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Explore article in Coloradoan

8/19/2007

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This article appeared in the local Explore section of The Coloradoan newspaper today.

[photo above] Kyle Janny, 2, fishes using a rod and reel with his dad Dave Janny on Aug. 11 at the Junior Bash kids' fishing day at Swift Ponds. Fishing sales nationwide are flat, but fly-fishing appears to be going strong in Northern Colorado, according to local outfitters.

Local fishers cast away, bucking the national trend
New fly-fishers, women anglers hooked by sport

BY KELLI LACKETT
KelliLackett@coloradoan.com

Long a classic American outdoor activity, fishing has been slipping in popularity.

Anglers are aging, and fishing sales nationally have stagnated, according to a May U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey. In Colorado, the number of anglers has dropped by 26 percent since 2001.

"The trends are showing that things are (still) downward," said Frank Peterson, president and CEO of the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1998 to try to halt the long-term decline.

"I won't kid you. We are fighting some other circumstances - video games, and kids not being outdoors."

Interest grows in fly-fishing

But local fly-fishing suppliers, said that fly-fishing seems to be the exception to this downward trend.

"I've noticed the opposite really," said Grant Houx, owner of St. Peter's Fly Shop, 202 Remington St.

Gordon Waldmier, owner of Angler's Roost Fly Fishing Co., 925 E. Harmony Road, Suite 200, agreed. "We have seen slow, steady growth," he said. "More and more people are trying fly-fishing."

Mark Damian Duda of Responsive Management, an outdoor research group in Harrisonburg, Va., said the nation's demographic shift from rural locations to urban ones is the biggest reason for the decline in fishing's popularity..

Then there's the plethora of activities luring kids and parents.

"Thirty years ago, people would get up and go fishing,'' he said. "Now, you get up and you have a soccer game at 9, a baseball game at 11, a team picnic at 1."

Houx and Waldmier agreed that there are many activities competing for children's - and their parents' - time.

Women picking up rods

In the past three to five years, women, not kids, have been the demographic driving growth in the regional fly-fishing market.

"More and more women students are in our fly-fishing classes," Gordon said. "We have a full line of women's fly-fishing clothing and accessories." And there are more women-only programs and events, he said.

Some women are fishing with their husbands or boyfriends, but not all, Waldmier said.

"Some of the ladies that come in as regulars - I saw one yesterday and she said, 'I just found a new woman to fly-fish with,' " Waldmier said.

Drawing kids

Making fishing appealing to children and teenagers is a little trickier, Houx and Waldmier said.

"I think that is something we need to work on - getting more youth into it," Houx said.

On Aug. 11, Markley Motors, Interstate Battery, JAX Outdoor Gear, Summer's Auto Repair and Supply and Majestic West Custom Eroidery sponsored at kids' fishing day at Swift Ponds in an effort to introduce kids to fishing.

St. Peter's Fly Shop supports Trout Unlimited programs, and offers an annual kids' fishing day. This year, it's on Sept. 9.

Angler's Roost has helped with fishing programs at the Ben Delatour Boy Scout Camp in Red Feather Lakes and has made presentations to local Boy Scout troops.

"I think that as in any sport, it takes parent involvement," Houx said.
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Devon Yager, 5, of Fort Collins, holds his fishing rod as his grandfather Mark Daley removes the hook from a bass the young fisherman caught during the Junior Bash Kids' fishing day Aug. 11 at Swift Ponds.
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Greeley Tribune article on Swift Ponds

8/9/2007

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Swift Ponds got an awesome write-up by Dan England of the Greeley Tribune.  Here is the link and below is the article.  Enjoy!

(Photo above) CHASE SWIFT STANDS NEXT to the largest of several ponds at the Swift Ponds property on Wednesday. According to his late father’s wishes, Swift is transferring ownership of the land to Colorado Youth Outdoors, an after­school outdoor education and recreation program for high school students.
ERIC BELLAMY / ebellamy@greeleytribune.com

The fishing ponds: Family donates land that will help Colorado Youth Outdoors connect with youngsters

Dan England, dengland@greeleytribune.com
August 9, 2007

Even before Louie Swift turned a chunk of hardscrabble farmland stuffed with gravel into an oasis of ponds just east of Interstate 25 and north of the Windsor exit, it was Chase Swift’s favorite place to go as a kid.

