DENVER – When he was young, Javier Refuerzo and his little brother used to fish through holes in the floor of City Park’s bandshell gazebo. And when his wriggling carp were too large to pull through the 3 to 4-inch openings, he’d cut them loose.
“There were a few kids that were there most weekends,” said the 42-year-old Denverite, who fished at City Park’s 24-acre Ferril Lake in the mid-1990s. “Some of us fell in while trying to get to the ledge under the gazebo, when the water was low enough to pull ourselves under (the deck).”
Scrappy and impatient, he and his friends even used baseball bats to crack through the ice when the lake froze. Of course, safety standards have evolved over the last three decades, but fishing in Denver’s public lakes, reservoirs and waterways has remained a popular, all-ages pastime that requires very little travel or gear to enjoy…