SOAR Blog

Me (the one who looks excited), a crew member and my King Mackerel

Though I’m not exactly new to the SOAR Blog, (having been featured and/or mentioned here, here, here and here), I’ve never actually written a post–hence me thinking a small introduction is warranted. I’m the lone Canuck on staff at SOAR communications, actually working for Politis Communications–sister agencies–but working on a few of SOAR’s accounts, from time to time. I grew up immersed in sports and athletics, but mostly enjoyed swimming and playing soccer and rugby, which I played for my high school, and pick up games of basketball till the wee hours of the morning (at least in the summer). That said, I’ve dabbled in everything from winter skiing to water skiing and canoe trips to snowshoeing.

Well, enough about me and onto the purpose of this post. It’s been a few months now, but back in November I went deep sea fishing off the coast of Miami for one of my best friends bachelor party. About 20 of us jumped on one of the Reward Fishing Fleet’s largest boats and set off for four hours of fishing fun. It was my first fishing major fishing adventure in an ocean (Poppa P showed me the ropes of small lake fishing last year!)

About 20 minutes into our voyage the skipper yelled, “they’re biting!” Within minutes beers were exchanged for fishing poles, and lines were dropped into the Atlantic as we trolled across a school of dolphin-fish (also known as mahi mahi, dorado, calitos, maverikos, or lampuki). Within about 45 minutes 90 percent of the guys had caught their first fish. Several had caught a few, including some sharks (catch and release) that were hanging out trying to get some food themselves.

Matt, the bachelor, and his first Mahi Mahi

It was an experience of a lifetime and one I will not soon forget… specially since today I received my way-too-expensive mounted fish (for those wondering and who may not know, they don’t stuff the real fish anymore. Nowadays, they send you a fiberglass replica of the fish to hang on your wall.). Sure, I was also lucky enough to catch a red snapper and a king mackerel before the day was done, but none will look as cool on my wall as the 34 inch mahi mahi I was able to haul in!

If you’ve never been deep sea fishing I highly recommend it. And if you’re looking for a company to take you, out of the hundreds available, I’ll gladly recommend the crew at Reward Fishing Fleet (not a paid client or endorsement–this one is from the heart!). The rates are very reasonable and they’ll work their butts off to see that you and your group have a great time. Happy fishing!

The trophy has arrived!

Efforts to restore Utah Lake to its former beauty and pristine state are well underway, with the preliminary draft of a Master Plan unveiled this past month by the Utah Lake Commission.

Utah Lake covers more than 150 square miles, is 14-feet deep at its greatest depth and when full contains more than 870,000 acre feet of water.

Utah Lake during winter

According to a 2005 lake-wide study (the most recent such study conducted), it was estimated that non-native common carp constituted 91 percent of all fish within Utah Lake, with a projection of more than 7.5 million two-year-old (or older) carp inhabiting the lake.

Unfortunately, as bottom feeders, carp are also one of the greatest contributors to most public complaints surrounding Utah Lake - its turbidity (or murky) coloration. Carp are not the only culprits of the often cloudy condition of the lake, however, as manmade contributors (agricultural and factory runoffs), algae blooms and high-winds can combine to stir up the shallow waters to create less than attractive waters.

As a shallow habitat Utah Lake can and does support a variety of warm water gamefish, including white bass, walleye, channel catfish and several panfish species, including crappie and perch (each of which have been introduced to the lake).

Nevertheless, the list of Federal and state agencies that have a say in the management of Utah Lake is almost overwhelming and includes the

• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services
• U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
• U.S. Bureau of Land Management
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• National Parks Service
• Utah Reclamation Mitigation & Conservation Commission
• Utah Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands
• Utah Division of Water Resources
• Utah Division of Water Rights
• Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
• Utah Division of Parks & Recreation
• Utah Division of Water Quality
• Utah Division of State History

All told, six federal agencies, eight state divisions, and dozens of other local municipalities, governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations, each have a hand in what happens to Utah Lake.

