Squabbling Beaurocrats

Boy wouldn't it be great to have a nice big lake right near Durango where we could all fish? I'm sure our hunting and fishing license dollars could fund the stocking and a simple, self-policed management plan similar to that of Puett, Summit, Lemon, Pastorius or countless other local lakes could keep the place in good shape. Oh wait. We do have a big giant well stocked lake right next door and thanks to the endless squabbling of worthless bureaucrats, we are just driving past, enjoying the view. I think honestly, it might be time to organize a peaceful "Fish-In" where we go and take the lake built with our tax dollars and fish stocked with our license dollars. They can't arrest us all, can they? (Ok, yes they probably can...) It is after all, our lake. The Animas La-Plata Project was bad enough. Ruining a great place to hunt was bad enough, but not letting us use the lake made from it all is unacceptable. Acceptable management strategy? What about skip the tribute gardens, skip the picnic areas, skip all of that and let people access their lake. Funny how most of the lakes in the area don't have ANS inspections and they also don't have ANS. The simple fact is anglers are good and responsible people who police themselves. There are always a few bad apples, sure, but to punish the 99% for that 1% is unrealistic. Being told that the lake would not open until spring of 2013 was heartbreaking, but being told that date is being pushed further back makes me want to go get arrested for trespassing (on public land.) It reminds me of when Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Henry David Thoreau in the Concord, Massachusetts jail. Thoreau was imprisoned for refusing to pay an unjust poll tax. When Emerson said "Henry why are you here?" Thoreau's reply was "Waldo, why are you not here?"

Civil disobedience aside, with no lake in Durango, we fished today at Summit Reservoir briefly. We couldn't find any water deeper than 4 feet and it was muddy water and like every time we go to Summit, we ran across some derelicts who left a nice pile of cigarette butts in their wake. There are weirdos at that lake and I've yet to pull a fish from it. Maybe that'll save the big ones for the creepy weirdos, but I don't know if I'll ever go back there (until someone pulls a state record out of its fetid, muddy waters.) Oh who am I kidding, I'll be back there at least to listen to the outhouse trumpet player.

Remembering how good the Yellow Perch we ate the other night were, we headed to Jackson and pulled out enough for dinner and headed home. There's still quite a bit of slush on the lake, and it's cold out there but the Perch are biting fine. They like little shiny things tipped with a bit of crawler. It was a nice day out there, but driving 30 mins to get to good fishing in any direction when there's a giant lake right here that has been filled to capacity since June of 2011 is ridiculous. No one is listening, no one is doing anything about it, and the various squabbling government agencies can't be trusted to come up with an equitable solution. If I was a little more crazy, I'd say it's time to put on some good cammo and go fishin. I've kept my comments about this fiasco to myself for quite a while but enough is enough!