On June 12, young Eaton angler Daniel Geiger set out for the small, few-acre pond at Greeley’s Allen Park with a specific prize in mind.
He wanted to become a “Master Angler” — a goal the ambitious 10-year-old fisherman had been feverish pursuing.
But the prize Geiger would walk away with that day was one that even he couldn’t have fathomed.
On that late-spring day, Daniel — with a slight assist from his father, Ryan Geiger —hauled in an absolute behemoth on a mere piece of corn.
Daniel caught a fish about 2/3 as big as he is, a 37-inch grass carp.
It was a fish bigger than most people’s dogs.
It turned out to be a new Colorado state length record for the species.
More than three months later, Daniel vividly remembers the moment the once-in-a-lifetime fish struck — a moment that will be ingrained in his memory forever.
“The pole started to move a little,” Daniel said. “I had to keep the line slacked or else the carp will drop it as soon as they take the corn. The line started going. And I hooked the fish, and I could feel its weight. But most carp fight pretty hard. When we got a first glimpse, I was super happy, and I was yelling.”
Daniel and his father knew, immediately, Daniel finally had his Master Angler-worthy fish.
It needed to be just 30 inches for Daniel to receive his Master Angler certificate and patch. The state’s Master Angler program rewards fishermen for catching trophy-sized fish. Each species has its own length requirement.
But when Ryan waded into the pond’s murky waters to lift the giant over the pond’s rock-lined bank, Ryan quickly suspected the monster his son had reeled in might just qualify as a bit more than a mere Master Angler fish.
Ryan quickly searched for info on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website and saw that the state’s common carp length record is 35 inches.
Ryan and Daniel followed CPW’s very specific directions for accurately measuring the fish, they snapped a photograph and released the bottom-feeding behemoth back into the water — as required by CPW for a fish to be eligible for a length state record.
Elated, Ryan and Daniel knew the fish would easily surpass the state’s common carp length record.
There was just one potential problem.
It turns out this was actually a grass carp, a fish native to the Pacific Far East, much less common in this area. The feisty, scaly specimen has existed on this earth since the Jurassic Period, and it definitely looks the part.
Daniel and Ryan weren’t even previously aware that this small, neighborhood pond was home to this particular species of carp.
It turned out, however, Daniel’s carp beat out the previous grass carp record by a mere 1/2 inch. Good thing for the Geiger duo’s insistence on exact, precise measurements.
“I looked up the common carp record, and we did all the measurements,” Ryan said. “I told Daniel, ‘You’ve got the common carp record!’ And, then I got home and I was looking at pictures of his fish, and I was like, ‘Oh, whoops. Daniel, you might not have the record.’ Then I looked up the grass carp record and took a sigh of relief.”
They would anxiously wait several weeks for CPW to confirm the potential record. CPW completed the process and informed the Geigers in August.
Though catching a state record fish isn’t exactly something even the most accomplished of anglers would expect, in Daniel’s case, it wasn’t exactly an accident, either.
Daniel had long fine-tuned his skills in preparation for such a moment.
That much is evident in the way Daniel patiently keeps the bail of his spinning reel open, waiting for the slightest indication of movement before giving the savvy, finicky carp all the time it needs to engulf the bait before Daniel puts all of his strength into setting the hook.
Now, Daniel can move on to pursuing his next Master Angler species. — maybe a 12-inch-or-larger yellow perch, one of Daniel’s favorite species.
Who knows? Maybe that next Master Angler Award-winning fish will again be a little more than Daniel bargained for.
“It’s just really cool to watch (Daniel) fish and enjoy it as much as I did when I was little,” said Ryan, who is also an avid fisherman alongside his son. “But I could not imagine being 10 years old and catching a state record.”
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