Johnsfolly

@FishnDave Now Rick @Terrierman is going to say that yet another thread was hijacked by those microfishermen, but honestly Ham started it😉

My favorite is when someone sees you on the creek or river either hunched over trying to spot darters or with a fish in a bag trying to get photos and then you try to explain to them about lifelisting. "So you just get a picture and then let them go?!?" We do get a lot of angry stares on these party boats when we get excited about getting photos of a new searobin or dogfish while no one is catching any meat fish😏

@Daryk Campbell Sr when will you be in Florence? I am planning a trip to visit my daughter who just moved to Louisville. I have a spot on the Indiana side of the Ohio River to try for skipjack. I found out that if I have a valid KY license I can fish the Indiana banks of the OH using that license. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the same with Ohio. Depending on your thoughts you could catch a fish on the OH and KY side of the river with just a KY license. Two states with just one license😉

Come on Dave you need to at least experience greenside darter indifference😆.

Yes😉. Not exactly what you would find hanging from a pick-up truck hitch but close enough. We call those claspers.

Thanks Dave. Sent you a text. Closest to us would be in OH. Anywhere from 7 to 8 hours one way. That whole Appalachian mountain range is a great divide for fish distributions. Though there are northerns found in the northern section of New York or Canada probably due to the St Lawrence River. Still about 8 to 9 hours from us. Though a trip up that way could lead to lifers like central mudminnows, a couple of stickleback species, redside dace, northern redbelly dace, round goby, rudd, lake trout and northern pike 😉

Sounds like a great day! Congrats on the Lifer! I still need a Northern and at least the swampland longear. May have to make a 2025 goal😉😁

Good luck buddy! Both can be fun and frustrating🤔. I hope that you catch a bunch.

By adding to this element discussion just causes a reaction that compounds the issue😆 But alcohol is the solution😉

I can't believe that it is Aug and the year is 2/3 over🙄. I was able to recently check two more of the boxes for my 2024 goals. Caught a Chesapeake Logperch up in PA. This was a new darter species putting me one new darter from completing that goal. It also is #15 Lifer for 2024 just leaving me 4 more to hit my goal of 19 lifers for the year. I have been pushing my daughter who currently has 27 lifers caught in 2024 with a goal of three more. #26 for Livie - a cutlip minnow which is one of my favorite minnows. #27 for Livie Finally a clearnose skate Not a Lifer but Livie's first rainbow darter in Maryland

Good luck Ham! I would love it if you could catch one of those bluntface shiners. I know that they would readily eat your flies.

Jeff I am sorry to hear about your dog. As Ham mentioned you gave him a good life. He sure seemed to like going to those Jigfests😉

This humor is elemental my dear Watson🤣

Sound like my very first fly caught fish. I lost sight of my dry fly and as I made a backcast a fallfish went flying by my head and landed on the bank behind me 😅. Not sure who was more surprised. @Terrierman another microfishing hijack! I just can't help myself🤣. Here's a normal fish photo to balance out this post.😉

What's not to like about catching one like this guy! Congrats Dave!

No offense but Jeff that reminds me of this skit🤔

All year my daughter and I have been fighting weather, water conditions and life in general to keep putting new species, i.e., lifers, on the list. Livie is rapidly (albeit likely due to her obsessive father) getting within striking distance of achieving a milestone number of species on her life list. I often do a fair amount of research on water bodies and techniques to put us in the postion to catch some new species. I have heard about locations and decided that we needed to do a night trip up to Pennsylvania to try for the Chesapeake Logperch. The creek is a tributary of the Susquehanna river and is just across the MD/PA border (some would call that the Mason-Dixon line😉). We drove to the location that I thought gave us the best chance of finding a suitable parking spot and access to a productive stretch of the creek. I couldn't find a suitable place to park and ended up well upstream from the intended fishing location. What we didn't know as we were getting gear ready and donning our waders that this was going to turn out to be a happy accident. We ended up in a location that had a large number of the target species. We were fishing Tanago style microhooks (#26) and tiny pieces of redworm. Getting to the water at night can often be a difficult or challenging time. We eventually got to the water level. We saw a few non-interested sunfish, lots of crayfish and even a few darters. When we really got fishing we easily caught tessellated darters off the bat. This was before we could discern the tessellated darters from the target species. Livie caught the first C logperch of the night. Once we had that fish in the bag it was easy to id the logperch from the tessellated darters. I will say that the T darters were much more aggressive and easier to catch. The logperch would either ignore the bait, eat then spit the bait once or twice before ignoring the bait or would bite but not get hooked. After her logperch catch Livie tried for other fish as I muddled thru one logperch after another trying to finally land one. Fortunately they were very locally abundant and I did get an adult logperch in the photo bag. We didn't notice before we started taking photos that mine has some sort of eye disease. Maybe that helped me catch it 😉. Livie did catch her first ever white sucker as well as these lifer logperch. After a couple of hours we made it back to the car and the long ride home, albeit a happy ride.

One of our biggest challenges lately is dealing with night microfishing. On one hand you do get to see a lot more of those secretive species. On the other hand they may simply refuse to bite or get spooked by your lights. When they get spooky it is often hard to see your baits under lower light levels and to effectively position it in front ot the target fish or you could just miss the bite. Then there is that mysterious bump on your leg or that scurry and heavy splash. In the northeast or even out in Missouri those critters may not be an issue, but in Florida that is a different story😉.

Jeff, I can't figure out if this is a noble pun or simply inert 😉🤣

This is for my fish nerd friends and those that also like puns. Dean Martin could not have sung it better😆

The head shape will also be a key id feature.

Us older guys know what he's talking about😆

I love this Photo!

I have to agree that they are a tasty fish. We have a trip planned for the 16th to fish the outer banks near Nagshead. Trying for ribbonfish but it is likely to end up a speckled trout trip. If so we hope to bring back some fillets 😉

We see a lot of them in Delaware, but are now seeing them frequently here in Maryland.