Chalk one up for Trout Unlimited

By The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 10/27/2007 09:25:34 PM MDT

 Trout Unlimited recently won a major victory in the broad realm of in-stream flow protection when the Colorado Supreme Court clamped legal limitations on the ability of water providers to divert water toward future population growth. The suit concerned a 2004 application filed jointly by the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District and the San Juan Water Conservancy District for conditional water rights for Dry Gulch Reservoir and pump station. The reservoir would store 35,000 acre feet of water obtained by pumping 200 cubic feet per second from the San Juan River to serve population growth in Archuleta County through the year 2100.

TU challenged the application, claiming the diversion would significantly impact the river's flow. As often is the case, the water court ruled for the developer. TU appealed on grounds that the water was being claimed for speculative purposes.

The Supreme Court reversed the decision and remanded the case, instructing the water court to reevaluate the districts' future water needs.

Drew Peternell, TU's attorney, hailed the ruling for its broader implication.

"It establishes a precedent throughout Colorado that municipal water providers cannot claim water rights for which they do not have a demonstrable need," Peternell said.

"This decision is especially significant in the fact that the Supreme Court recognized the potential of water conservation as a means of limiting water demand."

Several of the state's largest municipal providers filed briefs in support of the Pagosa bid, arguing that cities should be afforded broad deference in appropriating water rights. The court rejected that argument.

Nov. 8 energy lease sale prompts protests

By BOBBY MAGILL The Daily Sentinel

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Oil and gas leasing where nary a drilling rig has ever touched the ground will exact a tremendous toll on wildlife, tourism and the Colorado River, Grand County officials, environmentalists and wildlife managers said Wednesday.A slate of environmental groups, the Colorado Division of Wildlife and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., are asking the Bureau of Land Management to either remove thousands of acres of parcels from the agency’s Nov. 8 oil and gas lease sale or cancel the sale outright.

Massive tracts of public land —  including more than 31,000 acres in Grand County and more than 56,000 acres in wildlife-rich Jackson County —  are slated for the auction block next month in Middle Park, North Park, sensitive wildlife habitat in Moffat County and in the Paradox Basin south of Grand Junction.

“North Park, Middle Park, the area around Craig: Those are core areas of most of the greater sage grouse in Colorado,” which could be devastated by widespread energy development, DOW Regional Manager Ron Velarde said.

Habitat damage from energy development, he said, could lead the federal government to list the sage grouse as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

To stop the damage before it starts, the DOW is asking the BLM to remove more than 120,000 acres of parcels in North and Middle parks and Moffat County from the BLM’s lease sale, Velarde said.

Wildlife officials are hardly alone. Udall asked the BLM on Wednesday to postpone the entire 189,000-acre lease sale because local communities and wildlife officials haven’t had enough time to analyze the impact of potential oil and gas drilling in an area that has seen little development.

Udall said he wants the BLM in Colorado to follow the lead of the agency’s Utah office, which canceled that state’s November oil and gas lease sale because of inadequate environmental analysis.

“My impression is everyone was caught a little off guard by this,” Hot Sulphur Springs Mayor Hershal Deputy said. “I’m not sure we particularly saw this coming.”

Neither did the town of Granby, Mayor Ted Wang said.

The BLM announced the sale at the end of the summer, and its details have been available on its Web site, www.co.blm.gov, since then.

“Granby is a cooperating agency with the BLM, and we had no notification about this at all,” Wang said. “My board is not pleased they didn’t let us know.”

BLM spokeswoman Jaime Gardner said the BLM does not communicate with individual towns, but instead relies on county commissioners and the media to spread the word about oil and gas leases sales.

Even though Grand County Commissioner Gary Bumgarner said he thinks there has been adequate communication between the BLM and the county about the lease sale, “We are protesting.”

The BLM didn’t do adequate environmental analysis of the lease sale because it is using a 15-year-old analysis, he said.

