Of all my fishing tales, this may be the fishiest. But I swear this one’s true.

By Bill Prater

This is one of those unlikely stories that sounds an awful lot like the usual fishy stuff you hear at Friday breakfasts with the Loveland Fishing Club. Bear with me. I have a witness.

So there we were on Tuesday, this witness and I, at a high country place I try to be every spring at ice out. You know, another situation the lovely Linda Lee wishes the fishing club would avoid, bobbing around like old water-logged corks in our Fat Cat belly boats, fishing a lake notorious for scary weather and big fish.

I was fishing of course with Club Vice President Darryl Knight, an Alabama native who’d relocated to Colorado by way of Florida. We were on the prowl for trout that, a few days earlier, had been exiled under several feet of North Park ice. And if you ignore the cold, and the blustery winds, and those dark storm clouds to the north, we were doing pretty well. No hail, and in a couple of hours several gullible fish had been brought to net, admired, and freed to be caught another day.

But Darrell’s Southern soul was obsessed with the thought of a really big brown, and the biggest I knew of lived in a different lake. So we ignored that old fisherman’s cliche’ to “not leave fish to find fish,” we left in search of something a bit bigger.

At first, it didn’t seem like one of our better ideas. After talking it over with a shore angler who was wearing his skunk with grace, I was seeing what folks mean about having second thoughts. Those storm clouds were still gathering, but not the fish. But then - suddenly! Darrell let out a proper rebel yell. And it was “fish on” in North Park, as the old guy was dragged around for what seemed like an hour, clutching that kinda flimsy-looking homemade spinning rod of his.

It turned into a pretty even fight with an enormous fish that matched Darrell’s daydream exactly - a really annoyed, 24-inch brown, qualifying Darrell for a Colorado Master Angler award. I was pleased for him, of course, but uncharitably wondering why I’d been left out. Caught a small rainbow a few minutes later, but it was one I might have caught back in Loveland.

And then! I was suddenly tied by a skimpy 4-pound braided line to my own fish of a lifetime. I remember yelling something smartass to my buddy like, “I think it’s probably 24 and a half.” And then worrying that it really might be. “Was I really going to cut into Darrell’s personal best by catching something bigger, a few minutes later? ” It’d be like dating the better-looking sister of a buddy’s girlfriend.

Anyway, after a legendary struggle, highlighted by fishing skills honed over a long lifetime, I nosed the beast head-first into my inadequate little landing net. Sometime during the struggle, Darrell had flipped over within a few feet of me and the fish. And together we measured that monster. Over and over, just to be sure.

This is where this long fishy story turns truly classic: together, flippers bumping, my friend and I measured that big trout with the same tape he’d used minutes earlier on his own. It didn’t seem possible, still doesn’t. But there it was: within the space of half an hour, less than 50 yards of white-capped water apart, I’d caught a fish exactly the same length as Darrell’s! Skeptics might suggest I’d caught the same fish - but in true legendary fashion, mine turned out to be …  a rainbow. 

As you might guess by now, that North Park gale had blown our belly boats straight onto the boat ramp where we’d launched. The truck was just a few feet away. And I told Darrell: “We can fish some more if you’d like, but I think we should quit now. Can’t get any better than this.”  

So. Driving back a little early to the low country, where expectations are high but trout are small, I remembered why we get up at 4 in the morning, drive three hours to a just-thawed lake, and fish until our arthritic hands cramp. In the words of another old fishing buddy, the late Dave Harem:

“I think we do things like this to show ourselves we still can.”

Photo by Darrell Knight

Suggested ways to get involved with the Loveland Fishing Club!

 

Editor’s note: The club has a number of new members this spring, who can be identified by their naivete and clean new Fishing Club caps. The following, an update to an article first posted a couple years ago, is intended as a sort of guide to the club for members new to the club and others who may be forgetful. Like a gift fish, give this advice the sniff test before consuming.  

 

By Bill Prater  

 

Following is pretty much all I can think to tell you about how to become a thriving member of the Loveland Fishing Club. It also describes some specific fishing preferences of a few long-time (and reasonably successful) members that you should get to know. 

 

 I’m often asked, in front of witnesses, about specifically where to go fishing around northern Colorado, and how to catch fish when you get there. I hesitate to respond with the absolute truth.  

 

That truth is, our public waters tend to run on the small side, while our population gets steadily bigger. So I'm reluctant to share too many specifics about too many specific spots with too many people. Some annoying social media - places like FishBrain and YouTube - have also cropped up in recent years. They allow – even encourage – overly intimate information about favorite fishing holes. Trouble is, you’re not just sharing what you know with a quiet and loveably discreet guy like me. If you’re not careful, that secret bass spawning bed of yours will have its own GPS tag on Google Earth. 

