Blue At the Mesa

"Dear Ms. Fishergarten,

Thank you for your offer to design and teach a for-credit program in Colorado freshwater fishing basics, “The Beach Toys: Wouldn’t It Be Nice (to Catch a Fish),” at our esteemed public university.

The answer, of course, is no. To put it plainly:

• Our tenured professors hold doctoral degrees. As of this time, we have been unable to determine your credentials related to your Dr. Fishergarten title, nor find even a credible graduate program in freshwater or other sport fishing anywhere on Earth.
• You lack expertise. By your own calculations – we are still untangling that equation – you have caught exactly zero fish, regardless of location, time or terminal tackle.
• Your course plan stymies us, and we cannot fathom what our students might learn from such weekly studies as ‘Pow-Pow-Pow, Pow-Pow-er Bait,’ ‘Good, Good, Good Line Vibrations’ or ‘Fishin’ USA.’ Further, ‘Fishing for Dummies’ is not an accepted text. However, we do appreciate your efforts with PowerPoint and have turned your proposal over to our psychology department for further study. 

Again, our answer is no, and it is not negotiable. If, however, you care to pursue an authentic degree for yourself in one of our accredited programs, please do not hesitate to contact our admissions department. 

Respectfully,

University of (Attorney’s Note: Do NOT mention this university’s name in that blog) Anonymous"

“Well,” Fishergarten sighed, as she closed the email on her phone and looked out over the peaceful water-surface feet of Blue Mesa Reservoir. “Looks like my school idea just snagged. I guess I’ll need to find another way to teach people to fish.”

Blue Mesa Reservoir-Bay of Chickens

FisherSpouse looked up from the PowerBait he was positioning on a hook. So far that morning, he’d caught and released three trout, while Fishergarten read her text messages and watched her bobber – no wait, her “float” – for movement.

“Teach?” He looked alarmed. “You wanted to TEACH someone to fish?”

“Of course,” Fishergarten said, loftily. She could have sworn she’d run all this by FisherSpouse early on. “I’ve had requests.”

“You have?” He stood up. “Who from?”

“FisherDaughter and FisherDaughter-in-Law (FisherDIL).”

“They did?” he asked.

“We did?” FisherDaughter and FisherDIL asked, exchanging a guarded glance. They stood slightly downshore, where they’d moved to “respect your fishing space, Mom,” and no doubt, to absorb the morning’s coaching tips from Fishergarten.

“Yes,” Fishergarten said. “You asked me exactly what it was I knew about fishing.”

FisherSpouse snickered. FisherDIL coughed politely. FisherDaughter rolled her eyes, and Fishergarten grew a little misty-eyed, recalling FisherDaughter’s teenage years.

But from the looks of it, school was out for the day. No more learning was going to happen on that shoreline.

Fishergarten checked her float, about 40 feet out, for some or any momentum. Fishergarten had used what “Fishing for Dummies” called a “fixed float rig” but – daringly – without a weight and with a sole PowerBait minnow. So far, it had not moved. With one exception.

“Are you going to move that?” FisherSpouse asked. “Your line keeps drifting over mine.”

“Hold it,” Fishergarten answered. “When yours drifted over mine, you said that was just how it worked.”

She reeled in the bait and moved a bit downshore, finding a spot with fewer contradictions.

Mostly, though, she was going to try out her new floater/diver

The Floater/Diver Lure

lure, the one that supposedly only dove one to three inches. Fishergarten’s limited experience showed that diving lures actually dived to exactly the depth of the nearest rock.

Recalling  “Fishing for Dummies,” she knew that “By experimenting with a few different retrieval speeds, you can see (and eventually feel) the depth at which your plug runs.” Fishergarten was ready.

She cast and quickly reeled in an empty lure, checking periodically to see if it really did float. As it came into view, she marveled at how it resembled a fish swimming. Or might. Fishergarten’s only closeup of a live fish is in the tank at a Cabela’s store.

She cast again and reeled more slowly this time. Still nothing.
She paused, reminded of the wisdom of the FisherSages. “Don’t reel it so fast. You want the fish to catch it,” she heard them say.

“What’s up, Mamma Fishergarten?” asked FisherDIL kindly.

“Well,” Fishergarten said, “I’m calculating the velocity of a hungry fish so I know how fast to reel in my lure. There are so many variables to determining momentum.”