“We’d like to have (the BLM’s) management plan updated before they went ahead with oil and gas leases,” Bumgarner said. “They’re in the process of upgrading that management plan now.”

“If it becomes like Rifle and down in that country, it would be a major impact,” he said.

Wang said if such large tracts of land in the county are leased, it could hurt water quality in the headwaters of the Colorado River and send an influx of workers into an area already in a construction boom.

“I think the changes would be really profound,” he said. “We have so little water in the river now because of transmountain diversions. Consequently, the Colorado and its tributaries are in a perpetual state of drought.”

More silt from new roads and new oil and gas well pads and any new interference with an already strained Colorado River “could be disastrous,” Wang said, adding that he expects most of Grand County’s municipalities to join Granby’s protest of the lease sale.

Kremmling Mayor Thomas Clark said his town will not protest the lease sale.

“I think it’s a pretty high-risk area for oil and gas,” he said.

The town board, he said, agreed that the county, state and federal governments have enough safeguards in place to ensure energy development won’t harm the environment.

But he said he understands how Hot Sulphur Springs and Granby are frightened by the prospect of a natural gas boom akin to that in Garfield, Rio Blanco and Mesa counties.

“Looking at what’s going on on the Roan Plateau and thinking that’s going on here, it could really scare them,” Clark said.

In North Park, where there are more state wildlife areas than towns, Jason Bodner of North Park Anglers said he worries energy development could hurt the quality of the area’s fishing.

Oil and gas drilling “is also going to detract from recreation if it screws up the watershed,” he said. “It’s my biggest concern.”

Walden Mayor Dirk Ramsey said energy development is a concern “to a point,” but he needs to “look into it further.”

At least seven environmental and sportsmen’s groups have also filed protests against the lease sale, including the Colorado Wildlife Federation, the Audubon Society, Trout Unlimited, the Wilderness Society, the San Juan Citizens Alliance, the Colorado Environmental Coalition and the Center for Native Ecosystems, whose objections to Utah’s lease sale proved successful in getting it cancelled.

“This lease sale is indicative of the BLM and its mad rush to drill new country despite the existing values these places harbor,” said Scott Linn, president of the Colorado River headwaters chapter of Trout Unlimited. “These areas are extremely important to hunters and anglers. The habitat for fish and game is just excellent.”

Supreme Court denies Pagosa new reservoir

Trout Unlimited said projections for population were unrealistic

October 24, 2007

By Joe Hanel | Herald Denver Bureau

DENVER - The state Supreme Court has denied a large water right for a new reservoir above Pagosa Springs.

The reservoir, which would be called Dry Gulch Reservoir, would meet the future needs of fast-growing Archuleta County. Trout Unlimited appealed, saying the plan was based on unrealistic growth estimates.

On Monday, the Supreme Court overturned a large water right for the reservoir and sent the case back to District Judge Gregory Lyman in Durango. Lyman could order a new trial or accept new evidence and arguments.

"We couldn't really have hoped for a better opinion. We think the Supreme Court got it right," said Drew Peternell, Trout Unlimited's attorney.

The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District provides water to most Archuleta County residents, parks and golf courses.

District Manager Carrie Campbell said Tuesday that she hadn't studied the 46-page decision, but she hopes for another chance in Lyman's court.

"I'm hopeful and very optimistic that we're not going to lose what we've applied for," Campbell said.

The San Juan Water Conservancy District - a partner organization to the Pagosa water district - already has a 6,300-acre-foot conditional right for Dry Gulch Reservoir, and Campbell said water managers plan to build the reservoir in some form.

"We have no choice," she said.

It's needed for population growth, and the Dry Gulch site - a mile and a half east of Pagosa Springs - is the best site in the area, she said.

The case began in 2004, when the Pagosa district won a 29,000-acre-foot conditional water right in a trial in Lyman's court. The water would come from the San Juan River.

The district based its request on population projections to the year 2100. Trout Unlimited appealed, saying the predictions were unrealistic.

