45 Youngsters Enjoy Kids Fishing Derby

Description: La Junta Fishing Derby winners(l-r) Elyssia DeLeon, first fish, girl; Landon Szmutko, first fish, boy; Peyton Stoker, largest fish, girl; Iliana Cruz, smallest fish, girl; Travin Nieto, largest fish, boy; Tyson Bustamonte, smallest fish, boy.

By Sue Keefer

It was a beautiful day for 45 youngsters to participate in the Kids Fishing Derby at the La Junta City Pond Saturday.

The 22^nd annual event was sponsored by the La Junta Elks Lodge, Colorado Bank and Trust, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Both the bank and the lodge provide volunteers to assist with sign-in, measuring fish, passing out atta-boys and atta-girls, and the myriad of other activities necessary to make the event a success. Three Colorado Parks and Wildlife volunteers also assisted.

The bank supplies the prizes, the lodge supplies drinks and tackle, and CPW supplies fishing rods and stocks the pond with rainbow trout a couple of days before the event.

The volunteers enjoyed watching the kids bring their catches up to the table to be measured. One young lady, Elyssia DeLeon, made the trek from across the pond to the measuring table 12 times to check in her catches. Elyssia won the first fish caught in the girls’ category. Perhaps appropriately, her t-shirt read, “Girls can do anything!”

A young man, Landon Szmutko, brought up a variety of fish, including catfish, trout, bass, and a green sunfish. Landon won the first fish caught in the boys category, and actually came in first with the smallest fish (a 4” green sunfish) as well as the largest fish (a 15 ¾ inch catfish), but in the spirit of fairness yielded the other two prizes to the second place winners in those categories.

In addition to the first fish prizes (those winners received tackle boxes), the other winners were:

Smallest fish, girls category: Iliana Cruz; smallest fish, boys category: Tyson Bustamonte (winners received folding chairs); Largest fish, girls category: Peyton Stoker; largest fish, boys category: Travin Nieto (winners received fishing poles with reels).

Plans are already being made for next year’s derby!

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