FisherDIL twisted her wedding ring and glanced around with the same look FisherSpouse gets when he wants to move downshore, fast. A trout jumped tauntingly near her line and disappeared. “Let me know what you find,” she said encouragingly and, after a quick hug, she ran for her rod.

What about you, FisherFriends? What’s your favorite lure and how do you get momentum? And don’t forget to check out the “Field and Stream” list of 30 new classic lures. Happy Fishing!

A Focus On the Fishley Dilemma

“Hold it,” FisherSpouse said, warily. “What are you doing to that snell?”

A snell, Fishergarten has found, is a piece of line with a hook tied to one end and a loop tied in the other end. They come in all hook sizes and line lengths, and are used in such fishing-related hazing rituals as, “You didn’t need to spend all those weekends learning to tie knots and loops, and toying with your sanity. Someone sells those pre-made.”

Now, Fishergarten was making good use of this cutting-edge fishing technology.

 

“I’m putting a lure and bait on the same line,” she said. “It’s to celebrate the First Annual Terminal Tackle Double-Up Day.”

He stopped. “The what?”

Lake Pueblo, Pueblo, Colorado

“First Annual Terminal Tackle Double-Up Day, or FATTDUD for short,” Fishergarten said, patiently. Honestly, FisherSpouse might just need to get his hearing checked.

“Oh no,” he said, looking a little bleak.

“I just registered it,” Fishergarten continued. “I’m still waiting for the thumbs-up from the National Day Calendar people, but I’m sure it’s a go. The website goes live this week and the logo is ready, too, which by the way, I got it for a measly 750 British pounds whatever that comes to after Brexit. We’re in business!”

FisherSpouse sat down a little hard in his folding chair.

“Sometimes,” he said, slowly, “I don’t think you take fishing seriously.”

But he was wrong. Fishergarten takes her terminal tackle

FATTDUD Entry. Look hard.

quite seriously. And on the sweltering shale-enriched shore of a placid Lake Pueblo peninsula, she was ready to debut her FATTDUD entry.

Proudly, she fashioned a tantalizing length of fishley toys and snacks, sporting a gleaming green spinner lure that dangled invitingly over a standard hook and PowerBait imitation minnow. It was ready.

Eagerly, she drew back her rod and cast. With an awkward twirling motion, the terminal tackle flew into the air and landed about 20 feet out. She reeled it in. Empty. Have patience, she counseled herself.

Carefully, she cast again, further this time and closer to where she guesstimated would be the Lake Pueblo Peninsula Trout Towne Square. Steadily, she reeled it in. Still nothing.

 

An hour later, her shoulder aching, Fishergarten reeled in the contraption. Evidently, hit-and-miss terminal tackle combos weren’t working and she needed a better strategy.

Carefully, she went over the basics of the Fishley Dilemma:

• Fish #1 and Fish #2 could bite or not bite.
• Biting would bring a painful hook in the mouth, but the fish would live.
• Not biting meant the fish would have to forage in pond scum forever to eat.
• Fish #1 could hold back while Fish #2 greedily went after bling and bait, even though both already were fat from foraging. Fish #1 could then have more foraged food to itself while Fish #2 recovered from an ugly hook wound to the mouth. Vice versa for Fish #2.
• Both could bite at Fishergarten’s line, since her FATTDUD entry held a hook for each, and could produce a really cool photo for Fishergarten.
• No fish had even tried to bite the FATTDUD entry, indicating that the fish must be sharing bait info down there.
• Fish were working together, not out of self-interest.

“I’ve got it!” she shouted downshore to FisherSpouse. “We’ve purchased enough bait and fish bling to otherwise buy a house, and we’re never going to catch anything!”

FisherSpouse motioned that he couldn’t hear, picked up his gear and moved further downshore. Fishergarten made a mental note to set up that hearing test. She tried one more time.

Random 1284 shot

“The fish! They’re all in it together, against us!” she shouted. “There is no rational self-interest!” FisherSpouse was out of hearing range. Possibly. Out on a nearby boat, a fisherperson saluted with a bottle.

“Exactly!” he shouted back, and tilting back, took a big swig.

Slowly, Fishergarten sat down in her folding chair and recalled the wisdom of the FisherSages. 