He fished in the one shallow pond, created, Chase thinks today, after it was mined for asphalt to pave the interstate. It was the perfect distance, a quarter-mile walk or so, to enjoy a spot of fishing and have the sun melt his tiny troubles away.

When his father died in 2003, Swift had transformed into a dozen ponds, each one full of fish and visited by birds of all feathers. It was Chase’s job, besides his work as a freelance photographer, to arrange tours and visits by groups of kids. That was Louie’s dream, to have a place where children, especially those with a fight ahead of them (either due to a disability or a hard life at home), could catch their first fish.

Chase had just started fulfilling his father’s wishes when a group of junior high students were fishing the trout pond, the only pond that’s stocked every year, and the only one where kids can take a fish home instead of releasing it back to the wild. The water temperature was perfect, so the kids, with their poor casts slapping the water, were catching fish by the buckets. Chase went by one kid and asked him how many he had caught. “Oh, 10,” the kid said.

“That’s when I realized that boy will never forget that day he spent in an incredible place,” Chase said. “I’ve never forgotten that day.”

Now 45, Chase lives in Wellington, but he still spends much of his time out at Swift Ponds. But soon he’ll relinquish most of the control and responsibility to a new owner, Colorado Youth Outdoors, possibly by the end of August, as soon as all the legal issues are worked out.

Louie, a real estate agent for farmland who, among other highlights, handled the transaction that later became the Kodak plant in Windsor, bought the 240-acre property in 1969 for farming, but after he discovered all the gravel, he mined it and began forming his vision. He mined chunks of the land rather than the whole portion, with the goal of having several ponds with different kinds of fish rather than one giant pool of water.

He worked with Colorado State University’s fisheries biologists and their students to stock the ponds and create habitats where they would thrive. The result is ponds full of bluegills, bass, catfish and, in one pond, 45-pound grass carp. The ponds, save for the trout pond, are self-sustaining.

That’s one reason Colorado Youth Outdoors was drooling at the prospect of taking ownership of the land. The organization uses the outdoors to build healthy relationships between kids and parents and has programs in Windsor, Roosevelt and Johnstown and will start one at Greeley Central this fall.

“We knew we had stumbled onto something just unbelievable,” said Bob Hewson, executive director and co-founder of Colorado Youth Outdoors with his brother, Tom, in 2001. “We had two visions that were very similar, and Louie had the facilities to pull it off.”

Colorado Youth Outdoors, however, has plans to take Swift Ponds far beyond Louie’s vision. Through an aggressive fundraising campaign, the organization hopes to add a shooting center, an education pavilion and make several improvements, including docks that look like big squares, making it easy for a kid in a wheelchair to get the best spot at the lake to fish — right on top of it.

“We’re going to take what we received,” Hewson said, “and add $5 million to it.”

The place won’t be open to the public, but it will be available for youth groups and nonprofit organizations with the same mission of introducing kids to the outdoors. The organization hopes to allow other groups to use it by January.

Chase’s family is a little nervous about giving away such a prized piece of their childhood. He doesn’t even know why Louie wanted the land in the first place, but he knows what his father’s wishes were for it after he died. Selling the land — valued at more than $1 million — would have gone against those wishes.

Chase and his two sisters are satisfied to keep the vision not only alive but thriving. He’ll still visit the place where he spent a good portion of his childhood, and he’ll take pride in sharing it with others.

And as he spoke about the way Swift will look one day, as an oasis for children who need a break, a pelican flew across three of the ponds. Chase paused and watched the bird head for a place to eat.  “They love this spot too,” Chase said.
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Mowing Extravaganza

8/3/2007

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We are blessed to have some awesome volunteers at Swift Ponds.  Most recently, Jerry Summers volunteered himself to mow not just the “hard-to-reach,” but IMPOSSIBLE-TO-REACH weeds along many banks of the Ponds.  Jerry has a specialized tractor-mower that has “wings” that can be lowered down over the banks to reach the weeds that love to grow on the shoreline.  Yes we could have asked an army of volunteers with weed-whackers, but that would take weeks for what took Jerry a single day.  The Ponds look so nice now, and most importantly, it allows access for young and old to fish along the banks that have been very difficult to fish, if not impossible, until now.

Thanks again Jerry for doing such a wonderful job!
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