will be treated to kill the chubs. Once the waters are treated they will rebound rapidly and within a couple of years both waters will be full of big, fat rainbows again.

It is impossible to completely kill off the chubs so every five or six years the waters have to be treated to give the rainbows a fighting chance.