Don’t even dream about it. Colorado never will produce a largemouth world record, or even come close to it. At the outside edge of the temperature range for the species, most Colorado waters are too cold to harbor bass. Nowhere is the growing season conducive to growing really big ones.
Then there’s the matter of evolution. Colorado largemouths are of the so-called “northern” strain, which don’t begin to match the “Florida” variety that reach record proportions.
But our state can provide very good action for what has been proclaimed America’s Fish – provided fish managers get their act together.
Highly adaptable, bass have been relocated all over the world. The trouble in Colorado is that they too often are discovered belly up in the bottom of someone’s ice chest. A combination of slow growth and kill pressure almost always translates to substandard fishing – which is what we find in most public lakes and ponds.
You can find bass in hundreds of places on either side of the mountains. But unless you have access to private water or pinpoint the handful of public waters given adequate protection from fish hogs and poachers, don’t expect them to be numerous or large.
Colorado’s record is 11 pounds, 6 ounces, taken from Echo Canyon Reservoir near Pagosa Springs by Jarrett Edwards in 1997. That’s barely half the size of the 22-pound, 4-ounce record taken by a Georgia farmer named George Perry almost 75 years ago.
The pursuit of a record catch that would make the lucky angler an instant millionaire has over the past three decades taken on a manic mood that sometimes defies belief. The chase is centered chiefly in sunny Southern California, where transplanted Florida bass plumped up on stocked rainbow trout surely have exceeded the venerable record.
In 1997, a man named Paul Duclos caught a fish that almost certainly broke the mark by almost 2 pounds. Thing was, he weighed it on a bathroom scale his wife brought to the dock and then released it to keep it alive.
Then there was the recent March event, reported on these pages, in which Mac Weakley landed a bass that registered 25 pounds, 1 ounce on a hand-held digital scale. But the fish was foul hooked and Weakley, who had been chasing the record for years, released it.
This quest, increasingly bizarre, has been chronicled in a remarkably good book, “Sowbelly,” published by Plume ($15). A writer for Forbes magazine and an enthusiastic fisherman, Monte Burke spent long months and considerable miles tracking the people and places central to the hunt, mostly in California.
Whatever one’s angling inclination, it ranks among the best books about fishing ever written – filled with suspense, compelling characters and a keen dedication to the facts of what continues to be America’s most epic outdoor adventure.
Burke’s travels took him to Cuba, often cited for its record potential. Here he encountered concerns that subsistence fishing may have jeopardized that chance, a development that brings us back to the situation in Colorado, where the worry isn’t at all about records. Rather, it’s about providing quality recreation, hopefully close to home, for a rapidly expanding population.
To grasp the potential for this, we on Saturday sampled a series of small lakes scoured along the Poudre River Valley near Windsor. Open to the members of a large residential community, they are fished frequently using any method. Difference is, all must be returned to the water.
Schools of healthy bass prowled the shoreline; crappie, white and black, weighing up to 2 1/2 pounds, grabbed twister-tail jigs tossed into the shallows.
“If you keep fish in the water, they’ll grow big,” said Tyler Lind, a 17-year-old Windsor High School senior who does guide trips on the lakes through the auspices of Stillwater Outfitters (303-659-8665).
It’s a concept that seems to have escaped the Division of Wildlife – or at least been largely ignored for fear of criticism from the catch-and- keep crowd.
Meanwhile, the stark contrast between warm-water ponds with kill restrictions and those left open to public slaughter grows greater with each new angler who moves into the mix.
In Colorado, you won’t grow records by requiring that more fish be released. But you’ll certainly increase the average, not to mention the fun.
Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
