Matt Smiley was planning to spend a relaxing Saturday watching college football. He’s really glad he changed his mind.
Before sunrise on that fateful October morning, Smiley felt a sudden impulse to go for a long, hard hike with his fishing gear to Waterdog Lake in the Uncompahgre National Forest near his home in Lake City. He started the four-mile trek a little before 6 a.m., got to the alpine lake about three hours later, after a climb of 2,400 feet, and wound up catching the biggest brook trout in Colorado history.
The record catch was announced by Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Tuesday. It weighed eight pounds, nine ounces and was 26.25 inches long. Smiley was stunned when he got his first glimpse.
“When it came to the surface, it was one of those moments, ‘Oh my gosh, what is going on, look at this thing,’” Smiley recalled in a phone interview. “I kind of was in shock for a second.”
It was not his first record catch, though. In 2019, Smiley caught a lake trout in Utah that was 48 inches long and weighed just under 53 pounds, setting that state’s catch-and-release record for the species. And, in 2003, he caught a lake trout at Blue Mesa Reservoir near Gunnison that broke the existing Colorado record. That one was eclipsed a few weeks later, though.
What is his secret? Anglers never tell, but he does believe the more time you spend fishing, the better chance you have to land a big whopper.
“More than anything, I probably put in more time and effort, to the point of being of being extreme, than most people would be willing to,” said Smiley, whose brother Steve is the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Northern Colorado. “And there’s still luck involved. You can spend all the time in the world doing this stuff and there’s no guarantee that right fish is ever going to bite. But, the more opportunities you give yourself, you have a lot better chance of it happening.
“My friends think I’m crazy that I spend so much time dedicating myself to these things,” he added.
Smiley had a little luck as well. After a couple of hours fishing near timberline at 11,130 feet, he decided it was about time to head back home for football.
“It wasn’t 20 seconds later, that fish bit and I couldn’t believe it,” Smiley said. “If I had quit 20 seconds earlier, I never would have had that bite. You just never know.”
Smiley figures he’s hiked to that lake around 35 times over the past nine years, thinking a record brook trout might be waiting.
“Every time I hike into that lake, about halfway in, I question myself,” Smiley said. “Am I crazy? Am I actually doing this hike again? You’re not always rewarded for that, but at least a couple times in my fishing career, I have been. It’s sure nice when it does happen.”
Smiley works for Favorite Fishing Rods, a rod and reel company for whom he is director of sales. They allowed him to work remotely before COVID-19 made it common, so he moved from Denver to Fairplay to be closer to high country fishing. He has since moved to Lake City, a small town about 50 miles southwest of Gunnison.
“I don’t want to make it sound like these records are my ultimate goal, because they’re not,” Smiley said. “If that was the only reason I was doing this stuff, you’d be crazy. The experiences I’ve had, hiking to these lakes, and the things I’ve seen — mountain lions, bears, you name it. I’ve seen just about everything. It’s been just a huge passion for me. I feel more alive when I’m out doing this stuff than doing anything else.”
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