Each summer and fall , Colorado Division of Parks
and Wildlife – Ben Swigle and associates – conduct gill net and electroshock surveys
of Colorado lakes, seeking hints on the quality of the coming season. Water levels and prospects of irrigation
drawdowns will trump just about everything else this year, and not all lakes
are surveyed each year, but this year’s surveys show promising walleye
population in Boyd, continued improvement in Lon Hagler as a trophy bass lake,
and a healthy saugeye and walleye population at Lonetree, albeit at the expense
of a once-good wiper fishery. We also
know there were substantial hits to smaller tributaries of Front Range trout
streams, but nothing definitive.
For a complete
listing of DOW surveys, click here. Lakes and rivers with 2012 surveys are
indicated with an “UPDATED” flag.
