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.

We Don't Forget

Knot to Complain or Anything

Fishergarten glanced nervously around the dimly lit restaurant. The FisherStranger opposite took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled slowly, thinking, letting the smoke curl upward into the hanging lamp with the faux-Tiffany shade. No one dared to tell him about local smoking ordinances. He just wasn’t the type.

“Where do you want this to happen?” he finally asked.

“Eleven Mile Reservoir.”

“When?”

“On a Thursday. It’s not so crowded.”

“It won’t be cheap,” he said, squinting. “You got what I told you?”

“Of course,” Fishergarten said. “Not on me, though.”

He briefly bared his teeth in a smile. Then, harshly, “Lady, when I tie up a loose end on something terminal, it stays tied. There’s no undoing it. You sure that’s what you want?”

“Yes,” Fishergarten said firmly. “I just don’t want to do it myself.”

“I want 70 percent by the weekend,” he added, “and the rest after.”

“Done!” Fishergarten was relieved. Finally, she had found a way around a tiresome logistic. But that night, FisherSpouse was less enthused.

“You did what?” he asked quietly.

 

“Well,” Fishergarten said. “You know how we spend every

living second of our spare time practicing Perfection Loops that aren’t and Trilene knots that don’t? I just hired someone to meet us at Eleven Mile and tie our terminal tackle on for us. For a few bills, he can stay the entire day and tie knots while we fish. Win-win, right?”

FisherSpouse looked a little pale and, picking up his phone, left the table. Later, Fishergarten thought she heard him talking, something about police or fraud, she wasn’t clear which. It was understandable why he might get all knotted up at the new hire, though. FisherSpouse ties his own knots. And likely, he had forgotten what happens with a novice knotter.

It was a windy and chilly March day as Fishergarten dug through FisherSpouse’s tackle box, seeking, as was her custom, a replacement lure. She found a blue beauty, slightly scuffed from generations of loving fisher-use. With frozen fingers, she carefully pulled it out and began to tie it onto her line.

“Want some help with that knot?” FisherSpouse asked.

“No, I got this,” Fishergarten said, recalling pretty much the knot-tying section of “Fishing for Dummies.”

Fishergarten secured the knot, then reeled up a little line and drew back. She brought the rod around and cast. Distantly, she saw the gleaming blue lure arc gracefully and plop into the water.

“Holy cow!” she said to FisherSpouse. “Check it out – I’m halfway across the lake!”

Excited, she began to reel in the slack. And reel. And then, the line ended, in an empty way. She looked at FisherSpouse. “My uncle gave me that,” he said.

Evidently, Fishergarten would need to conduct more knot-tying trials. Previous testing in her dining-room-table-like lab showed that knot-tying was much like published academic studies in psychology -- she had surprising results that she could not always replicate. But her testing differed in that reducing line friction meant she had to spit on her work. A lot.

Discouraged, she finally sought out the experts. Sitting in FisherSis’s kitchen, she poured out her frustration, even as she poured in a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

“I just don’t get it,” she said to FisherSis and FisherSIL, who between them had coached generations of Colorado FisherKids. “I just can’t learn the knots. Tell me, FisherSages, how do I tie a knot that holds? And is more sanitary?”

Silently, FisherSis grabbed her rod, threaded the line through a snap, and tied five overhand knots to hold it on. 

“There,” she said, tightening the final one. “That oughta hold.”

“Wait,” said Fishergarten, marveling at the seeming simplicity. “You can do that?”

FisherSis and FisherSIL glanced at each other. “We just go to fish and enjoy the scenery,” FisherSis said. “We have fun.”

“Oh,” said Fishergarten. She would need some time to process that. She also made a mental note to maybe cancel the research funding she’d raised.

So what about you, FisherFriends? What knots tie you in knots? Which do you favor? Tell us in the comments section below.