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Meet Jed Thompson of Northern Colorado Fishing Outfitters

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Jed Thompson.

Jed, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born and raised here in Colorado and have never lived anywhere else. I was born in a small eastern Colorado Plains town. I first learned to fish at Stalker Lake in Wray catching bluegill, bass, & trout. I grew up and attended K-12 school in Fort Lupton. While living there I was in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and achieved the rank of Life Scout. While in Scouts, I learned my appreciation and passion for the outdoors and fishing. We camped and fished all over Eastern and Northern Colorado. Some of my favorite trips were to Red Feathers Lakes area where we fished multiple lakes and attended camp at Ben Delatour Scout Ranch.

I also enjoyed our trips to Horsetooth Reservoir, Boyd Lake, & Barbour Ponds (St. Vrain State Park). After graduating High School, I moved to Fort Collins to attend Colorado State University (CSU). I earned a B.S. in Fishery Biology. While attending CSU, I worked for a CSU Fisheries Lab and later started working for Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) in the Fisheries & Aquatics section. I worked for CDOW in several fisheries, aquatic, & research positions over the span of 13 years. While working for CDOW, who later became Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW), I earned a Masters in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences from the University of Florida.

This whole time fishing the local waters for over 35 years, I decided to make a career change and instead of assisting with managing and researching fisheries, I wanted to use my passion & knowledge of fishing to help other people enjoy the outdoors: take them fishing, as well as help people learn how to fish or use new fishing techniques. I established Northern Colorado Fishing Outfitters and its two fishing guide services, Learn 2 Fish Colorado & Fish-Colorado in the Fall of 2018. NoCo Fishing Outfitters now offers guided fishing trips on over a half a dozen lakes & one river in Northern Colorado.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No path is easy. There are always obstacles, challenges, and adversaries. To change careers after two degrees & 13 years on the job I enjoyed and loved was heartbreaking. But all paths have multiple routes. Maybe someday the path will lead back. As of now, the path I am following leads to guiding fishing trips and running my own business. Being a small business owner is no small task either. I have had to learn a whole new set of skills as a web developer, advertiser, marketer, social media guru, tour guide, all to become a business owner, fishing guide & outfitter.

Please tell us about Northern Colorado Fishing Outfitters. What should we know?
Northern Colorado Fishing Outfitters and its two guide services Learn 2 Fish Colorado & Fish-Colorado were established to bring a great outdoor adventure and experience to the people of Colorado and its visitors. NoCo Fishing Outfitters provides a fishing guide to residents and visitors to Northern Colorado in Loveland, Fort Collins, & Red Feather Lakes Area, with more areas & waters to come in the future. Two different fishing guide experiences are available with multiple types of fishing trips. Fishing trips consist of Boat Fishing Trips, River Fishing Trips, Shore Fishing Trips, Ice Fishing, and Night Fishing.

We use multiple types of fishing techniques and strategies to best put our clients on fish. Clients can expect to cast, troll, drift, jig, float, fishing using lures, jigs, baits, & flies. We use these fishing techniques to catch numerous types of fish found in Colorado. Fishing trips our clients can fish for include Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, White Bass, Crappie, Perch, Sunfish, & Catfish. At NoCo Fishing Outfitters we like to customize our trips to our client’s wants and needs. We offer fishing trips for just about anyone, at all levels of fishing experience. We have fishing trips using traditional spinning gear or fly fishing, both of which can be used on the lakes, ponds, and rivers. Trips are offered year-round every day of the year.

We offer fishing trips that last 4 hours, 6 hours, & 8 hours. Trips can be any time of day from mornings, day, evenings, & nights. Fish-Colorado Guide Service offers most of these trips. This guide service would be considered your normal guided fishing trip using all the listed fishing techniques. Learn 2 Fish Colorado Guide Service offers a little bit of a different experience. This guide service will take you on a guided fishing trip to fish from a local lake, pond or river from the shore. During these short trips, our guide will help clients learn basic fishing knowledge, laws, and ethics so that they may have a successful fishing trip on their own.

Clients can learn how to tie several popular fishing knots for attaching hooks, weights, jigs, floats, lines, and lures. Additionally, they will learn about different fishing rigs and strategies to catch multiple fish species. One of the basic fishing strategies, learn how to rig and use different types of baits. Clients will also learn about numerous types of lures and how to tie on and use these lures as well as learn about numerous types of flies and how to tie on and use these flies with floats and spinning gear.

We are most proud that NoCo Fishing Outfitters & its Fishing Guide Services offers these multiple different types of fishing trips for numerous types of Colorado fish species all over Northern Colorado. NoCo Fishing Outfitters uses quality name brand equipment from many of the world’s top fishing manufacturing companies. NoCo Fishing owns two boats for our guided fishing trips. The first boat is a Lowe 14 ft. fishing boat equipped with a 30 HP Mercury motor. Our second, and main guide boat, is a Crestliner 18.5 ft Fish Hawk equipped with a 150 HP Suzuki motor. Our two boats are equipped with Minnkota trolling motors, Lowrance Sonar & chart plotters.

Clients will use St. Croix fishing rods equipped with Pflueger fishing reels. NoCo Fishing Outfitters is also proud to use Colorado fishing company lures and bait on many of our guided fishing trips and personal fishing outings. These Colorado lures and bait companies are Bio Bait, Dynamic Lures, DX lures & Colorado Custom Lures. NoCo Fishing Outfitters Owner and Fishing Guide Jed Thompson have been fishing Colorado Lakes, Reservoirs, Ponds, & Rivers for over 35 years. Jed formed this company and guide services because he loves fishing & would be grateful to share his passion of fish & fishing with you, your family, and friends.

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NoCo Fishing Outfitters

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