“We go to enjoy the scenery and have fun,” she could hear them say in that puzzled way they always had with Fishergarten. And they were right. She stood up.

"Game! On!" she hollered to the no-doubt listening fish.

Resolutely, she picked up her rod and reached for another snell.

And what about you, FisherFriends? What would be your favorite lure/bait combo? Let us know in the comments section below.

Eleven Mile: CPW Inventive Mosquito Lab

Dear Ms. Fishergarten,

Thank you for your recent letter(s) to Colorado Parks & Wildlife. We always appreciate hearing the keen insight and ideas of our park visitors.

We likewise appreciate your frankness in describing your experience at Eleven Mile State Park, to wit, “a cesspool of long grasses fostering dense clouds of starving mosquitoes the size of Pterodactyls.” 

We find it refreshing that, after actually viewing your photos from your visit, you would send a second letter amending your description to “a cesspool of long grasses fostering dense clouds of starving mosquitoes the size of Pterodactyls against a stunning backdrop of Colorado’s snowy springtime splendor and strikingly gorgeous lake.” 

We sincerely regret the “bites that burned and itched like legion demons and their red-hot pokers of hell.” Even so, we regret that we cannot “run a mower around the lake shores,” nor can we “maybe also edge a little around the campsites.” CPW balances a delicate ecosystem with the increasing needs of its many visitors.

We trust that you will visit us again at Eleven Mile and bring bug spray. And as always at that location, flies and lures only.

Respectfully,

CPW

“Well,” Fishergarten said regretfully to FisherSpouse, as she carefully folded the note back into its envelope. “I tried to help. That place is a West Nile petri dish.”

“I told you to wear The Shirt,” he answered, focused on the reel he was spooling. "That's why we have it."

“The one you got from FisherSon?” she asked, remembering.

The Shirt, not a fashion statement

The Shirt is a taupe button-up men’s 2XL that comes infused with insect protection technology, sun screen capabilities and wick-away properties. Fishergarten also heard that it can tie a solid Trilene knot in the right circumstances, though she hasn’t tested that yet. “But that’s yours.”

“Mosquitoes don’t bite me,” he said casually.

This is fact. FisherSpouse emits DEET from his pores. In the past, Fishergarten has tried to understand this using the scientific method:

Observation: FisherSpouse can fish obliviously in a cloud of mosquitoes and emerge mosquito-bite free, while Fishergarten’s bites make her look like Quasimodo.

Hypothesis:  FisherSpouse is naturally immune to mosquitoes due to some biological factor as yet undiscovered.

Prediction/Deductive Reasoning: If we place FisherSpouse in a large cloud of aggressive

mosquitoes, we will find that he naturally emits DEET and deters them.

The floater/diver lure

Perform an Experiment: Go back to Eleven Mile and its mosquitoes (experimental lake) and fish with the floater/diver lure with the little lip on the front that is way cool because when you reel it in over Eleven Mile’s pebbly shallow shoreline, it looks like a real fish in the water even if it didn’t catch anything. Oh, and also go and fish at Lake Pueblo where a relentless shale surface seems to lessen mosquitoes (control/placebo lake).

Analyze Results: FisherSpouse had no mosquito bites from either location. Fishergarten was in the seventh layer of mosquito-bite hell.

Draw a Conclusion: FisherSpouse emits DEET. We know it. We don’t need an experiment to know it. Suck it, science.

“Mom, you can’t fish Colorado without mosquitoes,” FisherSon explained patiently. FisherSon favors fishing Colorado’s Western Slope wilderness, which one locates with coordinates rather than names. “Wear The Shirt I gave you guys.”

He paused, then continued.

“You didn’t spend enough time there. You know you have to go back.”

This, too, was true, she knew. Fishergarten could return to

Eleven Mile: Stunning backdrop of snowy springtime splendor

Eleven Mile. While she was at it, she would toss a line into Spinney Mountain and Antero, and possibly add a chapter to her coming book, “Colorado Fishing: When Mosquitoes Wear Camo.” She could further test the properties of The Shirt and report back on the outcomes.

What about you, FisherFriends? Have you fished Eleven Mile from the shore? What conclusions did you draw? What did you catch – fishwise and diseasewise? Tell us your story in the comments below.