Sadly this is not an April Fools post...

Fellow fly angler, Kurt Finlayson, sends sad news to all anglers thinking about spending their hard earned cash to fish in Utah. He writes:

"Anglers in Utah recently lost a major stream access battle.The Utah Legislature passed the bill during this past legislative session. Gov. Gary Herbert signed the bill on March 31 in the face of extensive public outcry.The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has placed some information on its Web site regarding how the bill affects anglers.The information is available at www.wildlife.utah.gov/streamaccess .The new law goes into effect May 11, 2010."

We also found a few facts on the web via the Utah Anglers Coalition.

Licensed anglers constitute 21 percent of Utah’s population.*
Angling generate(s) over $11-million in Utah sales tax, over $5-million in state income tax, nearly $12-million in federal income tax, and over $3.5-million in Sport Fish Restoration excise tax.**

The economic impact of anglers’ expenditures generate an additional $468-million in other benefits to local communities.

Kurt Finlayson: Inside Competitive Fly Fishing

Kurt Finlayson has written an excellent article for FlyFishMagazine.com about the Western Regional Fly Fishing Teams experiences at the National Fly Fishing Championship in Colorado earlier this year. Kurt's team pulled off what many would call and upset and won the Bronze medal, in the process knocking off international teams from Europe and Canada. Bringing a group of competitive and highly motivated anglers together into a team has its challenges:

Two days before the competition, our entire team met for the first time at a lake for practice. We were stringing up rods and it started; the parking lot turned into a mouth-fight filled with mistrust, anger, and egos fueling the blaze. Other teams watched as we argued and yelled at each other like idiots. Finally, after a few tense moments, all the grievances were voiced and the air cleared. Now, we had a clean slate on which to build a real team. We fished the lake together and talked about how we caught fish. That night we had dinner and the team continued to bond. The next day we practiced on a river and more egos dropped while our attention turned to figuring out the river and its fickle fish.

Read the rest of Kurt's article at Fly FishMagazine.com