The Division of Wildlife Resources are busy with monitoring hunters during the hunting season, as well as, continuing to make improvements for anglers at Scofield Reservoir.
“We want people to keep in mind while they’re out in the field is our Conservation Officers will be out there every day but they are spread pretty thin. You know Utah is a big state, we have a lot of public huntable land,” said Conservation Outreach Manager, Morgan Jacobsen. “We want hunters to help us out by keeping an eye on things, watching out for potential poaching cases, things like that. It’s something that we have relied on hunters for years and they’ve done a great job.” Hunters are encouraged to download the Division of Wildlife Resources app on their smart phones or add the 1-800-662-DEER 24-hour hotline into their phones. The number can also be found on the individuals hunting license.
If hunters see suspicious activity they should get document as much of the details as possible like the location or GPS coordinates, date, time, description of the individuals and their vehicle or license plate. Hunting violations can be hunters shooting an animal and leaving it, finding a dead carcass with the head removed, shooting after dark, just anything that is out of the ordinary. Reporting even the smallest incident can be helpful to Conservation Officers.
If you’re an outdoors man that would rather cast a line, you will be pleased with the improvements happening at Scofield Reservoir. “Just the past couple of weeks we’ve done a gill netting survey. We have found that those fingerlings Tiger Muskies we released during the summer, back then they were three or four inches long, those are now close to 20 inches long. So, they’ve been eating well out there and we’re really excited about it,” stated Jacobsen. There has been the stocking of three new species during the summer of Tiger Muskies, Wiper and Sterile Walleye, which have all be thriving well.
“Scofield has been famous for its Rainbow Trout
fishery, so we want people to catch Rainbow Trout right away. So last week we stocked about 1,000 Rainbow Trout that were already over 20 inches and ready to catch and they are enormous and it is awesome,” said Jacobsen. Also stocked the reservoir with Tiger Trout, along with Wiper and both species will grow over the winter months. The purpose for the variety of species is also to offer anglers diversity.
To learn more about DWR visit their Facebook page.