The ultimate catch at LAK

Hannah Gross
NLJ Correspondent 
 
Riverton resident Danny Kurttila, 60, became the first person to receive the Ultimate Angler award. Wyoming Game and Fish Department recently created the new challenge, called the Game and Fish Master Angler program, in which contestants are required to catch 10 species of fish from a list of 24 in Wyoming that meet the minimum length specified by the department. 
Kurttila’s prizes included medallions, bumper stickers and a lifetime fishing license. 
When he turned in his catches at the end of the year, Kurttila said, he had no idea he was the first to achieve that goal. He expected a younger person in better health to win. 
“It was a pleasant surprise,” he said.
An avid fisherman since he was 3 or 4, Kurttila said he knew the contest was something he wanted to do, despite potential setbacks in health, and he had his work cut out for him. 
“I fished all over the state,” Kurttila said. And that included
the nearby LAK Reservoir and Keyhole Reservoir. 
The tiger muskie, Kurttila’s favorite species, is one of the hardest to catch, he said, because only two or three lakes in Wyoming are stocked with tigers large enough to meet the 38-inch minimum requirement. 
Starting his search for the tigers at the Healy Reservoir in Buffalo, Kurttila successfully landed a 40-inch specimen. However, he didn’t stop there. He continued on to the LAK, where he met his fortune by nabbing a 42-inch tiger muskie. 
The LAK started stocking tiger muskies in the late 1990s, Kurttila said, and he’s been fishing at the LAK long enough to know the best locations to find them. One time in the early 2000s, he snatched a 44-inch tiger muskie — just a few inches and mere pounds shy of the state record. 
The LAK was his favorite lake until, in 2012, it ceased stocking tiger muskies, so Kurttila said he gave up on the lake for a while. However, since then, they’ve resumed stocking his favorite fish.  
“I have a fondness for that lake, even though it’s not that big,”
Kurttila said. 
One of Kurttila’s other award-winning fish, the northern pike, was caught in Keyhole — the only Wyoming reservoir containing that species, he said. 
“In your area, 8 out of the 10 master angler fish required to achieve an Ultimate Angler award could be caught by you,” Kurttila said. 
Combined, the two lakes contain tiger muskies, smallmouth bass, walleye, sunfish, crappie, channel catfish, freshwater drum and northern pike — all of which are valid species to enter into for the contest, he said. 
In 2015, Kurttila was diagnosed with stage 3 multiple myeloma, a type of bone cancer. This keeps him from being able to fish for very long before the pain in his lower back starts bothering him. This is enough for some people to quit. 
“But I’m stubborn, so I keep going,” he said. “I like a challenge.”
If it weren’t for fishing to keep him active, Kurttila said, he would sit around and feel sorry for himself. Instead, fishing gives him some exercise while keeping his spirits up. 
Now that he’s achieved his first Ultimate Angler award, Kurttila said doesn’t plan on stopping. He will continue catching as many of the contest’s 24 listed species as he can for his second Ultimate Angler award, including the shovelnose sturgeon — a species he’s never caught.