Raibow Trout at Sheldon Lake

I have found a new favorite fishing place!

I really did not have a problem with the recent favorite spot (Arapaho Bend). However, a teenager swam with friends there on Friday and didn't make it across the lake, which forbids swimming... The sad news showed up on Friday's local news. That caused a change to our plan of returning there to catch bass. I had to come up with a new place...

Colorado stocking report showed a local lake Sheldon Lake was stocked with trouts recently, which was a surprise because I had never heard of that lake before. I then found out that it is also known as City Park lake as it is in the Fort Collin's city park. There was no other fishing reports describing fishing experience there. I did find this one article specifically discussing that lake's toxic cyanobacterial and suggested people not to eat any fish caught there. That did not deter us from making a trip -- after all, the odds were in our favor.

Coincidentally, we had also received the newly ordered Red Flyer all-terrain wagon so we put the kids in them when we got to the city park on Saturday morning. RyanC likes to pull the wagon and he can keep himself busy until we get stressed out from worrying about the damage he might do. AidanC loves to sit in it whenever he has something to drink or something to munch on. In other words, it does not really free one of us from having to watch the kids but it does give us a more convenient location to place AidanC.

As we arrived shortly before 9am, we had feared the place would be packed. It turns out we were the only ones fishing at that time. There is also this water park area near the lake and it didn't open until later. RyanC and AidanC were initially content as they drank...


As I was starting to think there was no trout in the lake, we saw a duck catching a trout and swallowing it whole. It was disappointing to see the duck got to the fish before we did.

Now check out this pretty rainbow trout!


RyanC got to touch the rainbow trout and he was all happy.


Well, as my only reader may suspect, I did not catch that rainbow trout. It was caught by this 10-12 year old boy that arrived at the same place after we had been there for an hour or so. He reeled in 4 trouts in less than an hour while we watched in amazement. Obviously he knew what he was doing as he explained that he catches a lot of trouts there all the time. His secret was to use a heavy sinker to cast long distance and fish with worms off the bottom of the lake. It was good enough for us as RyanC was very happy to see so many fish finally. I guess a dead carp just was not that exciting compared with live rainbow trouts.

Later I tried adding more split sinkers to help with casting distance but I still could not cast as far as that kid. I also lost yet another kastmasters to the bottom of this lake while experimenting with lures. This fishing trip was rather unsuccessful for my fishing records but it was exciting to see live rainbow trouts.

We returned later in the evening for yet another short fishing stint -- yeah, got the fishing bugs. I still did not catch any fish but the view was really nice. There were quite a few people fishing in the evening though. We saw people catching small bluegills.


We enjoyed our fishing trips at Sheldon Lake (City Lake) at city park in Fort Collins. It was convenient as parking is right next to the lake with these big trees that can act as shades. The views were pleasant. It feels safe with the kids there. There are always people walking/running around the sidewalk next to the lake -- so it is not too peaceful for those that want to get away from people completely. Most importantly, it has fish and others are catching them!