Rocky Mountain Anglers is a fishing club that looks to promote warm water fishing here in Utah and part of that is introducing people to the sport, to the love of catching walleye.  

Our trip to Starvation Reservoir actually began four months ago, when Rocky Mountain Anglers held their annual walleye seminar at the Division of Wildlife Headquarters.  The goal was to introduce as many anglers to the love of catching some eyes.

"I get tons of calls every year about how do I go walleye fishing, what do I use, where are good populations of walleye and that's what we get into tonight. That's why we have some professionals here.  I can tell you where to go, but these guys are going to tell you how to fish for walleye.  What to look for, what lures to use, when to go,” said Drew Cushing, DWR Warm Water sport fish coordinator.

In addition to the instruction, three walleye trips were raffled off, a chance for some lucky fishermen to come to Starvation to learn from some of the best.

"You can show them in the class room, but there is no better experience than to get out on the water and do it hands on.  So we bring them out here and show them how to spinner rig, jig, troll crank baits, it's a good learning experience for these guys,” said Kevin Lund.

"It's good to get other people involved into the sport.  As far as my perspective, when I needed help to learn someone was there to help me out, so it's kind of paying it back,” said Jason Willard, RMA member since 2004. “Getting other people involved in it, it's a great sport.  Steer people away from trout a little bit.”

“You know walleye used to be go to Utah Lake at the spring and see if you could snag one, but know it's evolved a long ways since then.  We've got some great fisheries in Utah for the walleye.  Lake Powell is coming on real strong, starvation is the best in the state and has been for a few years.  Deer Creek it is up and down.  But it's a great fishery.  Willard bay it's coming back after the drought years so, there is some real good opportunities to catch walleye in Utah," said Lund.

Kristine Berg had to drag her son to the Walleye seminar, but it was Sean who ended up winning the trip and she was able to come and learn as well.

It seemed everyone was into the walleye and some big perch.

Lund says the big female fish get put back, "we do this is the future of this lake.  They brought it back from almost extinctions and that's the only reason we have walleye fishing today is big female perch.  We just kiss them and put them back into the water."

"We have a good raper with the fish and game with the park service, we help them out with a lot of different projects, we've been involved in building fish cleaning stations down at Yuba.  We donate money with their gill netting and planting of all the species that they put in all the reservoirs.  We are involved now pretty heavy with their new fish ponds at the Lee Kay Center see if we can grow our own tiger musky and wipers.  So we try to stay involved with the fish and game and even the legislatures, we keep in contact with them. They get our newsletter once a month, we send it out and so we have quite a few contacts throughout the state,” he said.

For information on Rocky Mountain Anglers, visit their website at RockyMountainAnglers.com. Maybe go to their next meeting, maybe win a trip, go out and learn some new tactics.