RADIUM — “I caught another one today.”
Normally, hearing that statement from a fellow fisherman would bring a smile to my face, thinking he was on a hot streak worth bragging about.
But I’d already seen the photo from a few days prior and knew that the news from Blue Quill Angler guide Bob Dye was anything but good.
“It was smaller, only about 18 inches,” Dye said of the second northern pike he’d landed on the upper Colorado between Pumphouse Recreation Site and Radium in less than a week. “But I wasn’t even targeting this one — just drifting a pine squirrel leech along a seam and it came out and hit it.”
Only two days before and a couple miles upstream, Dye had landed a northern pike twice that size and spotted two others near the Pumphouse boat ramp, one of the most popular and productive trout fisheries along the Colorado River. According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist Greg Gerlich, such a fish is capable of devouring trout — or any other species of fish — up to 18 inches long.
“It certainly would try,” said Gerlich, who manages fisheries statewide for CPW. “Any of those big pike can eat a fish that’s a third of their length, and very often they will eat a fish that’s half of their length.”
For sake of analogy, think of trout as the elk of Colorado. They are the species of fish most often targeted by fishermen statewide and the reason most fishing licenses are sold. Northern pike, on the other hand, have been nicknamed ” water wolves.”
Get the picture?
“The tough thing about them being in a river is that there is not a lot of habitat for trout to evade them,” Gerlich said. “So the pike are going to sit in areas that are favorable to the trout and ambush them. They will definitely have an impact.”
The impact is far greater to Gerlich, who also serves as CPW’s point man for endangered fish species recovery. There are four native fish — Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, razorback sucker and bonytail chub — formerly found in abundance in the upper Colorado River basin that are now on the brink of extinction.
Among the greatest threats to recovery efforts, Gerlich said, are non-native species such as northern pike and smallmouth bass that have made their way into the basin — originally via the Yampa River and now the Colorado’s main stem — along with some 65 other species.
Ideas ranging from bounties on non-natives such as pike, species-targeted fishing tournaments, “must-kill” fishing regulations and others are being considered. But while the loss of endangered species doesn’t always resonate as incentive among recreational outdoorsmen, the loss of quality trout fishing just may.
“The message to the anglers is if you enjoy trout fishing and you catch a pike while you’re trout fishing, get it out of there. Just take it,” Gerlich said. “Particularly in the river, it’s a great concern. Leaving them in the river is no help at all.”
Power to the people. After a public uproar over a potential increase in nonresident big game license allocations, there will be no changes to limited license allocations between resident and nonresident hunters in 2015.
Scott Willoughby: swilloughby@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/ swilloughby