In 2005, the Pagosa district served 9,500 people with about 2,000 acre-feet of water, according to the Supreme Court. The Dry Gulch decree included a right to continually refill the lake, bringing the total to 64,000 acre-feet a year.

Based on 2005 water use, 64,000 acre-feet would be enough for 304,000 people, or a city twice the size of Pueblo.

"It was an enormous amount of water for what is currently a pretty small community," Peternell said.

Trout Unlimited is worried about a wild population of brown trout in the San Juan River.

"We're not trying to deprive Archuleta County and Pagosa Springs of having a safe water supply," he said.

In 2003, Pagosa's water engineer, Steve Harris, estimated Dry Gulch would need 12,000 acre-feet of storage to meet demands by 2040. But the next year, the district's board asked for a much larger water right.

In the trial, Harris testified the district was worried about a potential recreational water right for a Pagosa Springs kayak park.

"That would essentially tie up a good portion of the river, and if you don't get in ahead of it, you're essentially not going to have hardly any water left to use," Harris testified.

He also worried about future environmental claims on the river by the state or the U.S. Forest Service.

But the state Supreme Court said water rights can't be used to block other people's future uses.

The court's water expert, Justice Gregory Hobbs, wrote the opinion.

Colorado water law does not allow "speculating," or claiming large amounts of water that might never be used. The system is set up to ensure the best use of the public's water, Hobbs wrote.

However, "optimum use can be achieved only through proper regard for all significant factors, including environmental and economic concerns," Hobbs wrote.

In a previous case from the Denver suburb of Thornton, the high court decided 50 years was a reasonable time frame for water planners to use. Pagosa's 100-year plans doubled that period.

Justice Nathan Coats, however, said the 50-year standard is dangerous.

Cities need to be reined in by proving they can build their systems in a "reasonable" time period. Otherwise, they will claim vast amounts of water based solely on 50-year population projections, Coats wrote in a concurring opinion.

High court halts Archuleta Co. 96-year water right

By The Associated Press

Article Last Updated: 10/23/2007 01:56:26 AM MDT

A water court decree that gave Archuleta County a 96-year conditional water right so it could plan for its growing population was reversed Monday by the Colorado Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled that the water court failed to properly determine what would be a reasonable water supply planning period. It said the water court failed to determine substantiated population projections and how much water was reasonably necessary for the planning period.

The court sent the matter back to the water court for further proceedings.

In 2004, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District and the San Juan Water Conservancy District sought water rights to serve Archuleta.

A water court decreed a conditional water storage right through 2100 for 29,000 acre-feet of water, plus the right to refill the reservoir for total annual storage of 64,000 acre-feet.

Trout Unlimited challenged the decree over concerns of how it would affect flows and trout population on the San Juan River. The fisheries conservation group contended the districts were requesting far more than they actually needed.

Pueblo County has authority to regulate SDS

In court proceedings this week, Colorado Springs argued that Pueblo County lacks so-called “1041” authority to regulate the proposed Southern Delivery System (SDS) - a billion-dollar project that would deliver enormous quantities of water from Lake Pueblo for use in Colorado Springs. The term “1041” stands for the state statute giving local governments power to regulate land uses within their boundaries for projects like mines, dams and water pipelines. Pueblo County is right to assert its “1041” authority as a means of limiting the potentially serious natural resource impacts of SDS.

As Colorado Springs has planned it, SDS would remove more than 78 million gallons of water daily from Lake Pueblo and carry it 43 miles north to Colorado Springs through a 5-foot diameter pipeline.

The pipeline would disrupt public roads, private property and countless ephemeral streams, and powering the project would require a host of infrastructure, including a 14,000 square-foot pump house, an electrical substation and 8-foot by 8-foot by 7-foot concrete boxes every 2,000 feet along the pipeline.

