No trespassing……violators will be prosecuted!
In 1967, these words meant little to a group of high school boys who loved to fish for trout. The Church Ranch sits just south of The Rocky Flats plant that used to manufacture the plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons.
There was a rumor that the ranch had a hidden lake filled with shrimp and huge rainbow trout that feasted on them. One day in September, a very young future cowboy convinced Steve Longshore to get his fishing pole and go for a ride. The guys disregarded the sign mentioned above and parked a few hundred yards from the caretaker’s house. They quickly climbed the barbed wire fence and walked west.
Within in five minutes, they spotted what looked like a small dam which quickened the heart rate of both trespassers. There was a two acre pond beyond the dam and soon they were catching pan size bass and crappie but no sign of any trout. It was after six o’ clock and the sun was dipping behind the mountains when Steve spotted a small stream entering the bass pond. He convinced the other young fisherman to follow the stream to see where it originated. The boys were able to catch twelve inch bass by hand as they followed the tiny stream.
A minute later the boys spotted what appeared to be a second dam a hundred yards upstream. Heart rates quickened again with imaginations churning with thoughts of large rainbows. They came over a hill and a six acre blue lake appeared. Steve said…..’this looks fishy.’ Mike cast a Mepps spinner to the edge of the south bank and ‘Bam’, the lure was inhaled by……you guessed it, a large crimson striped acrobatic rainbow who jumped five times before being netted by the flabbergasted young cowboy. Steve was also battling a sixteen inch rainbow and screaming like a ten year old on a roller coaster. Before leaving reluctantly a half hour later, the elated duo had netted a dozen trout with the first measuring 23 inches and weighing more than three pounds.
The following weekend, they were back at the lake but were stopped at their car by the caretaker. He scolded them and vowed that he would call the police if this ever happened again. The shaken high school juniors would not be deterred for long. They decided that the largest trout feed at night and the following Friday they were back again…….but at 10:00 p.m. so the caretaker would not notice.
They had caught three beauties when car lights appeared over the hill. A police siren sounded and it was panic city. Longshore sprinted to the west end of the lake and would end up walking four miles back to his home in Arvada. His petrified friend, had immediately slipped into the water like a Navy Seal and tried to stay hidden from the police. After searching in vain for the trespassers, the cops abandoned the hunt and departed. The soaked to the bone cowboy climbed from the cold water and made the same four mile walk home.
In the lunchroom on Monday, the friends were relating how they’d eluded the cops and how they had to return the following day to get their car. Mark Frye (class clown) was laughing hysterically and finally admitted that he and Val Dildey were the police impersonators who had scared us to death. He proceeded to make a police siren sound that was as authentic as any ambulance in town. The class clown had cemented his reputation and a very much older cowboy just shakes his head and laughs when copter nine now mentions the traffic jam on Church Ranch road.
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