Mark Montaño grew up fishing in Santa Rosa. But he’d never been ice fishing until an art teaching job lured him to Colorado in 1988. The watercolor artist fell in love with the winter pastime and continued after he and his wife retired to El Prado in 2015. Every year since, Montaño has participated in the Eagle Nest Lake State Park ice fishing tournament. In 2024, Montaño landed a 25-inch rainbow to capture first place in the trout category.
I’ve been ice fishing for about 35 years. It filled that void of what to do during the wintertime.
Eagle Nest is a typical high mountain lake. It’s a fertile lake, so it grows the fish rapidly. That’s the reason why I like it so much. They’re strong and sturdy.
I love ice fishing because it can be just a real quiet, solitary gig where you have a whole lake to yourself. Or it can be very communal.
To steal a line from a buddy of mine: “Sometimes ice fishing is more about the experience than it is about the fishing.”
It’s not complicated like fly-fishing. Basically, you’re dropping a line down a hole with a jig or a little bit of bait on it. Anybody could do it.
I didn’t expect to win. It was unbelievable. You’ve got 200 or 300 people out there, and some take it pretty darn seriously.
It was a sunny, bright day, which you don’t like for ice fishing because the better the weather, the worse the fishing. I went to get a snack from my cooler, and then I heard a noise and my fishing rod was dragging across the ice.
I grabbed it, and I told my brother, “I’ve got a big fish on.” He came over, helping me try to get this fish out through the hole. The fish gave up pretty quickly, and I was able to scoop him out of the water.
We threw it on the grill with some onions and lemon. It was a great day.
The annual ice fishing tournament is January 31, 2026.