Colorado Pays Anglers to Remove Invasive Pike from Green Mountain Reservoir

Colorado is putting anglers to work against invasive northern pike at Green Mountain Reservoir, and there is nothing wrong with paying people to help fix a fishery.

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Green Mountain Reservoir Pike Removal Tournament runs June 1 through September 30, 2026. Anglers can compete for monthly prizes up to $500 by legally harvesting northern pike from the reservoir near Silverthorne. Participants need a valid Colorado fishing license, proper state parks pass, and tournament registration through Fishing Chaos.

Northern pike are great predators and great sport fish in the right water. Green Mountain Reservoir is not the right water. CPW says pike there threaten the reservoir’s recreational fishery, downstream trout water, several Gold Medal fisheries, and native fish in the Colorado River system. The management goal is simple: increase angler harvest and suppress the pike population before the damage spreads farther.

This is the part some people refuse to say plainly. A fish can be fun to catch and still be a problem where it does not belong. Pike do what pike are built to do. They eat fish. In the wrong drainage, that means pressure on trout, native species, and fisheries that took decades of money and management to build.

Illegal fish introductions are not harmless bucket biology. They can wreck entire waters, cost agencies and license buyers a pile of money, and leave future anglers with fewer options. Once a top predator gets established in connected water, managers may be stuck fighting it for years.

Angler harvest is one of the cleanest tools available when regulations allow it. Catch them, enter them properly, keep them legally, and help protect the water you use. Conservation is not always a pretty poster. Sometimes it is a cooler full of invasive fish and a state agency willing to reward people for doing the work.