After being used in Colorado Springs, the wastewater from SDS would discharge to Fountain Creek, which for years has suffered flooding, water quality and other environmental consequences of being used as a wastewater receptacle. Already 37 percent of the flow of Fountain Creek is wastewater discharge, and under Colorado Springs’ plan, SDS would double the amount of wastewater return flow in the creek.

And then there’s the Arkansas River Legacy Project. The city of Pueblo and the Army Corps of Engineers spent millions of dollars to restore the nine-mile section of the Arkansas River from Pueblo Reservoir to Fountain Creek.

The Legacy Project has brought invaluable recreational and environmental benefits to Pueblo and its citizens and has resulted in an urban waterway that’s now healthy enough to support a population of trout. The SDS project could undermine these gains because it would take its water upstream from the stretch of river that was restored.

Colorado Springs has taken laudable steps forward in terms of per capita water usage, but the city’s modest reductions in per capita usage are insufficient to compensate for its alarming growth in population.

Moderating Colorado Springs’ growing water demands and its impacts on Colorado’s water resources requires aggressive and innovative water supply approaches. For example, Colorado Springs could reuse the water it brings to the Front Range from the West Slope, thereby reducing its demands for additional diversions from the Arkansas River.

Yet, even in the face of projections that its population will nearly double in 20 years, Colorado Springs leaders have displayed an unwillingness to get serious about a water reuse project.

The tension between Colorado Springs and Pueblo County over water resources is long-standing, and in pursuing SDS as it is currently contemplated, the Springs is reaching out to its neighbors to the south not with an olive branch but with a club.

Until the time there is peace on the Arkansas River, Pueblo County is right to assert its “1041” land use authority as a way to limit the environmental damage from projects like SDS.

Drew Peternell is the director and counsel of Trout Unlimited’s Colorado Water Project.

Cutthroat plan in place

DOW determined to see Colorado's original trout thrive in Trappers area

By Charlie Meyers The Denver Post

As homecomings go, the return of a particular trout to that splendid basin whose epicenter is Trappers Lake doesn't exactly rank up there with the prodigal son or even Lassie. But it does get high marks for historic and biological correctness at a time when restoration of the Colorado River cutthroat ranks high on the list of wildlife priorities.

As we have learned in recent weeks, Colorado's original trout are under assault from both friend and foe - genetic dispute among those with different views about saving them, genocide from an assortment of human-induced environmental ills.

All of which brings us to this magic place at the heart of the White River Plateau, better known simply as the Flat Tops.

"Trappers Lake historically had the most robust population of Colorado River cutts," said Kevin Rogers, a Colorado Division of Wildlife research biologist. "It's one of the largest natural bodies of water in the state at a perfect elevation, the perfect natural habitat."

Thanks to man's infatuation, the big lake also has some huge problems: Yellowstone cutthroat were introduced during the 1940s, and the resulting hybridization clouded the gene pool. DOW no longer takes eggs from Trappers for transplant elsewhere.

Brook and rainbow trout were added later, competitors for a limited food supply.

But there was another element to all this fish swapping, a twist that promises a considerable boost to the recovery effort. When Colorado made a 1931 trade with California for golden trout, the cutthroat it bartered came from a still- pure Trappers Lake.

These expatriates now swim in the lower Williamson Lakes, part of a seven-lake chain in the southern Sierra Nevada Range. Rogers, who visited the site last summer, hopes to bring pure-strain progeny back to the Trappers drainage.

"It's the perfect situation, using the cutthroat strain that originated here to repopulate it," Rogers said.

Alas, the recovery will not include Trappers Lake, which is too large, too deep, too complicated to achieve an eradication of exotic species. Instead, DOW plans to utilize the several smaller lakes and streams squiggled across a basin spanning more than a hundred square miles.

This return of the native involves an extended public and environmental review process before the real work begins: purging interloping trout from these waters while constructing barriers to further exotic invasion. But the basic elements for eventual success all are in place.

If the project gains approval, DOW crews would reclaim lake and streams around basin in serial fashion, then restock them with the original Trappers cutthroat strain brought back from Williamson.

