Most people don't know of a medium sized lake south of Pueblo called Lake Beckwith. The lake is located in Colorado City CO in the southern foothills. At one time, Lake Beckwith was almost entirely a warmwater fishery-and an excellent one at that. The only exception was the few trout that made their way into the lake through Greenhorn Creek which feeds the lake . The lake used to be full of aquatic vegetation which amply provided for the higher oxygen demands of warmwater fish. At some point, it was determined by the Colorado City Metropolitan District that the aquatic vegetation had grown out of control and threatened the lake's ability to efficiently provide water for the residents of Colorado City. Therefor, White Amur, a grass-eating carp native to the Amur River in Asia were introduced to progressively reduce the volume of vegetation in a controlled manner and over a five-year period. The fish were supposed to have been certified sterile because they carried an extra chromosome. These sterile fish are commonly referred to as "triploids." Well, mother nature pulled a fast one and the fish reproduced in what seemed to be a nearly exponential fashion. Within one year of their intoduction, the fish completely wiped out evey last plant from the lake. Such a drastic and rapid shift in the lake's ecology caused the vast majority of the fish to die. I still remember walking around the lake as a boy with my father and seeing thousands of dead bluegills intersparsed with medium to hog-sized large mouth bass along the shoreline. After this unfortunate event occurred, the state took over the management of the lake about 10 years ago. The lake was never re-cultivated with vegetation--The only type of growth you'll find today is rockslime which is the same stuff you'll find in home aquariums. The state has essentially converted the lake from an arguably gold medal warmwater fishery to just another tourist lake chaulk full of annoying stocker rainbows and an army of juvenile channel cats. I know all you die-hard trout fishermen are going to disagree with me on this but let's be honest; in Colorado, you can just about stand anywhere in the state and throw a rock in any direction with a very high probability that you will hit a stream, river, pond, or lake where trout can be caught. Conversely, Colorado has very few places that are exclusively populated with warmwater species. Lake Beckwith is in an ideal location, maintains an ideal PH level, and is of an ideal size to support the growth and development of some monster bass, crappie, perch, bluegill, and catfish. It would be fantastic to see the state take steps to ressurect this lake to its former glory--but I am not holding my breath.