Ditch the fish and pick up trash in Utah to win epic prizes

Salt Lake City, Utah – The best snow on earth is renowned for existing in Utah. However, we also boast some of the top fishing locations. Jared Winkler is a part of those two universes.

Winkler is a passionate snowboarder and works full-time at Brighton Ski Resort.

However, he also loves to fish, and he’s managed to do it while preventing rubbish from entering our lakes, rivers, and streams.

That’s through a nonprofit organization he founded called “Fish For Garbage,” which is currently holding a competition in an effort to engage more people in their work.

“What we do is, we rally other volunteers to get together and pick up trash around lakes and rivers,” Winkler explained.

The fishing community in Utah is quite close-knit, he continued, and their passion project picked up speed very quickly. Winkler formally established his passion project as a nonprofit in response to the expanding movement.

“Making it to where we can do a little bit more grant writing to help pay for supplies. I mean, garbage bags, trash grabbers, all that stuff cost money,” he reflected. “So the more and more we grew, the more needs we had.”

Fish for Garbage organizes monthly competitions where participants can earn prizes for picking up rubbish in an effort to maintain its growth and draw new people to their cause.

“What we encourage is, when you‘re walking out, while you are walking down the river or the bank back to your car, just use your net and fill your net…Fill your net full of trash,” WInkler added. “Take a photo of the fish you caught, and maybe just show a photo of the trash you got as well.”

After that, share it on Instagram with the hashtag “fish for garbage” or “fill the net” to be automatically eligible to win. The prize for June is a pizza oven.

“Our prizes are great! It’s a grand prize, the thing is over 500 bucks and you can have a nice big barbecue with your family and make everyone their own pizzas.”

In the end, Winkler hopes that the rewards will serve as a means of encouraging more people to participate in the preservation of Utah’s premier fishing locations for both the present and the future, including his two young daughters.

“It’s been rad to raise my little girls in the environment of; ‘Hey, we get to the river, we have fun, we clean it up’ and they enjoy it, that’s just what we do.”

On Monday, June 17, a drawing will take place for that pizza oven, and technically, anyone can register to win.

Even if all you do this weekend is go for a hike and end up picking up some trash by a stream, Jared suggests taking a picture, posting it to Instagram with the hashtag Fill the net or fish for garbage, and entering.

Additionally, Fish for Garbage needs volunteers for a few major events that it hosts throughout the spring and summer.