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Anglers say Utah Lake carp tournament aims to reduce invasive carp and boost recreation
Summary
Participants at a carp tournament at Utah Lake said the event — attributed to the Utah Lake Authority — is intended to remove excess common carp, which anglers described as harming water quality and native species, and to encourage outdoor use of the lake.
Participants at a carp tournament on Utah Lake said the event, which they attributed to the Utah Lake Authority, is intended to remove excess common carp and encourage outdoor recreation.
"This is a carp tournament. They're just trying to remove all the carp that they can from Utah Lake," said a resident and angler who spoke at the event.
The anglers described ecological reasons for removing carp and said they had observed environmental improvement over several years. "So carp are bottom feeders, and so what they do is they, disturb the water quality by turning up a bunch of nutrients that make the water nutrient dense," one participant said. That participant added the carp "crowd out all the other fish, including the dunesucker, which is a native fish here." The speaker said the dunesucker had been endangered for a time but had been "downgraded due to all of the removal of carp."
Another angler, who said he has fished Utah Lake for about five years, said he has seen better water quality and larger, healthier fish since carp removal efforts began. A different participant who identified himself as living in Orem said he lives about seven minutes from the lake and visits the shoreline three to four times a day.
Participants described methods used during the tournament. One angler said competitors seek out rolling fish from boats, use bows to shoot carp, place catches on stringers and transport them back to their boats. "If you catch 1, you're supposed to kill it," a speaker said, describing a practice one participant said is common at the event. Another participant cited previous competition results, saying, "We won the first 1. The very first tournament they did, we won... Today was a fantastic day. They're spawning good. We got 4 12 today." The phrase "4 12" was used in the transcript and was not clarified by speakers.
Speakers framed the tournament as both recreational and ecological. "This is a good thing that the Utah Lake Authority is doing," one participant said.
The statements in this report come from tournament participants and do not include independent water-quality measurements or official statements from the Utah Lake Authority.
