When the gates open at Antero Reservoir at 9 a.m. Tuesday for the most anticipated event in Colorado’s recent angling history, a throng of fishermen will engage in the worst possible scenario of combat fishing.
Pity. If they drive just 15 minutes east, they’ll find more and generally larger fish – and nobody home.
In the excitement over Antero, anglers overlook the wonders of Spinney Mountain Reservoir, which at the moment are about as wonderful as public fishing gets.
“It’s fishing lights-out right now,” said Division of Wildlife biologist Jeff Spohn, who looks after both South Park impoundments.
On Thursday, a couple of Denver-area visitors found only four other anglers along the west end of the big lake, where trout gorged themselves on a banquet of callibaetis mayflies, damsel flies, caddis flies and midges.
Thing was, none of the three dozen or so trout that the two moved was smaller than 18 inches. Most weighed about 3 pounds, with the raw energy of runaway locomotives. Before a storm chased them home, the anglers fairly glowed in a state of high excitement, thrilled at the prospect of the next tug.
The anticipation over Antero, famed for huge fish before it was drained five years ago, is understandable. But until recently planted fish get another year or two of growth, the average size will be smaller than at Spinney. Meanwhile, those who embrace Spinney’s flies-and-lures-only rule and more restrictive creel limit will find no lines at the boat ramp and lots of elbow room on the lake.
Anticipating an Antero overflow, DOW officials will pass out flyers touting the opportunity at nearby waters such as Elevenmile, Spinney, Jefferson, Montgomery and Tarryall. Of these, Spinney clearly is the prize.
“The catch rate is very high,” Spohn said of an impoundment that has rebounded from an earlier pike predation problem, but not without a nagging mystery.
Anglers wonder what happened to the giant rainbow trout of yesteryear, when 20-plus-inchers were common and those 25 or more far from rare. Spohn readily confesses that he doesn’t know, at least not yet.
Following last season’s creel census, Spohn ruled out harvest as a factor, terming angler take “minuscule.” He now suspects some genetic quirk that clamps a weird growth lid on stockers raised to 12 inches at DOW’s Rifle hatchery before reaching the lake each October.
During a net capture last month, the biologist removed a fragment of ear bone that will allow him to accurately age these trout.
“If we find we’ve got 18-inch fish that are five years old, just sitting there not growing, then we’ll start looking at the domesticated strain in the hatchery. We need to figure out what that smoking gun is.”
Meanwhile, Spohn is keeping an eye on a separate population of Spinney rainbows, the so-called McConaughy strain. These have been stocked significantly over the past three years in the South and Middle forks of the river to create a population that would grow large in the reservoir, then run back to the river.
A small run returned this spring; stay tuned next year for a better verdict.
Spohn reports that the DOW’s pike-suppression strategy is paying dividends, with far fewer fish in the larger size bracket.
All of which translates to an extremely healthy rainbow population. Only thing missing is the crowd.
Staff writer Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
