Twin lakes park?

I couldn't tell if the south pond was affected or not. The whole main parking area is closed to all access. I've sent a email out to adams county parks and open space asking when it'll open back up, what the stocking plan is and how the pond will be changed. I sent it out yesterday (Saturday) so hopefully they get back to me Monday. And I agree it's sad, I've been fishing there for 20 years. I'll post any info I get from them on the lake page.

Thanks fiddler

Here's what they sent me:
Sorry this took a while to respond to, it was forwarded to someone that was out sick for a few days. We’re doing a major renovation of Twin Lakes Park we started back in February and we’re looking to finish up in August. The list of what we’re up to is pretty long. You may have noticed that the old culvert crossing across the Lower Clear Creek ditch needed to be removed a year or so ago. We’re replacing that, and also adding a new pedestrian bridge a little further east. The lake edge was eroding pretty badly and starting to crumble off in chunks, so we’re re-grading all of it, and armoring with riprap where that’s appropriate—that’ll help make the lake edge a lot more accessible than it was. The middle “peninsula” area is being raised so that it doesn’t flood anymore. We’re putting in new landscaping, some new picnic shelters and seating, and a new irrigation system (the old one was falling apart). We’re also re-doing some of the trail that was in pretty bad shape, and adding a soft-surface trail around the smaller pond to the south. The old restroom facility is going to be demolished, and we’re replacing it with a port-a-let structure.

We are definitely going to re-fill the lake. We just have to have it mostly de-watered right now so we can work in there. The lake will have the same shape when it’s all done—actually, we had thought of changing it during the planning process but found that water rights issues make it really hard to legally do that. We are planning on distributing excess material—concrete and rock—about the lake bottom to create better fish habitat, and once the project is done I will work with CPW to re-stock the lake and to monitor fish populations going forward. I would like to do something to add deeper spots in the lake for better variety, but it’s tough in spots like these old gravel ponds. The bottom is primarily composed of “wash fines,” a very fine sediment leftover from the gravel mining process, and they just flow like a really wet mud. We’ve found on other projects that we can dig deeper areas, but they fill in pretty quickly due to the nature of the bottom.

I hope that helps, and please feel free to contact me at any time if you have questions or concerns about the project.

Thanks,

Aaron

Aaron Clark
Natural Resource Specialist, Parks & Open Space
ADAMS COUNTY, COLORADO

Any word what happened to all the fish in there

Unfortunately no word on that. Possibly to the south pond as it sounds like they didn't drain that one. Also there was mostly carp and suckers in there. When they removed the old canal bridge which was concrete some time ago they couldn't run the canal so the lake didn't get filled that summer. As a result the pond summer killed. There was tons of dead crappie, sunfish and bass along the shore. A few small bass made it, but besides them all else I caught was carp and suckers.

I asked the same questions and got a little more in my reply. All they found was carp and after checking with CPW they were removed.

I’m assuming these ponds will end up being a total rebuild once they are reopened in the fall. It’s kind of disappointing the more user friendly these type of small waters become the bigger the downfall to the fishing. Maybe one day CPW will put some focus on small fisheries with focused habitat and regulation. With their current situation I’m not putting any expectation to seeing that though!

I know theres a lot more than carp in there. Good number of 8-12 inch bass in that pond. Including some more decent ones. Very dissapointed that they let it drain like that. A very quality fishery just wasted.

Was there any info on the inlet structure? I kinda figure that the carp will eventually get back into the ponds. The canal runs up from a diversion dam which is loaded with carp. Also any word on stocking? Like species? I'd also like to email the biologist and see what the plan is for fish stocking after the renovation. Anything specific species you all would like to see in that pond? It sucks they're doing this as I've fished there since I started fishing. But maybe we could make the angling opportunities better.