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Just some old pics of the good ol' days on the Colorado River...
The first pic is of my now deceased grandfather and a pig he landed. The second pic is of my brother and I holding a large bow landed by my father and the third pic is of my father and Wayne Gustaveson holding a large stringer of bows...
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WOW!!
I wish that place was still like that!
When where those pics taken?
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That kid in the leopard pajamas looks like a trouble maker.
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"Young "Wayne still looks like "Old" Wayne!
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Great stuff, those days are long gone though.
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Great pictures, thanks for posting them.
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Catch and kill was the accepted practice back then - but it's also likely to be the reason we don't have fish like that any more. I like to think we're smarter now, but as there are a zillion times more people fishing now with better tackle, we HAD to get smarter or the rivers would be barren.
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Really, catch and kill had virtually nothing to do with the loss of that fishery....in fact, if anything, the problem that occurred down there could have been really helped by the catch and kill crowd. The numbers of fish in that river has ballooned to heights unheard of when those fish were caught. The big fish in that river back in the "good ol' days" were a result of fast growth, low population numbers, and little competition.
Sadly, many of our rivers are hurt from the exact opposite problem--too little harvest. IF we could get more anglers to harvest fish from our rivers, we would see more big fish.
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I wonder if the "controlled floods" from Lake Powell haven't had a negative effect on the trout in the Colorado? But I'm in agreement, fewer fish means bigger fish and there are many places I fish where I keep my fair share in hopes that those left behind will have room to grow.
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From what I've heard the periodic controlled floods to wash down the accumulated sediment from the Paria River haven't affected trout numbers. Which is too bad. The early boom after initial stocking is over never to be seen again. However AZ regulations result in stunting. They promote quantity at the total expense of any quality. Sure a 20 inch rainbow is nice but for such a large tailwater shouldn't be the upper end of what you can hope to catch. I fish some streams that aren't even 1% of the flow that produce bigger trout routinely.
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