Marina Expansion

GARDEN CITY, Utah – Bear Lake is silent right now, but as the weather heats up this spring and summer, many beaches and the marina will be packed.

"Bear Lake has been getting busier and busier," said Richard Droesbeke, Bear Lake State Park manager. "More people have found the Caribbean of the Rockies."

Droesbeke said lines to get into the marina already fill up entrance lanes that DOT recently built.

"Even with those new lanes, traffic was backing up to the highway," he said.

In addition, he said there's a slowdown for getting boats onto the lake too. "Our current launch ramp is only seven lanes and that's our bottleneck right now too, is we can't launch or retrieve boats fast enough to get them on or to get them off the water."

The state legislature recently approved $60 million to build a new marina at Bear Lake. Park managers said it will look like it has a copy of the old one placed right below it.

Another marina with about 300 more boat slips will help them handle a lot more. There will be about 12 more launch ramp lanes.

A drawing depicting the new marina. (Photo: Jub Engineers via KSL-TV)

"That will help with the flow and keeping our lines down if there's more lanes, then it will be less backup," Droesbeke said.

It will also make it easier to get boats back in quickly when severe weather arrives.

Droesbeke said, "It creates a safe haven for the lake."

He said the new marina will also be about five feet deeper, making it possible to keep running even in the lowest water years.

And while it may be tough to keep up with the increased interest in Bear Lake. Droesbeke said they still need permits from the Army Corps of Engineers but ideally, construction could begin as early as this fall, but more likely in the fall of 2023.

"We've continued to see a constant growth with visitors to the park and to the marina," he said.

The new ramp should open in 2025. 

State of the Lake Public Meeting

 GARDEN CITY — Fisheries staff from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) will collaborate and share updates on the Bear Lake fishery and work plans for 2022 at an upcoming “State of the Lake” public meeting.

Emily Wright shows a lake trout caught and released at Bear Lake with a gillnet in 2019.

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 31, at the Garden City Convention Center’s Lakeside Room. The meeting starts at 6 p.m.

The Garden City Complex is located at 69 N. Parkway in Garden City, just as you come into town.

Scott Tolentino, a fisheries biologist stationed at Bear Lake, said they haven’t held a meeting like this for 10 years. He is a 30-year veteran of DWR.

“Idaho holds a lot more meetings like this than Utah does,” he said. “We thought both agencies could talk about their proposed studies and what they will be doing in the future. It could eliminate a lot of disinformation and the people at the meeting will get it strait from the horse’s mouth.”

Anglers and other community members interested in the status of the Bear Lake fishery are encouraged to attend. Biologists from both agencies will share the latest population trends and ongoing management work related to the wide array of fish found in the lake.

“We will give a formal power point presentation on how the different fish populations are doing,” Tolentino said. “We will go over how the different fish populations are doing. We want it to be an open atmosphere followed by a question-and-answer session between biologists and the public.”

The agencies plan to talk about populations of the Bear Lake cutthroat trout, lake trout, Bonneville cisco, Bonneville white fish, Bear Lake whitefish, Bear Lake sculpin and even carp.

“We are going to make the presentations so the average joe can understand what we are saying,” he said. “We are not going to try to baffle anyone with confusing information.”

Bear Lake is the home of 13 different species of fish, four of which are found nowhere else in the world.

The agencies hope everyone will leave with a better understanding of what the Bear Lake fish populations are currently and the work the agencies are doing to help the fish in the lake.

For more information, contact the Idaho Department of Fish and Game Southeast Region Office at 208-232-4703 or the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Northern Region Office at 801-476-2740.

Almost Bear Lake in the sky from an Idaho cave

 

Bear Lake Valley Market invites you to support this fun event

 

Wolverine captured near Randolph- article written by Rod Boam

 One of the fiercest animals on the planet, wolverines are known for their strength, fearlessness, and voracity. They like to live alone and hunt at night preying on all kinds of game and livestock. They don’t hesitate to attack any animal, even small bears.

To increase the chances of capturing the wolverine DWR biologist set two traps then placed the dead sheep into them to attract an animal adept at feeding on dead animals.

A large portion of a wolverine’s diet comes from eating the carcasses of elk, caribou, livestock and other animals.

The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food removed all the remaining 18 sheep from the area.

About mid-morning, the sheepherder visited the area and noticed a door on one of the traps was down. Inside the trap was the wolverine, captured by biologists in Utah.

DWR biologists and a DWR conservation officer brought the wolverine back to the Ogden office where they drew blood, collected hair samples and took a series of measurements.

Throughout the examination, they monitored the sedated animal’s heart rate, breathing and temperature, applying alcohol and ice to its armpits and stomach to keep it cool. Before reversing the effects of the drug they also attached a GPS collar to its neck.

Biologists determined the wolverine was a male between 3-4 years old. It weighed 28 pounds and was 41 inches long from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail.

“The animal had good, sharp teeth,” Christensen said. “It was in really good condition.”

After checking the animal over completely, the animal was placed back in the trap and taken back into the wild and released.

“It took only a couple of minutes for it to start waking up,” Christensen said. “Pretty soon, it was wide awake and as lively as ever.”

The chance to track this wolverine is priceless, and the GPS data will provide invaluable information to biologists. That tracking information will include when and where the animal travels, the size of its home range and the type of habitats it uses at different times of the year.