  

So, what is an innocent newcomer to northern Colorado or the sport of angling supposed to do? The best thing I can recommend to new club members is: patiently invest time in identifying and getting acquainted with club members with shared interests. Tact, persistence, hygiene and a reasonably affable personality should get you started. I concede, as a group, we old timers do tend to be a bit cliquish. But hey, we all joined the club at some point to find folks with shared interests and tend to hang with the ones we find. As a newbie, you need to put in a bit of effort to find shared interests. 

 

Start by going to breakfast with us; just buy a cup of coffee if money is scarce. Thanks in part to Covid-19, we now have three distinct groups that meet each Friday – around 7 a.m. at the Perkins and El Cielo restaurants in in west Loveland; and about 9 a.m. for the Fort Collins crowd at the Breakfast Club on College. Also, show up early for our 2 p.m. general meetings at Chilson Center on the third Tuesday of the month, and board meetings on the third Tuesday, when the B.S. is flowing freely. Point is, we are a mostly talkative, welcoming bunch, even if some of us (like me) are also grumpy and introverted. So introduce yourself (multiple times if you must; we’re getting old) and take the initiative to start conversations.  

  

Also, do not neglect one of your most valuable club resources: that membership list you should have gotten from George Mayes, the one you’re not supposed to share outside the club. It has been suggested multiple times that the club should add individual member fishing preferences to our membership lists. We’ve tried that several times in the past and not had much success. Most of us are just not that organized, I guess. So, prepare to be a bit curious, persistent and deliberately extroverted.  

 

Another time-tested method for getting the most out of this club is to consider ways to help actually run the club. Talk to President Danny Barker or any of the board about volunteer skills we’re needing; often that's not much more than a willingness to help. Look over the volunteerism we do as a group, things like the annual June Loveland Kids Derby (coming up on May 18th this year), summer trips with groups like the Girl Scouts, and the club’s Senior Fishing Derby for assisted living center residents. We come together to help others, and in the process get acquainted with each other.  

 

To help get you started, here are some specific fishing preferences of a few long-time club members, some more likeable or competent than others. But hey, that’s the chance you run in trying to be part of a club. 

 

 First, bank fishermen. We’ve got many good ones in the club, some slowed by stuff like arthritis, and others who just prefer the conviviality of a shared shoreline. Folks like Dennis Kelsey, Don Knudsen and Doug Money are a few of the craftier ones, and I think most are reasonably truthful. And don’t get me started about Rick Golz and that damned half a nightcrawler technique of his. At this point, I should also concede that Ken Kesterke and Bob McHale kicked the rest of us’ butts at the annual club championship at Flatiron Reservoir in the past two years.  

 

I’m not sure who to recommend as a catfishing legend, with the passing of old Harry Case. We do have a pretty strong cat population in the lakes and ponds around here, but for some reason club members just don't target them much, or at least don’t talk about them much. Wayne Baranczyk has caught several dandies from his belly boat, including a 28-incher early this spring. Kelsey has a sneaky trick for catfish and bass that involves live bait. And Jim Roode is a good guy to see about night fishing for channels from his float tube; fun but a bit intimidating for someone scared of the dark.  

 

With open water trout, given our average age, not many of us are still agile enough to regularly wade a Rocky Mountain stream. But we’ve got some scary good folks fishing small lakes and ponds in pontoon boats and float tubes, with spinning gear or fly rods. John Gwinnup immediately comes to mind, along with Jim Clune and Walt and Cindy Graul, though I’ll also concede that others like past presidents Jim Visger and Dave Johnson are handier than me with their fly rods and hand-tied flies. Speaking of which, Roode and Gwinnup have been talking about getting back into offering an introductory fly-tying class. You might ask them about it.  

 

Ice fishing. Around here that almost exclusively means fishing for trout. You can do worse than talking to Baranczyk or Kelsey, though I wish you’d had the opportunity to get on the ice with  now-lost but not forgotten buddies Norm Engelbrecht and Dave Harem. Those rascals would brave any weather, and out fish the rest of us every time. (Don’t bother bringing up the subject of ice with Dan Barker, though; he just mopes his way through the winter season and dredges up memories of his lone, disastrous January trip with us to the Laramie Lakes in Wyoming.)  

 

For fishing from boats, hats off to Dan and Kathleen Barker and Dave Boyle for introducing the club's Boat Day, a great way to pair up boat owners with others needing a ride when the event resumes next spring. The first Boat Day of 2024 will be May 16th at Boyd Lake. And Club Vice President Tom Miller has a proven, effective way to go after trout and walleye with lead line trolled behind his pontoon. Ask how he does it, and he'll talk your ear off.  

 

Speaking of trolling, and whatever else some guys will do to chase and eat walleye, I’d start by badgering the Barkers and Boyle, and probably George May.   

 

The above is by no means an all-inclusive list of possible references - just something to get conversations started. (Ask Kesterke what kind of spoon he uses). The point is, find opportunities to just sit with us, or call us, and if you have to, take the initiative to steer the conversation away from hip replacements. In turn be generous in sharing what you have learned about this great sport of ours.