Horsetooth Reservoir

An unusually calm January afternoon during an unusually warm winter on the home lake. Ended up catching eight smallmouth bass and finished up with a 21” cutbow shortly after sunset!

As often happens, the wind whipped up right after I launched my kayak - as if it had been waiting all day for that moment. I battled it for awhile, and hooked up with my first trout of 2026. A nearly 23” cutbow; master angler qualifier! I don’t submit most of those to the state (last year I submitted 4 of 25+). It’s a great award program, but my favorite “trophy” is just a good selfie photo. Taking my hands off the paddle for less than a minute to get my photo resulted in being blown a few hundred yards offshore. It took a major effort to paddle to the nearest shore after that. Exhausted, I parked the kayak and hiked the rugged shoreline to a spot that doesn’t get fished in the winter. I caught a few small trout there, not the one I was after, but at least some reward for the hike.

Got out late afternoon and used the leftover minnows that Bennett left with me yesterday. Caught six smallies; a few were dinks and a few were good-sized fatties. Another crazy January day in Colorado!

Big shout out to Eric Holmlund for putting Jase on some great fish this last week. Half an inch short of a Master angler small mouth out of Horsetooth and Jase's first lake trout while ice fishing Chambers lake earlier that week.

Some great smallies thanks to Eric Holmlund guiding us to the bite. Nothing like open water T-shirt weather in January.

First catch of 2026! In a t-shirt in January in Colorado. Had the pleasure of giving a tour to Bennett Boothe and Jase, and they promptly outfished me! 👊🏽🐟

Merry Christmas y’all! It’s been so warm lately, frankly I think the fish are confused. They were feeding hard for the past couple months just waiting for the ice, and now they don’t know what to do. My past few sessions were a tough bite. Went out on a glassy Christmas Eve and found one decent cutbow, about 22”.

I injured my back a couple days ago lifting a load of scrap metal into the truck. Carrying the kayak was painful but I couldn’t resist taking it out on this calm afternoon. Caught a nice cutbow that chased all the way to the surface, and followed it up with a couple of nice smallmouths caught deep off the bottom. The first smallie was 17” (another master angler qualifier), the second around 15”. Although smallmouth are susceptible to barotrauma, I rarely see it on this lake (whereas I do see it more often on deep walleye here). The first was fine but the second one had pop-out eyes. However, I could see on sonar that it swam back down to depth quickly. That doesn’t preclude the possibility of post-release mortality, but from what I’ve seen over the years - if a fish can swim back down quickly on their own, it’s a good sign that they’re going to be ok. The ones that can’t swim back down are typically in trouble.