Fishing America

STATE # 19 - COLORADO MAY 2018 - PUEBLO RESERVOIR, TRINIDAD LAKE

SPECIES CAUGHT - Walleye, Palmetto Bass, Smallmouth Bass

I have been to Colorado several times over the years including four snow skiing trips. These were all in the late fall or winter. Fall in Colorado can sure be refreshing from Texas heat. But it would be spring in May of 2018 to take my first fishing trip there.

Through the online Fishing Booker, I booked two days to fish with Dillon Matthews owner of Colorado Mountain Anglers. After we had breakfast at my hotel on the 14th we launched his pontoon boat in the beautiful Lake Pueblo. My hotel in Pueblo West was only a few miles from the lake.

Dillon being one of those guys who knew how to enjoy life to its fullest was easy to get to know. So when we hit the water it was like I was on the boat with a friend from home. We went after walleye first and started catching them. There was a limit of 5 to keep but had to be over 18” long. Those numbers would prove hard to reach.

I lost count of the many Walleye I caught before the day was over but never made it to the limit of 5 of them over 18 inches. From what I saw in Lake Pueblo when a walleye fish reaches 18” it probably already has a fisherman’s hook in its mouth being caught. The two I kept were exactly 18” long.

The other ones I caught were between 16” and almost 18”. It was obvious this lake was overpopulated with walleye and needed thinning probably with a slot in place. I also caught many small-mouth basses yielding only one keeper over 15” long. Too many of them and too small was the common thread of these two species.

The thrill came when something hit my line with a speeding force and took off fighting like crazy. After this fun fight, I hauled in my first palmetto bass ever AKA hybrid striped bass but mostly referred to as wipers. I immediately told Dillon, “my target species has changed. He started laughing and said, you may know more about them than I do.

I said, impossible that’s the first one I ever caught. He said, well I may not have the right stuff to go after them. I said that’s okay let’s figure it out. So after trying the method I accidentally caught that one on for a little longer, we changed strategy. We were already a couple of hours past our agreed upon time that he volunteered.

I accepted because we were having lots of fun catching a lot of throwbacks that day. I caught a few more fish that day but no more of the wipers. When we headed to the marina Dillon took me over by one of the shorelines and showed me an old wall made of concrete and rocks that time had partially removed.

This was an answer to a question I asked regarding the wipers. He instructed me how to drive back to this spot in a vehicle from the park road. He said you might find those wipers here this evening. So we went to the fish cleaning station where he filleted my fish and I went to my hotel and rested a little.

Before returning to the lake I got some information on this fighter fish online. On this trip, I had brought quite a bit of my own tackle, for fishing from the banks of other lakes on the way home. So I found my way back to that wall from land only to meet a wall of wind coming from the lake.

I found me a spot where big rip rap was used for erosion control near the wall and figured out a method of casting that would work against the wind. After about 30 minutes trying a few different hard baits, something hit that literally felt like a completely crazed twenty-pound fish. I reeled in the hardest fighting fish I had ever hooked.

It looked to be about 5 pounds and I thought it was gonna break that line but I got him in. Catching that one was as fun as catching a fish gets. In the rocks with waves splashing the crystal clear water that would have been nice to have on video. I slid him across a slanted rock to prevent breaking the line.

He was so powerful I wondered if he would tear up my stringer but it survived that one and a smaller one I got to put on with him. The second one was unforgettable as I saw what looked like a giant fish under the waves of the clear water. The “giant fish” was actually a school of them moving as one.

Every movement of these many fish was in harmony until 3 or 4 broke ranks and lunged after my hard dive bait. When I set the hook in one of them the school turned and ran and that may have been the reason for the end of the bites where I was at. These fish were in a “false spawn” when I caught them.

These sterile hybrids cannot reproduce with each other but still go through the actions of the spawn. I would go on to target this species later in other states catching them much bigger. Whatever all the science is, that 5 pound one still remains the hardest fighting freshwater fish I have caught to date (pound for pound).

The next morning I pretty much had a repeat of day one on this 10,000-acre lake with Dillon. We quit at noon as planned with similar results and I became a fan of pontoon boats. I had rooms reserved and two more lakes to fish for my trip back home, or I would have stayed all week and fished with him some more in the other lakes he told me about.

From there I left and went south to Trinidad and spent the night. I fished Lake Trinidad solo the next morning from both ends catching fish that were all throwbacks. I then went south again to Texas to Lake Meredith and fished from the bank in two places near the small towns of Sanford and Fritch.

Despite throwing back 90 percent of what I caught on this trip I still wound up with several good eaters after adding a few walleye from Lake Meredith. I made me a new Colorado friend and made plans to fish with him in the near future when I would be returning from Montana in June.

We tentatively made plans to do this off the cuff and see which lake(s) we wanted to try. Until then I had been focused on new places and guides after each state but being on my way, having all that fun, and so much in common with Dillon saw me making an exception for Colorado while Fishing America.