What I have to say here isn’t going to win a lot of friends among certain members of the angling community. Maybe even a great number of them.
But after spending considerable time over the past two weeks witnessing the various goings-on at Antero Reservoir, I’m convinced the matter needs to be addressed. Yet again.
This is not about keeping fish to eat, up to the point the law allows. It’s about releasing fish that aren’t kept so they’ll survive – particularly as this act is performed when fishing with treble lures and/or in large boats.
I’ve been an active fisherman for more than 60 years and I’ve written about it for two-thirds of that time. I have witnessed difficulties like those at Antero more times than even I can imagine.
Several situations stand out. The first is the problem inherent in disengaging fish from treble hooks, particularly large ones. Trebles grab and don’t turn loose. That’s why they make them and why anglers buy them.
In a classic lake scenario, a fish is netted or otherwise hauled into the boat, where it flops around on the floor until someone succeeds in yanking the lure out. With large, powerful fish, this often involves time and indelicate effort. Then the trout is tossed overboard, where it likely goes belly up. If the boat is in motion, some anglers don’t even slow down.
Many haven’t a clue how to revive a fish. Others don’t much care. At Antero, I watched a wildlife officer try to tell a boater how to revive an upside-down trout. He might as well have been speaking Swahili.
The guy finally gave the fish a jab with the net handle, which caused it to swim away. The fisherman flashed the sort of smile that suggested he’d just learned how to perform open heart surgery.
Companion to this is the situation in boats with high gunwales where it involves older anglers or those a couple of French fries over the limit. Leaning down low to the water to revive a fish becomes a gymnastic event they don’t care to attempt.
At Antero, the situation currently is exacerbated by warm temperature that reduces oxygen content and further stresses trout. It generally takes longer to subdue these big fish. When intense fatigue is compounded by time out of the water, recovery becomes problematic.
Every effort should be made to release fish without removing them from the water, then make certain the fish is upright and capable of swimming away.
Part of the problem with exceptional places such as Antero is that individual trout tend to lose value amid a frenzy of fish-catching. To counter this, a powerful education program is needed to emphasize that continued good fishing requires better care of the resource. A pamphlet on the value of trout and how to release them might be a good start.
While it’s true that every form of angling eventually results in fish mortality, the probability increases geometrically with multiple hooks at a lake with so many trout.
At Antero, where anglers can legally possess only one of these large, plentiful fish, it’s time to consider a ban on trebles. Anyone with a pair of pliers can replace a treble with a single hook and still maintain a high catch rate. The payoff will be far fewer injured, or dead, trout and more sport for everyone.
Against all these elements, something needs to be done to emphasize the need for the safe release of trout.
Losing Antero for five years was a wasted angling opportunity. Having it back shouldn’t be a waste of prize fish.
Staff writer Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
