Hartsel – Most of the several hundred anglers who turned Tuesday’s reopening of Antero Reservoir into a media event measured their catches in inches rather than pounds. Nobody seemed the least bit unhappy.
Following a five-year hiatus, fishermen celebrated the return of their favorite fishing hole with whoops of high-spirited celebration. It helped that the objects of their delight were rainbow trout that typically stretched toward 20 inches – splendid specimens in virtually any other place in the country.
Anglers who participated in a event with all the ballyhoo of a Hollywood premiere – only with sunscreen in place of makeup – carried many of these fine trout home.
Not to worry. Antero’s best is yet to come.
Most of the enthusiasts who waited in line for the 9 a.m. start, some of them overnight, recalled the good old days of Antero, before it was drained to relieve Denver Water’s fire-related dilemma. That was a time when fish weighing several pounds – often more than 10 – appeared regularly, making this the most prolific trout producer in the region.
Antero earned a reputation as a sort of “people’s reservoir” because regulations allow all methods of fishing and a more liberal creel limit than neighboring lakes and streams. Indeed, most of Tuesday’s participants carried spinning rods and launched boats, often giving the lake’s placid surface the look of Cheerios floating in a bowl.
Officials anticipate another surge of angling pressure for the coming weekend, after word of the success spreads. George Canchola of Penrose, one of those who slept in line, recalled his sinking feeling when the plug was pulled in late summer, 2002.
“I got so mad when they drained it, I sold my boat. This was my lake.”
Now Canchola and Antero both were back, a reunion made in, if not heaven, then certainly the strategy rooms of Denver Water and the Colorado Division of Wildlife. The water provider in recent years tweaked valves to refill the 1,000-acre Park County impoundment; the wildlife agency cranked up the tempo at its hatcheries when the event grew imminent.
The result is a lake brimming with five kinds of trout, some of them surprisingly large.
“We have two primary age groups, one about 14 inches, the other 18 to 20,” said Jeff Spohn, the DOW biologist who served as primary architect of the revival.
That many of these remarkably plump trout were counted in this largest size cluster surprised Spohn not in the least.
“These fish are growing 1 1/2 inches a month,” said Spohn, who deliberately delayed the opening to allow trout the added accumulation of size that ensured the quality of the experience.
As is always the case in a broad-based fishing situation, certain anglers caught many more than others. Wading close to shore, John Prescott of Littleton landed five rainbows, all of them large, with his first nine casts.
“Don’t tell anyone what I’m using,” he pleaded.
Others needed many more tries to land a fish, but nearly everyone did.
“Everyone I checked had either landed a fish or had their lines broken,” Spohn said after prowling a long expanse of shoreline with a measuring box. “A lot of people got broken off.”
While nearly all these trout fit the cookie-cutter mold reflecting two primary plantings, certain lucky anglers reported catches that brought back echoes of those grand earlier times, including one measuring 28 1/2 inches and weighing 9 1/2 pounds.
Spohn speculated that a few rainbows and browns that drifted down from the river had grown exceptionally large during the time the reservoir had been slowly refilling.
The biologist opined that Antero’s dramatic growth rate will produce larger fish as the season progresses.
“We should have a great ice-fishing season,” he said jokingly.
Considering the intense heat that later swept over the lake, suppressing the mid-day bite, that might be something to look forward to.
NEW CUTTBOW RECORD
State-record trout caught in Antero’s reopening
Tuesday’s action at Antero Reservoir produced an apparent state record for cutthroat-rainbow hybrids.
Frank Stack of Lakewood caught the 18-pound, 8-ounce fish using a rainbow Kastmaster.
The trout, 28 1/2 inches long with a 24-ounce girth, was measured by Division of Wildlife biologist Jeff Spohn, but the catch won’t be official until essential paperwork is processed.
Staff writer Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
