It didn’t take long to discover that stripers could reproduce without limit in their new environment. The striper population was out of control and very hungry. It was obvious that we couldn’t feed the millions of fish produced, and adding more forage was not the answer.

As a fisheries biologist and an eager fisherman, I love the changing seasons. I’m already anxiously awaiting the bass spawn on Lake Powell in May and early season kokanee/rainbow fishing on Flaming Gorge. And it’s not just me — the whole family gets excited.

Did I choose catfish or did they choose me? It seems like wherever life takes me, I find catfish. At age 8, my very first fish was a two-pound channel catfish. I landed it on a Snoopy fishing pole at a pond on my grandfather’s farm in Missouri.

You can catch catfish throughout the year, but they are a popular summertime fish. They thrive in warm water and will bite on even the hottest days. Surprisingly, catfishing is also great just after ice-out on many of Utah’s lakes. This is when catfish swim along the windblown shores, gorging on the carcasses of…

In my years with the DWR, there’s one day that really stands out. It was a warm spring morning at Pioneer Park Pond, and the Ogden Senior Citizen Center dropped by for an outing. The seniors enjoyed themselves as they always did, visiting with each other in the outdoors. At about that time, I saw a kid down at the pond catching…