Author: Andrew Cushing

The Community Fisheries Program has two simple objectives: 1. To provide angling opportunities close to urban centers. 2. To use these angling opportunities as a formal education tool to recruit youth into the sport of angling. Utah has the fastest growing youth segment of the population in the nation, yet the angling population in Utah has flat lined in recent years. Currently the UDWR primary funding mechanism is license sales. This combination of facts causes concern in regards to the future capabilities of the UDWR to function. To make matters more difficult, Utah is the 2nd driest state in the nation and the 6th most urbanized, 70% of the population lives in four counties along the Wasatch front. These urban population centers continue to expand and the need for additional housing and business’s continue to grow. Many existing ponds will continue to be filled in and developed over, or neglected and forgotten. It is my opinion that the UDWR could never restore these streams, rivers and ponds itself. These hidden gems have only one savior, a grass roots movement of “stewardship”. The question is: How to foster stewardship? This feeling of stewardship can best be achieved by involving the surrounding communities in the identification, restoration or construction and maintenance of “their” community fishery. If a tree needs planting, let them plant it. If the fishery needs habitat improvement, let them improve it. This process of creating a successful community fishery has one additional and perhaps the most important step. The youth within the community must be educated about the natural resources around them and the skills needed to succeed in the sport of angling. The Youth Fishing Program is the instrument that the UDWR uses to drive the Community Fisheries Program. The program has been in place since 2001. The first year, just over 100 children took part in the program with 20 volunteers. It was a struggle to recruit the children as well as the volunteers. Between 2001 and 2002 the UDWR established relationships with the communities surrounding the ponds. These relationships have enabled the program to expand to 1700 children and 250 volunteers. These relationships and the program that has grown from it provide the basis that everything else is built on.