The concept is one I hadn’t heard of before the tourney, which was organized by Anglers All in Littleton.

The rules were simple. We received a control card that had to be present in the photos with a clear image of the fish. Anglers had access to any public water across the state, and photos had to be submitted before the end of each shift. The list of fish included tiger muskie, wiper, tiger trout, lake trout, kokanee, grayling, grass carp, splake, catfish, mirror carp, whitefish, northern pike, common carp, greenback cutthroat, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, walleye, crappie, perch, sucker, sunfish, brook trout, cutthroat/cutbow trout, rainbow trout and brown trout.

There was so much strategy involved that I barely knew where to start. For our team, Sucker Punch, we wanted to see fins in the net early, so we began in Eleven Mile Canyon because I knew we had a fair chance of getting the rainbow, cutbow, brown and sucker. The plan was to spend two hours in the canyon and hightail out of there while it was early enough to catch pike at Spinney Reservoir. Of course, things didn’t work out that way.