Wildlife managers in Colorado have a problem fish, and they are willing to pay anglers to help solve it. Through the back half of 2026, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is running monthly northern pike management tournaments at Spinney Mountain Reservoir, near Lake George, with cash prizes for the anglers who haul in the most.
The tournaments run from 1 June through 30 September, with a fresh prize pool each month: $500 for first place among adults, $250 for second and $150 for third, plus separate Youth Angler and Mystery Prize categories. The aim is not sport for its own sake but population control.
Spinney is a renowned trout water, and that is exactly what is at stake. "Spinney Mountain Reservoir is a destination trout fishery," said Kyle Battige, Senior Aquatic Biologist for CPW's Northeast Region, adding that "our recent sampling efforts have shown more Northern Pike and fewer trout." Northern pike are voracious, non-native predators in this water, and as their numbers climb the trout numbers fall.
The scoring system is built to attack the problem at its root. Smaller pike of 32 inches or less are worth three points each, while pike over 32 inches score just one point. By rewarding the removal of smaller fish, CPW is targeting the up-and-coming breeders that drive the population, rather than simply prizing a single trophy.
Only pike caught at Spinney are eligible. Anglers log their catch by uploading photos through the Fishing Chaos app with GPS enabled, or via a tablet at the reservoir's Aquatic Nuisance Species station. The agency has even set up a donation freezer for anglers who would rather not take their catch home — the pike still has to come out of the lake, but the fisher does not have to deal with it.
CPW is running the series alongside Tightline Outdoors and Colorado Trout Unlimited, framing it as a way to put recreational anglers to work on a conservation problem. It is a model that is spreading across the American West, where cash-incentive derbies have become a common tool for knocking back illegally introduced predators in trout and native-fish waters.
For Spinney's regulars, the pitch is straightforward: catch the fish that is eating your trout fishery, and get paid for it.
