Last April, I first explored under
dusty footstep and swam eyesight across oceanic, bluebird-sky the breathtaking
geological surrounds of beauty that are Utah’s national parks. Vistas of
topographies, each exposed as stratified rust-colored rocks in the formations
of walls, windows, pinnacles, buttes, canyons, narrows, arches, massifs, mesas,
spires, bridges, and bends silently and sublimely compose this ancient,
desert-like landscape. At the time, and much to my added surprise, there
also existed one particular fusiform form of strata I was much more familiar
with viewing – stripes. I learned that a transplanted tribe
of Striped Bass school the vast, freshwater depths of a dammed, man-made
section of the Colorado River I had visited named Lake Powell. A piece I
wrote of this experience and published to A Multitude of Fins can
be read here.
This April, at 11:15AM on the second day of the month,
on the second day of Heather Litke’s shared fishing excursion of the San Juan
River arm of Lake Powell with her husband Ryan, a tautness of exact timing and
place suddenly struck out of the clear-blue morning like lightning,
electrifying the length of a precariously-deepening arc of eyelets to strain
waterward against the startled backbone of a rod quivering of pulse.
Pulling from fathoms below, unbeknownst in the moment, was none other
than the freshwater leviathan of a freshwater fisher’s
lifetime. This sinking surge of fighting-fin being only countered in
runaway measure at the fulcrum of her clenched hands grasping and working of
their serendipitous favor. An especially weighty resistance of
gaining absorption and excitement ensued. Then, by 11:30AM that morning, a new Utah state
record surfaced its gleaming, 44½ inch, 35.33 lb. broadside body painted of
seven laterally-running stripes from the drinking-water depths of intrigue to
the revelatory exposure of a triumphant sunlight casting sharpest of shadow overhead.
With one hook-set, one watertight queen of the whitewater achieved notoriety as
the largest documented catch & release fish captured in the
recorded history of the state. What’s more, she was just ½-inch-shy of the state’s
longstanding 48.7 lb.
record rockfish specimen landed in 1991 of this same lake’s waters.
What’s perhaps greatest, it that this
genetic wonder she admirably watched come to reanimate with life from the hold
of her encouraging revival grip, disappearing downward after a sinuous
kick-starting send-off and sweeping rake of broom tail into the depths of
Powell, could someday resurface even appreciatively larger and longer. In
essence, Heather has generously entrusted all who cast this reservoir next with
her prized, living trophy. A record-setting and reigning fish of legend
for yet some other fortunate freshwater angler’s hoist of honor and inestimable
approval of smile. May Litke's record stand as solid as the rockfish's
corralling walls of surrounding red rock, but for all one knows, some
angler, with any luck of luring, may some day lean to this lake's
waterline to release the lengthened-of-stripe, swimming benefaction of her
once-released catch.
“The charm of fishing is that it
is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of
occasions for hope” - John Buchan
“You fish, in essence, for surprise
out of nowhere, for an instant in which you suddenly become aware that you’re
attached to a heartbeat.” - Ted Leeson
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| The above photo and following caption was posted to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources social media account page on May 23rd: "RECORD FISH: Remember the massive striped bass Heather Litke caught earlier this spring? It was just certified as Utah's newest catch-and-release record. At 44.5 inches, this Lake Powell striper was the catch of a lifetime. Congrats, Heather!" |
