Johnsfolly

One day a cop saw me crying. He came over and asked what was wrong. I said nobody likes me. He replied, don't worry kid not everyone has MET you yet! One day a cop saw me crying. He came over and asked what was wrong. I can't find my Parents. He replied, I don't know if we'll find them there are SO many places that they could HIDE!

Pretty sure that they are eating most fish and crabs in the bay and tributaries out this way. May have been hell on the tens of thousands of American and hickory shad they have stocked out here to creat stronger runs in a few years. We will have to do a couple of catfishing trips and keep all of the blues. Won't do much other than a feel good deal on our parts. At least we like eating blue cats. 😉

I do foresee possible closures for other coastal species. Some may be for the best some may not help if other issues are not addressed. For example I just heard of some watermen talking about how blue catfish are following the striped bass up the spawning creeks and gorging on the spawn. Said that it looked like a feeding frenzy. https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/local/2024/06/30/nc-recreational-fishermen-go-political-in-fight-over-flounder-closure/74156563007/

This one caught my eye😉

Why is this still a thing? Haven't we been seeing these types of vehicles since the 70's? They still don't seem to do well long term or on cloudy days. What I want to see is a combustion engine that runs on the methane from cow farts🤣. Just imagine a car pulling its own fuel in a cow trailer with two steers with inline gas tubes to the cars engine. Just need to buy another bale or two for those long trips😉. If you end up stranded, you can always eat one of the "fuel tanks".

FYIM 😁

I haven't heard if Maryland or WV is considering similar closures. We are so removed from what goes on in Western MD. We are under drought conditions over here in the eastern shore.

Thanks @Daryk Campbell Sr for taking us all along on this trip. Glad that you caught some as well😁.

I know a lot of us that at times are pretty tough😉😆

Dave those were awesome bleeding shiners and dollar sunfish. I also like that redspotted sunfish. How far south did you go to get those guys?

That's what I have been doing so far.

@Devan S. good luck on this goal. I currently have kept track of the states where I have caught trout. I haven't tried to go as native as possible like you intend to do. So some of mine are currently stockers. I am up to 11 states with catches of salmonid trout. When I looked a few years ago thinking about a similar goal, there wasn't one spot in FL that had freshwater trout, but the link TJM provided indicates a stocked pond. That is when I decided to try for and have tracked three more states where I have caught sea "trout" aka weakfish and speckled seatrout. I know that I have caught streambred/wild rainbows in Missouri - (all blue ribbon streams), brook trout in Maryland and Wyoming, Dolly varden in Alaska, and brown trout in PA.

@Daryk Campbell Sr that is looking fantastic. Can't wait to see the first fish caught out of that canoe.

In Europe they will use "clonks" to attract wels catfish to bite.

That's a big reason that I would rip those F9 and F11 Rapalas for brown trout. I can't fly cast a tiny dry fly very well. So give me fish willing to eat another fish than one gently sipping midge from the surface. I never begrudged when every so often a 18+ inch rainbow decided to eat 😁. Of course now my shoulder gets unhappy after a day out 😉. When the kids were growing up I did have to learn to throw microjigs on 2# line to get consistent bites in the trout parks.

May have to pick up some bologna this weekend 😉. I do like fried bologna sandwiches but prefer ketchup instead of mayo/miracle whip. Wonder bread was the best choice when I was a kid since the bread would stick to the roof of your mouth😆.

Livie has been catching all the nice male blennies lately. I caught the drab female🤔

At our new place we have been having a gang of squirrels just harrassing our chickens. They even have dug under the coop and get in to eat the chicken feed. When they do that the chickens either ignore them or chase them down pecking at them relentlessly. We haven't figured out what will trigger the birds to attack. Most of the time the huddle together away from the squirrels. Egg numbers have dropped 😒. I need an air rifleman to come and take out a few of these fat neighborhood squirrels 😉

They might be out in the midwest. I wouldn't know since there are still a lot of black perch and brim being caught out that way 🤣. The white catfish is actually a bullhead and not closely related to channel or blue cats. They do get bigger than the brown bullheads and are pretty good to eat. White cats Since they are bullheads they have the rounded tail fin instead of the deeply cut tail fin of the channel catfish. They also have that rounded anal fin with about 20 anal fin rays vs the blue cat which has a lot more fin rays and the straight edge of the anal fin.

We had a great weather weekend. One of not so many this year. I took my daughter fishing. We drove to an island area where the Chesapeake is a bit more salty. I had fought and ultimately lost a decent cownose ray at this spot last year. I was hoping to tangle with one again on this trip, albeit with different result 😉 On the way down we pass several shallow brackish water flats and grass that are always loaded with minnows, mainly mummichogs and sheepshead minnows. There are also quite a few fiddler crabs. We hadn't caught any sheepshead minnows yet this year and stopped to catch a couple in a series of pools that get close to the road. Though they were spooky and the mummichogs were much more committed to taking the bait, we both did catch a couple of fat female sheepshead minnows using tanago hooks with tiny pieces of bloodworm. No photos so maybe we didn''t catch them 🤣 We continued down to the spot that I wanted to fish. I dropped Livie to recon a spot that we like to fish in this area near several rock jetties. I left her with the tanago rod just in case. She saw some promising fish and I decided to park and fish there a bit as well. She was seeing very thin and small fish, maybe 1.5 to 2 inches in length. They were swimming along in the floating grass. I thought that they looked a lot like the cobia that I caught last year down in VA. Those fish were also swimming in the floating grass. Should have brought a net. Maybe next time. We fished a #20 on a dropper above a 1/4 bell sinker on one rod and the tanago on the other rod. We both caught our first spot, atlantic silversides and striped blennies for the year. I did catch only my second striped killifish ever. I caught my first in this same location two year's ago. We could not get Livie one which would have been a lifer for her😒. We did ultimately make it to the spot that I was hoping for a ray. Fished a whole juvenile spot on th 8 ft surf rod and shrimp on our 7 ft rod, but was a no go on the rays. I did catch a few larger spot and this one croaker. All in all an enjoyable day. No lifers but enough variety to keep us happy. I hope that other fathers on the Forum had great Father's days as well.

I figured that you would be expanding your fishing travel radius especially to check out new water and species. You know that is all in my wheelhouse when chasing new water for lifers😁. I drove just under 2000 miles in the week that I was in MO/AR/OK last fall. I swear that the driver's seat of my rental car from that trip had molded to my butt cheeks🤣.

Hey Dave what is you current drive radius in hours from home? Seems like you have expanded your range a bit.

From my experience white catfish are likely being displaced by channels and certainly blues. I would doubt that they could ever be considered as invasive. But uproar away 😉. I used to tell my daughter that you can tell that it is a white catfish from a channel since it doesn't bite the crap out of your thumb when you lip one 🤣.

Good luck guys. Always loved chanterelle foraging even more than morels. We've had some great spots all around Columbia and many heavy sacks of chants. A favorite recipe was to make roulade chicken breasts with a chanterelle and apricot stuffing.😁

I've caught Atlantic sharpnose, smooth and spiny dogfish. Do have plans on a shark trip offshore this summer and some local beach trips. Don't expect a great white. Hoping for sandbar or sand tigers. A mako or thresher would be awesome but not very likely.