FishnDave

Shortnose Gar....and Longnose Gar on the right side, above and below.

(FND30) Skipjack Herring (Similarnomdeplume butnotatuna) This was a surprise....and gives me 39 species in Missouri caught on the fly rod in less than 11 months...compared to 38 caught on the fly rod in Iowa over @14 years! Goal reached. Just a bunch of pictures of the same fish...I only caught one.

(FND29) Longnose Gar (Forceps-snoot fannypincher) Finally caught one!

(FND28) White Bass (Morone marooney)

Exactly. You are all doing great! The numbers are impressive already! You've all have, or nearly have, doubled my best year ever on species! How cool is that??

Yes, I'll catch some more. I suspect I'll get around 35 species for the year.

We are about 4 weeks away from the 1/2 year mark. Is everyone's numbers and species up-to-date? Here's what I'm seeing here posted so far: 1. John: 73 species 2. (tied) Ham: 63 species 2. (tied) Livie: 63 species 4. Dave: 27 species I've been more than doubled by everyone, as expected. My species accumulation is going to slow to a crawl or stop soon, I predict. Its been a good year so far, I've no complaints. You other 3 are having great years! Keep it going! 👊

Nice fish, fellas! 🤩

Ol' fella is missing some teeth. Another fun fact that doesn't carry the slightest bit of truth, ... it was designed to be powered by either mastodon fat or a hearing aid battery. Seriously though, the body of that thing is so big, in order to house the teams of draft horses required to run it. Also a completely fabricated fact.

How about a confessional thread? I'll start: I like quiche.

Some of the fish from the Memorial Day extended weekend:

I've done pretty well with hookups and landed fish on flies with Shortnose Gar (landed at least 13 last weekend). I'm hoping I might have similar success with Longnose Gar, but if I have to resort to a rope fly, I can. My problem is I'm not seeing them where I'm fishing, so I was hoping some folks here might know where concentrations of them might be?

@Al Agnew: My Missouri fly rod list so far... 1. Largemouth Bass 2. Kentucky Spotted Bass 3. Smallmouth Bass 4. Meanmouth (hybrid) Bass 5. White Bass 6. Bluegill 7. Green Sunfish 8. Hybrid Sunfish 9. Redear Sunfish 10. Longear Sunfish 11. Warmouth 12. Dollar Sunfish 13. Redspotted Sunfish 14. Bantam Sunfish 15. White Crappie 16. Golden Shiner 17. Common Shiner 18. Striped Shiner 19. Creek Chub 20. Hornyhead Chub 21. Northern Studfish 22. Goldeye 23. Channel Catfish 24. Black Bullhead 25. Shortnose Gar 26. Common Carp 27. Mirror Carp 28. Koi 29. Goldfish 30. Grass Carp 31. Silver Carp 32. Smallmouth Buffalo 33. Freshwater Drum 34. Walleye 35. Sauger 36. Saugeye 37. Rainbow Trout

In 14 years of flyfishing in Iowa before moving to MO, I thought I was doing pretty good...catching 38 species of fish in Iowa on the fly gear. This coming mid-July, I will have lived in StL for a full year. I've already caught 37 species in MO! I'd love to be able to catch at least one, if not 2, new species in MO, to tie or exceed the number of species I caught in Iowa. I think that would be pretty cool to be able to achieve that in less than a year! I've done better than I expected I would, and some cool fish have been caught with the help of others. But I have caught about as much as I can without a little more help. So I'm asking for your help. You can send me a private message rather than post under this thread, so as not to reveal any favorite places. Close to StL would be great. Some species I think I could add, but have yet to land in MO include Longnose Gar, Spotted Gar, Brown Trout, Rock Bass/Goggle-eye, Blue Catfish, Hybrid Striped Bass, and Bowfin (probably a long shot around StL). I think I may have seen a Longnose last week, but didn't catch it...and had one strike several times last year without catching it. Anybody willing to share some places where, say, Longnose Gar or Goggle-eye/Rock Bass might be reasonably common...near StL? Or any of those other species...or even suggest some species I may not have caught yet? I haven't caught a paddlefish or bigmouth buffalo on fly in MO yet, for example. Thanks in advance for your suggestions and help!

But the fence is there for YOUR PROTECTION! 😄

Longtime fan of the Blues Brothers.

That's a nice redear!! 👍

You know where these are, have at 'em! 😊👍 I'm interested to see if microfishing techniques might catch the Goldfish better. They usually ignore what I'm showing them. The bullheads aren't too tough once you spot them.

Caught at least 8 bullheads and a 10.5" Goldfish while flyfishing after dinner yesterday evening. Glad I wore my raincoat.

Dang, what a horrible injury! I hope you recover quickly and get back to washing fish slime off your hands!

I hope you get a chance too! A sharp #10 or #8 single hook seems to provide the most reliable hook-ups. I'm thankful SOMETHING was willing to play yesterday. Caught @ 14 gar, and 1 bluegill. Did see some grass carp, but almost all were cruising by pretty quick like they were late for an appointment.