Meanwhile, Rogers and area biologist Boyd Wright are engaged in a three-pronged effort to maintain a vibrant, if flawed, Colorado cutthroat presence in the big lake.

* Monitor cutthroat spawning and survival against the persistent whirling disease.

* Net and remove brook trout that make up approximately 40 percent of the Trappers bio- mass. DOW handles approximately 700 brookies each year.

* Encourage anglers to keep the brookies they catch.

* Maintain a stocking program of pure Colorado River cutthroat to boost the genetic makeup of the population.

"The wild card here is whirling disease, which has taken control in big Trappers," Rogers said.

DOW plans to construct barriers to prevent infected fish from moving up the creeks leading to uninfected waters such as Little Trappers Lake.

Anglers who visit the big lake can expect to catch cutts and brookies as large as 16 inches in a spectacular setting among bluff, flat-topped mountains like frosted layer cakes after an autumn snow.

It's something worth coming back for.

Trout Unlimited honors Klancke's distinguished service

from the Winter Park Manifest

by Stephanie Miller

Kirk Klancke, a longtime Fraser Valley local and environmental advocate, received Trout Unlimited’s Distinguished Service Award for his dedication to protecting the Fraser River.

Klancke, who is a member of the Colorado River Headwater’s Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU), received the award at TU’s annual meeting, held last month in Boise, Idaho. The award recognizes outstanding individual volunteer or professional contributions to TU and its mission of conserving, protecting and restoring North America’s coldwater fisheries and their watersheds.

Klancke, however, said the award isn’t about him. Instead, he hopes it draws more attention to the plight of the Valley’s natural environment — especially its rivers.

The Fraser River and the headwaters of the Colorado River are facing serious challenges, a recent TU newsletter says. Years of transmountain diversions to supply water to the Denver metropolitan area and northern Colorado have taken their toll on the rivers through low flows, increased temperature levels, algae and sedimentation — all of which are threats to the rivers’ gold medal fisheries and cutthroat trout populations.

Klancke hopes the award highlights the issues in the upper Colorado River that are threatening fisheries. More than half of the Fraser River is used for outdoor lawn irrigation on the Front Range, “and to grow Kentucky Bluegrass,” he said.

“It’s one of the most threatened coldwater fisheries,” he added. “ I see the state of Colorado destroying the natural environment to create an artificial environment on the East Slope.

“The state has to wake up.”

Scott Linn, president of the local TU chapter, pointed out that the Fraser River was nationally highlighted in 2005 by American Rivers as the third most endangered river of the United States — thanks to Klancke’s efforts.

“Kirk’s efforts have been instrumental in bringing local, regional and national awareness to the birthplace of the Colorado River,” Linn said.

Klancke also had good things to say about TU and its efforts. When he received the recognition award, he told the room of about 150 TU members that the organization is “the most active national environmental association in the Colorado headwaters.”

“We have a David and Goliath battle with the diverters and before (TU) came, we didn’t even have a slingshot,” he said.

Other accomplishments Linn added that Klancke is also a key promoter of “Fly Fishing with Ike,” a campaign that brings national awareness of the historical significance of the Fraser river, a favorite fishing spot of former President Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower.

This year, Klancke worked with the Fraser Valley Lions Club to raise more than $82,000 for a sculpture of the former president to be placed in Fraser, which will help further that connection, Linn said.

Klancke also helped start the Headwaters Outreach Initiative at the East Grand Middle School — a program that teaches children the aspects of a healthy watershed and human impacts.

Klancke is also the president of the East Grand Water Quality Board, a co-founder of the Friends of the Fraser, a board member of the Grand County Water Information Network, a board Member of the Quality/Quantity Committee of Northwest Council of Governments, a member of the Grand County Water Forum, and a Grand County representative in the Colorado River Headwaters Round Table (a group established by state law to make decisions about future water needs, including instream flow needs of the Colorado River Basin within Colorado).

