The odd circumstances involving record-size northern pike and unintended consequences took another dramatic turn Sept. 15 at Navajo Reservoir. That’s where Dennis Bruce, fishing on the Colorado side of the impoundment, landed a pike measured unofficially at 48 inches, then released it. The fish never was weighed. This leaves the mystery of whether Bruce’s catch might have bettered the 30-pound, 11-ounce pike taken Aug. 6 at Stagecoach Reservoir by Tim Bone of Thornton. Bone’s lunker measured 46 1/2 inches long.
“I’m a catch-and-release guy,” said Bruce, a Loveland retiree who was enjoying an autumn outing with his wife, Carol. “I really felt good about letting that fish go.” Like Bone, Bruce wasn’t trying to catch a northern pike. Bone’s inadvertent catch came while fishing bait for trout; Bruce was retrieving a deep-diving crankbait for bass when the big fish hit near the boat. “I didn’t see it for 15 minutes,” Bruce said of a struggle that stretched to 25 minutes.
When he got the monster near the boat, he noted that two of the three hooks had broken and the other was almost straight. “But at that point he came in slow and easy, otherwise I wouldn’t have caught him,” he said.
