Even at the peak of excitement of it all, of the pull and tug and heart-thumping that comes with the realization of a very large fish on a very thin line, Michael Stone couldn’t escape the absurdity of it all.
“There was no way I was fishing for a catfish, and certainly nothing that big,” Stone said.
“I was jigging for a trout or a walleye or whatever came along, but never a catfish,” he said of the episode at his customary spot along the Aurora Reservoir Dam and the 6-pound- test line.
Ah, that skinny little line, that most illogical element of all for a man with a 35.22-pound fish trying its very best to get back to the middle of the lake where it belonged. Somehow, after 15 minutes or however long it takes when a fisherman’s head is spinning around, Stone coaxed the cat to shore, the biggest fish he ever could imagine.
When he hauled it to the ranger station and an official scale, Stone got another surprise. He was the unlikely possessor of the Colorado record for channel catfish. His catch measured nearly 2 pounds heavier than the 33-pound, 8-ounce fish landed in 1994 by John McKeever at Hertha Reservoir in Larimer County.
The concoction Stone threw at 6:30 a.m. Sunday from his place of repose on the dam was a floating jig head baited with a night crawler beneath a bobber. His rod rested in a bucket.
“I was just sitting down to pour a cup of coffee when I noticed the bobber taking off. I reached for the rod and the battle was on,” he said.
Over the past few years, the Colorado Division of Wildlife has stocked numerous catfish in Aurora Reservoir, both the channel and blue varieties. Surprisingly, anglers seldom report catching them, certainly not this size.
Bad news for Platte.
Not all the reports from Colorado fishing country have been good over the past few days. Just as fishermen were beginning to celebrate a revival of sorts for the South Platte River in the Deckers area, an epic downpour July 21 delivered another knockout blow that spells yet another setback for a river that has seen little but misery since the 2002 Hayman fire denuded the countryside.
When a flash flood that delivered 4 inches of rain inside an hour was finished, an estimated 1,400 cubic feet of water cascaded down Horse Creek and the main stem Platte from the confluence with Wigwam Creek. The result was much like other episodes in recent years. A 2006 flood that completely washed out Highway 67 south of the hamlet delivered twice that volume and much more damage to a river that only this season had begun to show encouraging recovery.
“We had been catching lots of fish this year. This is a real shame,” said Danny Brennan, who operates the Flies and Lies shop in Deckers.
Brennan reports the river is muddy all the way from the Deckers bridge downstream to the North Fork Confluence.
Water is clear enough to fish upstream from the bridge, clearer still in Cheesman Canyon.
“We’re lucky we had 260 cfs of clear, highly oxygenated water coming through the dam,” Brennan said.
Brennan said he doubts any major fish kill. A foot survey revealed three dead fish between the bridge and Wigwam Club. Any survey below the bridge would be hampered by muddy water. Brennan said this washout delivered a lesser deposit of mud, due in part to thick vegetation accumulated since the last event.
As with earlier occurrences, there’s no telling how quickly the lower river might resume its recovery.
