FishnDave

Some cool and unusual fish for sure! Wrasse are very cool, and some are very colorful. I think the Ocean Pout is awesome! Haven't heard of those before. Your Black Sea Bass is pretty sweet as well! Great trip with the fam!

Its a good reason to not eat fish I catch. Well....maybe I'd eat ocean fish...even though they are saturated with microplastics. I dunno...we can't win.

I agree. It's certainly one of the strangest channel catfish I've seen. Spawning male channel cats usually get darker in color and big heads. As this one was on the thin side, I'm guessing this is a post-spawn male. Even so....I had to take a long look at it...wondering if it was some sort of hybrid. I don't hear of catfish hybrids. However, a buddy of mine caught a large odd catfish out of his uncle's farm pond. They showed the pictures to the DNR, who said they thought it was a channel cat/bullhead hybrid. It was 6-8 lb range, I believe. I saw the pictures....They weren't close-ups, and I think they were black-n-white film, not color...so it was tough to tell.

Massive head on this flyrod-caught Channel Catfish!

33" Carp ate the fly while I was flyfishing for crappies. Estimated 18.5 lbs. Strong fish!

I cast out a Gamechanger fly and let it sink to the bottom. This nice Channel Cat managed to wrap itself up in the line. I assume it dove down to eat the gamechanger and then did some fancy twisting maneuvers. I was happy. I think this was on my birthday. My birthday cigar was burning unevenly... A grass carp hit the fly twice...I hooked it the 2nd time. Fought it a long time...it just would not give up. My daughter took some video with her cell phone, this is a screen capture from it. I did eventually land it:

Just another option.

You could also always swap out the rubber legs for hackle or other feather / fur fibers.

That's good to know! But why would guys from Minnesota...Land of 1,000 Lakes... be icefishing in MO? Even in central Iowa, the coming of open water has been, oddly, pretty consistent over that past decade. Spring Break when our kids were in high school and college was always the 2nd week of March. We'd usually take a trip somewhere warm. I'd be in contact with friends/anglers who would give me updates on the ice situation. The ice would almost always go out a day or two before we returned from our trip. It was great! The sun is getting pretty strong, now that we are 2 months past the shortest day of the year. 4" of ice can disappear very quickly when we get a couple days near 50 degrees. The ice around StL might be gone later this coming week. Sound optimistic? That's what anglers are, right?

@Ham Are your weeds still green? I'm starting to miss greenery.... ;o) But the snow IS melting!

Glad everyone survived. A coworker says he has State Farm insurance...his wife got some car damage....they replaced it with a brand new car.

My uncle posted this on FB this week: "With all this snow falling, my wife has just been looking through the window for the past few days. If it stays cold for much longer, I might have to let her inside."

Rare sight and circumstances for sure. I hope you folks are all able to get through this without issues from loss of power, frozen pipes, etc. Take care!

I'm sure most already know of these other exotics in Florida: http://www.floridasportsman.com/2020/08/02/exotic-fish-catching/

Dang. It sounds so good, its all I want. Now. FIFY

https://nbc-2.com/news/2021/02/08/amazonian-river-monster-discovered-in-the-caloosahatchee-river/

You can also have your iPhone go back to taking pictures in .JPG format. Larger file, but compatible with everything. How to Change iPhone Camera to Shoot JPEG Format Pictures Again Open the “Settings” app on the iPhone and go to “Camera” Choose “Formats” and select “Most Compatible” to shoot photos in JPEG format on iPhone camera Exit out of Settings

@jdmidwest Your bird pictures are very good! They aren't the easiest animal to get good photos of. I'm assuming you didn't use your cell phone?

Congratulations on your retirement! You are in the right place to enjoy it.

Gamechangers look/swim so good in the water. I'm sure you've all watched a bass ignore a fly or lure, until you started jerking/twitching/darting it, right? Suddenly the bass wants to eat it! That style of retrieve has worked best for me with Gamechangers. Everybody has their favorite lures and/or flies. And I've seen it many times, where 2 guys fishing the same lure/fly ...one catches lots of fish, the other catches few...its strange how that can happen, but it does. The first time I tried these made me a believer that bass especially really like these. Sometimes other fish do too.

Those look really good! Its the Ned rig for a fly rod? Or maybe even for spinning gear! Hm. I might have to try something like that.

I think this is great! Keep that place SAFE! 👍