The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources raised the fishing limit Tuesday on Otter Creek Reservoir, giving anglers a chance to fill their creels with trout before the man-made lake is treated.

"The new daily limit is 16 trout instead of six," said division spokesman Steve Phillips. "And the higher possession limit will remain until the reservoir is treated, tentatively on Nov. 7."The division plans to begin dumping the natural chemical rotenone into Otter Creek, in Piute County, next Tuesday and Wednesday, said Phillips, "weather permitting. But it might be a couple of days later."

The reservoir had been a popular fishery for brown, cutthroat and rainbow trout, but a recent increase in chubs had reduced trout size and populations.

Ottenbacher said the treatment will include Otter Creek upstream to the Koosharem Reservoir and five miles of the canal between the east fork of the Sevier River and Otter Creek Reservoir.

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Phillips said the increased fishing limit also will apply to Otter Creek between the two reservoirs and to the spillway ponds just below Otter Creek Dam, "but not to other tributaries."

The division plans to immediately restock the reservoir with "some catchable trout," and then with fingerlings "which should be of catchable size by late next summer."

Fisheries biologists recently have treated several Utah reservoirs with rotenone, including Steinaker Reservoir near Vernal and Wide Hollow Reservoir near Escalante.

"Abnormally dry conditions have made the projects possible," said Ottenbacher, because many reservoirs have been drained down to their lowest levels in recent years, requiring less of the rotenone to successfully kill off trash fish.

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