He is also manager for the Winter Park Ranch Water and Sanitation District.

Western & Colorado Water Project Staff Notes

October 2007  On the Road: We spoke at an American Groundwater Trust conference about TU's interest in sound ground water management, made some new contacts and garnered some good press. We also attended the biennial Colorado River Symposium at Bishop's Lodge in Santa Fe and talked about TU reconnect and restoration projects in the Basin, as well as had many productive conversations about climate change's effects on trout and the energy-water nexus. Finally, we spoke to Light Hawk volunteer pilots at their annual Fly-In, held this year in Boulder, about the Western Water Project and the power of seeing the watersheds. 

Santa Fe River: While in Santa Fe, we spent time with the Director of the Santa Fe Watershed Association, toured the river, and made a presentation about river re-connect and restoration strategies used around the west at a forum the Association sponsored. The Santa Fe River was listed as the most endangered river in this year's American Rivers report. The Association would like to partner with TU to bring this river, which used to support native Rio Grande cutts, but now is dry for months out of the year, back to life. 

Flow Mapping: Colorado's mapping of environmentally and recreationally important stream reaches that need flow protection continues to inch forward. On a recent call, the steering committee set a state-wide meeting to explain and discuss the coarse and site-specific flow characterization models that we hope to use. 

Black Canyon: TU and the other parties to the Colorado water court proceedings to quantify the Black Canyon reserved water right are engaged in mediation. The court has stayed proceedings until middle of January to allow negotiations to continue. 

Colorado Headwaters Forum: We attended the Colorado Headwaters Forum in Silverton 

The Yampa: We spent the better part of a week surveying streams in the Yampa River Basin with Colorado Division of Wildlife staff in anticipation of bringing recommendations for instream flow rights to the CWCB. We are continuing to work with staff to advocate for Denver to release reasonable winter flows from the Williams Fork Reservoir. 

Temperature: We continue to collect, analyze and summarize stream temperature data in anticipation of the Colorado River Basin-wide hearings this winter. We are working to help improve the state's model of expected stream temperatures. This model is being developed for the Aquatic Life Workgroup as part of their effort to delineate the expected conditions against which actual stream health is compared. We also assisted with a large scale sampling effort led, in large part, by the EPA in Peru Creek that is part of ongoing efforts to restore the stream and cleanup the ongoing impacts from acid mine drainage.

Reed, Hunt work to curtail drilling that threatens cutthroat trout

By Charlie MeyersThe Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 10/06/2007 09:15:20 PM MDT

IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO - It is more than mere commitment that connects these trout conservationists, north and south. More than native trout restoration, more than roadless protection, more than battles against the relentless hum of off-road- vehicles. More, even, than the stench of oil and gas.

When Tom Reed leaves his home in Bozeman, Mont., to fight the infidels in Montana and Wyoming, it's always with a glance back down the continent toward Golden, where he was born and where his parents still live.

From Chris Hunt's perch in Idaho Falls, he often can sail southward to Colorado, where he grew up in Littleton and gained his degree at Western State.

Now here's the strange part, another of those links that keeps winding through the passions of the people who seek to protect trout and other wild things in a time of rampant development: Hunt worked as a college intern at the Gunnison Country Times newspaper. Reed was his editor.

Their paths took separate turns - Hunt to various jobs at small southern Colorado papers before joining Trout Unlimited, Reed through deeper curves to the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyo., then as information supervisor of Wyoming Game and Fish, then to TU.

Having come full circle, they now find themselves standing at the same streamside, preaching a gospel of moderation against drilling platforms that threaten both rare cutthroat trout and the downstream watersheds that harbor rainbows and browns.

Reed, who carries a nebulous title - backcountry organizer - spends much of his time on rampant energy issues in both states.

"Drilling is the major thing, but secondarily it's the impact of all the housing development associated with it," he says.

Reed's current preoccupation also includes a campaign to bring Wyoming water law into the 21st century as a way to boost in-stream flows, much like a similar initiative in an equally backward Colorado.

