David Kirk of Durango proudly displays a very big brown trout moments after he landed it March 14 on the Animas River between the Schneider Park and Ninth Street bridges. Kirk, a GIS analyst with La Plata County, walked downstream about a half-mile stretch of the river from bank to bank before ultimately bringing in the fish, which measured nearly the length of his arm and weighed perhaps as much as 10 pounds. If it wasn’t the biggest fish he has caught in the Animas, it was close to it, said Kirk, who released the lunker back into the river for other anglers to try to catch.
