Centennial State News

Enthusiastic participation in this year's Ridgway Smallmouth Bass Classic fishing tournament at Ridgway State Park helped reduce the amount of smallmouth bass in the reservoir by 70%, according to Colorado Parks & Wildlife.

The fishing tournament, which now includes cash prizes, saw a rise in interest from 25 anglers last year to 58 this year. Prizes were given to those who caught the most fish, but also to those who found specific "tagged" fish that were worth various amounts of cash.

The overall goal of the fishing tournament is to help suppress the smallmouth bass population in the Ridgway Reservoir. Colorado Parks & Wildlife wants to help protect the native fish and consumers of the water downstream of the Ridgway Reservoir. Smallmouth bass were first introduced over a decade ago in the reservoir illegally, and their population has exploded since then.

The winner of the tournament was Chase Nicholson of Ridgway. He has won the event for four consecutive years. This year, he brought home the $3,000 grand prize by catching 3,036 smallmouth bass. Chris Cady from Delta finished in second place, catching 1,005 fish.

“As a fly-fisherman who spends a lot of time fishing the Uncompahgre River downstream of the reservoir, I’m just happy I can help out with the efforts to remove smallmouth before they negatively impact the river fishery,” Nicholson told the Colorado Parks & Wildlife website.

The tournament ran from the middle of June through Sept. 3 with a total of 5,569 smallmouth bass being removed from the lake, a tournament record. Over 4,000 of those bass were under 6 inches, leading some to be optimistic about controlling the adult population for future years.

“The  tournament continues to meet our goals of suppressing the population,” Colorado Parks & Wildlife aquatic biologist Eric Gardunio said, according to the CPW website. “We really want to thank all of the anglers who participated, as well as the Ridgway State Park and CPW staff that helped make the tournament a success.”