Jun 12

Colorado Conservation

Last week, CPW Aquatic Biologist Carrie Tucker and her technicians, placed artificial habitat into Wahatoya Reservoir near La Veta, CO. These structures were built out of recycled plastic barrels, irrigation piping, and landscape fabric received from Jim Ramsay (Aquatic Biologist in Lamar). The cement was purchased using money received from the  Springs Bass Masters club. Wahatoya Reservoir is devoid of submerged aquatic vegetation, so these structures will provide much-needed habitat for young fish to escape predators.

CPW biologist Carrie Tucker with technician Jake Stanton and intern Gail Hatch surrounded by some of the habitat structures before deployment.

Technicians Garrett Malone and Jake Stanton getting ready to drop a structure into Wahatoya Reservoir.

Technicians Garrett Malone and Jake Stanton, and intern Gail Hatch, surrounded by various habitat structures. Note our mascot in the foreground… Tyrone the T-Rex! J

 

May 15

2020 World Championships

2020 World Championships

By Ryan Steinhoff

The road to the Jr. World Championships started with a side trip to Arkansas where I helped my cousins learn to catch some bass. They are 5 and 6 and really enjoy fishing.  After a few days, we started the drive to Ohio.  The drive was a long 20 hours. Unfortunately, the beginning of our tournament started a little rough and learned a few things the hard way…always read the rules. We got there one day too early and started to pre-fish. Learned pretty fast that we weren’t allowed to be on the water yet… With us being a day early, TBF gave us an 8 once penalty and we had to miss a half-day of practice.  During practice, we only found one good spot and found a few others that had a few keepers. The first day of the tournament, we went straight to our spot and fished there the whole day and ended up catching four keepers. We caught those using a Texas rig. Those four keepers put us at the top of the Western division. The second day of the tournament was really rough. We only got two bites and capitalized with two keepers. We found out that those two keepers were enough to clinch the Western division and gave us the opportunity to fish on the final day and try to win the world championships. On the Championship day,  we did not have a single keeper until 11:30. We were starting to get pretty nervous!  We got our first keeper at the spot we fished for during the first two days of the tournament. We made a small adjustment and changed to the inside of the point.  We ended up catching 11 to 13 keepers! These were caught on senkos. On the boat ride back, we were so nervous that we didn’t have enough weight, all we could do was wait and pray. It was finally our turn to weigh in and were really happy with the weight. We weighed in at 10lbs 6oz which was enough to win the Jr World Championships and to bring a win to Colorado. This was an experience that I will never forget. There are so many people that I would like to thank: Sam Heckman, Rod Allen, our boater and Captain Steve Way, my partner Cody Miller, Tyler Hassler,  Trokar, Garrett Marquez, Kim Miller, Southern Colorado Junior Bass Club, Eagle Claw,  Parents, Milicia Marine, Colorado Custom Lure, TBF for putting on an awesome tournament.

Apr 20

Colorado TBF Southern Division Qualifier Results Are Posted

Results from the Colorado TBF Southern Division have been posted to the results page!

Thank you to all the frostbitten anglers who competed and stuck it out last weekend at the 2021 Colorado TBF Southern Division Qualifier. Everyone was surprised due to the horrific weather conditions at the quantity and quality of the bass weighed in at Lake Pueblo.

As a conservation project State CPW Biologist Carrie Tucker and her crew conducted creel surveys and took scale samples from the fish.

The top 6 teams for this event advance to the 2021 TBF National Semi-Finals at Lake Navajo in July., congrats to them all!

  • Vershun Tolliver and Mike Scott
  • Sam Heckman and Bryan Leck
  • Brian Hickey and Brian Wiese
  • Adam Malicia and Jake Schroeder
  • Cody Miller and Robert Hunt
  • Marin Mainov and Tai Hunt

 

Up next is the Northern Colorado Qualifier on Lake McConaughy May 23-24 all anglers are encouraged to attend this event as well to attempt to qualify and advance.

Mar 30

Working Together to Improve Colorado Fishing

Colorado Bass Federation (CTBF) along with Colorado Bass Nation (CBN) team up to purchase automatic feeders for the Pueblo Hatchery.

When Springs Bassmasters determined there was additional money available for conservation in the 2020 budget it was decided the best course of action would be to reach out to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (C.P.W.) on where that could best be used.  C.P.W. biologist Carrie Tucker who often attend’s the clubs annual banquet presented the need for automatic feeders in the Pueblo Fish Hatchery. There was only one problem, the proposal was significantly higher than the money the club had available.  At this point instead of letting the proposal die CTBF president Rod Allen reached literally across the table to Larry Kruger (CBN) with a joint funding proposal. Carrie the Aquatic Biologist for South East Colorado sent a proposal for funding to CTBF and CBN.  The proposal requested funding for CPW to purchase 20 automatic fish feeders for the Pueblo Hatchery. Colorado Bass Nation President Audrey McKenny and the CBN-BOD along with the CTBF-BOD giving the idea their blessing’s the partnership was formed with CTBF and CBN agreeing to split the cost of funding. 

The feeders were purchased and delivered to the Pueblo Hatchery on March 7 by CBN and CTBF representatives.  Quentin Springer the Hatchery Manager was on hand to receive the feeders and give a tour of the facility and explain the benefits of the feeders.  Currently the feeding needs to be done on an hourly basis and must be done manually, and with hundreds of thousands to millions of young fish depending on the time of year this is a very time-consuming process.  Another draw back of manual feeding is each time a person approaches a tank the fish are stressed which is one of the major causes of fatality.  So not only will the feeders reduce the manual effort needed but will also decrease the stress and allow for better overall results with more fish for everybody to catch in the end. 

Both Colorado Bass Federation and Colorado Bass Nation have a long-standing relationship with Colorado Division of Wildlife, this is just another step in continuing to build that relationship with the groups working together for all people enjoying the Colorado outdoors and fishing.