"We're working on a lot of things. We work hard on it," Reed says.

As director of TU's public lands initiative, Hunt's endeavor takes him all over the West. Not surprising, much of his attention focuses on oil and gas - from Colorado's Roan Plateau to a fresh wave of leases in Montana on the Beaverhead and the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone.

"That's the issue connecting everything we're doing. The Bureau of Land Management is becoming much more aggressive in its leasing policy. Instead of the usual pattern of issuing leases every four months, they're now down to two."

Trout Unlimited's endeavors in the northern Rockies include other connections, much closer to home. Matt Woodard, Hunt's neighbor in Idaho Falls, works as TU's project manager on an initiative to maintain populations of indigenous large-spotted cutthroat trout on the Snake River below Palisades Dam.

"I'm a valley native. I fished all over this country since I was a kid," said Woodard, a TU employee since 2001.

As he says this, Woodard holds the oars of a drift boat on the Snake's 10,000-cubic- foot-per-second crest, a liquid platform that makes rowing, and fishing, less than easy.

But it's what happens at an earlier time on the Snake that holds Wood- ard's concern. His primary focus is to keep rainbow trout from degrading the historic cutthroat habitat below Palisades Reservoir. To that end he works in concert with Idaho Game and Fish and the local TU chapter to stifle rainbow spawning, to promote more advantageous flows, improve habitat and remove as many adult rainbows as possible to curtail hybridization.

"This is one of the great populations of Yellowstone cutthroat left in the wild," Woodard said. "It's certainly worth saving them."

That's the sort of commitment that trout lovers everywhere can understand.

National championships conclude

By Zak Brown Saturday, October 6, 2007

LOVELAND — As he climbed out of Big Thompson River on Friday afternoon, Eddie Pinkston was hoping to go out on top.

The fly fisherman from Asheville, N.C., was in third place going into the final session of the National Fly Fishing Championships on Friday. He needed a good day on his assigned piece of water, just below the Idylewild Dam. If that happened, he had a solid chance of winning what could be the 58-year-old's last national championships.

"Well, this is probably my last one. I don't know how much longer I can handle fishing like this for three straight days," the tall, lanky Pinkston said. "This is really made for those fishermen who are in their prime, but have still had enough experience on the water."

Friday was the last day for the championships, which brought more than 150 competitors to northern Colorado for the three-day event. The competitors fished on the Big Thompson River, the Poudre River and Parvin and Dowdy Lakes in the Red Feather Lakes area.

Because of the wide area of competition, the final scores for the competition were still being determined late on Friday night. But the competitors were already trying to figure out the winner Friday afternoon. The fish stories were flying around the Big Thompson, but these ones were actually accurate. Pinkston caught seven in a three-hour period, which gave him — and others — hope.

Pinkston is known around the championships as a character, which is why several people congregated around him when he finished his day. When one of the spectators shook his hand they said, "I think I'm shaking the hand of the gold medalist."

Even if he didn't win the gold medal, Pinkston was happy to just be fishing Colorado waters on a beautiful fall day.

"There's plenty of trout waters where I'm from, but not the volume of fish there are here," he said. "You all have some beautiful rivers here."

Conservation Day

Trout Unlimited will have a free Conservation Day at the Millennium Harvest House today from noon-5 p.m. to give Colorado families a glimpse into the world of stream conservation.

There will be exhibits, activities and speakers. Experts will talk about oil and gas drilling on Colorado's Roan Plateau, balancing oil and gas exploration with wildlife, implications of climate change for western waterways and nitrogen and mercury deposits in Colorado's high mountain lakes and streams.

Children's activities include the Colorado Division of Wildlife's giant aquarium with trout and other Colorado fish and a fly tying table for young people.

A barbecue lunch will be available for $7 from noon-2 p.m.

For an event schedule, including information about tickets for tonight's banquet with keynote speaker Gov. Bill Ritter, visit www.cotrout.org.