On top of these organizations, the Utah Lake Commission was

“formed to promote beneficial utilization of the natural resources of the lake . . . in keeping with the Public Trust Doctrine.”

As noted above, the preliminary draft of the commission’s Master Plan has been written and is now available for public comment and feedback. Reed S. Price is the Executive Director of the Utah Lake Commission and he can be reached by phone at 801-851-2900 or by email at rprice@utahlakecommission.org.

In addition, interested individuals are also invited to participate in the following online survey to provide public input to the commission.

For more than 10 years (1994 - 2004), I wrote a self-syndicated column called “Utah Tech Watch” that began as a biweekly column and six months later moved to a weekly schedule.

Over time this column was published by three papers — the Deseret News (now the Deseret Morning News), The Daily Herald (in Provo, Utah) and The Enterprise (Utah’s weekly business paper) — as well as being distributed for free via email to several thousand subscribers.

Each year, one of my most fun and yet difficult self-directed assignments was to identify the top 10 stories of the year.

I plan to resurrect “Utah Tech Watch” as an online media property in 2008, and when I do, I’ll also resurrect its annual Top 10 stories piece. But for now, let me transpose this idea to this SOAR Communications blog with what I propose are the Top 10 Global SOAR Stories of 2007.

Continue Reading »

As I wrote on Wednesday, 9/6/07 (“Teaching someone to fish”), Jonathan Bacon and I headed up to Tibble Fork Reservoir this morning.

How’d it work out? Fairly well I’d say.

We arrived on the water sometime after 9:30 a.m. and were headed back home by noon with a limit apiece in hand (four trout each).

Berkeley’s PowerBait fished about three-feet off the bottom worked the best.

And according to Jonathan’s text message earlier this evening, the foil-wrapped trout smothered in lemon pepper and garnished with onions were “delish.”

My father wasn’t into the outdoors or sports. Luckily, I had relatives and family friends who taught me things like how to throw a spiral or to catch and clean a fish.

Starting first with my Uncle Johnny who first took me fishing in the San Francisco Bay as a pre-teen. (We caught what he called bullheads, but were actually sculpins.)

Later my Grandpa John Unck taught me how to fish for trout with salmon eggs on Moccasin Creek (now buried under Don Pedro Reservoir) in the central Sierra Nevada foothills.

Later, in spite of his lack of personal interest, my dad picked up fishing too and would occasionally take me and one or more of my siblings up to San Mateo Memorial Park to fish for trout.

And in almost every instance, I would come home having caught at least one fish. And as a young/new angler, that’s the key: catching fish.

Now that I’m older, catching fish (let alone catching and eating fish) is less important than actually getting out on the water, away from the crazy hyper-interconnected world for a couple of hours and slowing way, way down.

As a young father preparing to take my kids fishing (whether for the first time or on subsequent trips), however, I remembered I was reminded of the importance of A) going fishing (particularly with my dad), and B) catching fish.

Hence, I always start young anglers out on waters planted frequently with hatchery trout and I almost always use bait. Why? Because I want them to catch fish — it’s that simple.

That’s why this Saturday morning I’ll be taking Jonathan Bacon (one of my employees at Politis Communications) fishing this Saturday at Tibble Fork Reservoir up American Fork Canyon past Timpanogos Cave National Monument.

In more than 20 years of living here in the Salt Lake metroplex along the Wasatch Front Mountain Range, I don’t remember ever being skunked when fishing at Tibble Fork. And when you’re taking a kid or a new angler fishing, that’s critical.

For Bacon’s part, I’ve told him all he has to do is get his fishing license and show up — I’ll provide the rest.

So this Saturday, good weather or bad, we’ll be on the water by 9:30 a.m. (We’d go earlier, but I’ve got a softball game at 7 a.m.)

If you’re up American Canyon come Saturday morning, we should be on the northeast end of the lake. Come by and say “Hi.”