LAKE CITY, Colo. — A Lake City man caught a record-breaking brook trout last month at an alpine lake in Hinsdale County. It's the third time this year that the record has been broken, according to Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW).
On Saturday, Oct. 8, Matt Smiley hiked nearly four miles, with an elevation gain of 2,400-feet, to fish in Waterdog Lake near Mesa Seco.
Smiley caught smaller fish for most of the day and said he was about to head home to watch college football, CPW said. Not long after he contemplated leaving, he felt the tug of a big fish.
"I thought I wasn’t going to see any real good ones,” Smiley said. “But then the rod got heavy, I set my hook and could tell I had a really big fish.
“When it surfaced and I could see it, all I could think was, ‘Wow.’ I’ve caught big brookies in the past around the state, but when I saw this one, it was just different. It had way more length than any of the big ones before.”
Smiley, who sells tackle for Favorite Fishing, fought the large fish and waded into the water to net it, he told CPW. He netted the fish once, but it was able to roll out and free itself. Smiley kept up his fight, with the 26.25-inch fish taking his line out to the middle of the lake.
“I went into the, ‘I can’t lose this one’ mode,” Smiley said. “She pulled and rolled and was doing crazy things. My heart sank when she flopped right back out of the net, but she stayed hooked up and I brought her in a second time. It was a wild, crazy deal.”
This time Smiley was able to hang onto the fish. He then put the brook trout into his backpack and made the 3.9-mile hike back into Lake City. Smiley went to the post office and had the fish weighed.
The fish tipped the scale at 8-pounds, 9-ounces and had a 16-inch girth, CPW said.
“The experience of this catch has been surreal, and it took a few days to soak in. It’s a really special fish,” Smiley said. “The toughest thing for me with this whole deal was deciding to keep the fish. I’ve released so many over the years, but it was one of those deals where I made a quick decision and wanted to give this fish the recognition it deserves.”
Dan Brauch, a local CPW aquatic biologist, certified the catch and declared it the new state record for brook trout.
“Having sampled that water, I know the shoreline is loaded with scuds,” Brauch said. “So I am not too surprised this fish came from that lake, but it is a smaller body of water. It’s not a lake that handles a lot of use or fishing pressure and is difficult to access. Seeing two record fish in one week caught from there, it’s a cool story.”
The record for brook trout had been 7.63-pounds. That fish was reeled in at Upper Cataract Lake in Summit County in 1947. That had been the longest-standing fishing record in the state, CPW said.
In 2022, the brook trout record has now been broken three times.
In May, Tim Daniel of Granby caught a 7.84-pound brookie in Monarch Lake in Grand County.
The weekend before Smiley's catch, Larry Vickers -- also from Lake City --caught an 8.22-pound brook trout at Waterdog Lake. Vickers knew he had a record-breaking catch, but opted to not go through the certification process, CPW said. Vickers ended up eating his fish to not let the meat go to waste, according to CPW.
Smiley said his decisions to keep the fish, certify it and have it mounted were all difficult.
“I’ve let some really big ones go, and then you see them later and age has not been kind to them as they’ve regressed and gone the other way when they aren’t getting the nutrients they need to maintain that size,” he said. “This one, it was in peak condition, and I made the decision to give that fish the recognition it deserves. But it’s been the toughest thing for me with this whole deal. We learn none of them live forever, but it’s just a crazy deal when it all happens at once and you have to make that quick call.”
The oldest fishing record now in Colorado is for white bass, CPW said. That record has been held since 1963. The oldest record for trout in the state is for native cutthroat, which has been held since 1964.
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