FishnDave

Yes! Or a submersible with robotic arms designed for deep-water roll-casting. 😅

Nice fish! Heron? Osprey? Lamprey? Gigger?

He caught all the topminnows he wanted once he got the right size hook. 😃

Green Sunfish The one above is what I'd call "typical" markings...yellow-edged fins, etc. The left one below was a little different. The one on the right below had fins edged in red! I've seen it before, but not very often.

In my experience, 10" Bluegills are extremely rare. I once went @ 25 years between catching 10-inchers. Last week, I caught quite a few really nice bluegills in both Iowa and Missouri....included (3) 10-inchers and a 10.5-incher. Really awesome, strong fish! The ones in Iowa... 2 years ago I was catching some 9.5"-9.75" bluegills in a certain place. Releasing them, I was rewarded with even bigger ones this year.

(FND27) Bantam Sunfish (Flyweight stubbytail) Did not ever expect to catch one of these...but @Ham made it look easy. I probably would not have recognized these for what they were, but Ham showed me what to look for....and showed me exactly where to try for them. Boom!

(FND26) Dollar Sunfish (Dolladolla billsyall) I spotted these, and could get them to strike, but couldn't catch them with my smaller flies. @Ham showed me they could be caught....and then lent me the smaller fly I need to catch these. They look very similar to a longear sunfish. One quick way to differentiate is that Dollar Sunfish have irridescent spots on their black opercle, which is edged in white.

(FND25) Warmouth (Hamsfish wasbigger) @Ham caught a really nice DARK one...beautiful coloration. I lost a pretty good size one, and then caught this one just a couple casts later. Also caught some smaller ones. I'd caught one years ago in Illinois, but didn't have a picture, and wanted to catch one on the fly rod. Mission accomplished! These are really cool fish. I'd love to catch more this size and bigger!

(FND24) Redspotted Sunfish (Pastelwatercolor pinkishdots) @Johnsfolly supplied the tip and info that put me on this one... I don't think I'd ever even HEARD of one before John posted a picture and mentioned it to me. Really cool fish! Hard to find, though.... fished the area hard and only caught one. Made it all the more exciting to catch! Ever struggled to catch a certain fish species, but once you finally catch one, suddenly you are able to catch more? The very next day, at a very different place, I caught another one!

(FND23) Channel Catfish (Pescador felinus) Caught a couple little skinny cats on consecutive casts with a beadhead woolly bugger. Then I lost the fly.

(FND22) Longear Sunfish (Thissunfish isnotiniowa)

(FND21) Yellow Perch (Iowa) (Stripey thingii):

(FND20) Black Crappie (Iowa) (Notaperch oragill):

@Ham is a joy to fish with. He can catch anything and everything! Its so exciting to see him closing in on his 100-species goal! And I appreciate his patience... some of my target species were not cooperating with me at all. He proved there were Chain Pickerel in the area, I just couldn't get a strike. He introduced me to several species I never expected to catch. Very cool! And I had to downsize further than I like to, to catch those Dollar Sunfish. Ham gave me some smaller tippet and loaned me a tiny fly and split shot that I could use on my fly rod...and that did the trick. They are gorgeous fish! We didn't get skunked! Well, we sorta did: @Johnsfolly Gave me a couple great tips to put me on some species I was interested in as well. I'll post those pics shortly... I want to keep the species caught this year in order, and I have a couple I caught while in Iowa last week for my son's and daughter's college graduations. All right...on with it!

Get some fish slime on your hands...it has antiseptic, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324837

Flyished after dinner last night. Only caught one fish.

Little fella was just hungry. He saw his chance, and he took it! Tried to take you down! Kind of reminds of of a "Broomtail" I had on my line on Maui...also known as a Scrawled Filefish. I didn't land mine, unfortunately. This is a picture I found online:

Dang....seems like I've seen those before. Been a long time, though... Is it a Tish? Pish? Hmmmm....something like that. Maybe somebody else knows what it is? Sish? Opossum? Jackalope? Goggle-bream? 😬

Yes, Warmouth. Nice one!!

I saw, but didn't catch, Jaguar Guapote's in FL. Not sure if I saw a Midas Cichlid or not...they are around Miami area somewhere.

Imagine Ozark Streams full of Longear Sunfish that big!!

What a trip! Lots of great variety. Thanks for sharing it (and all the pictures!) with us! 😍

I'd be thrilled catching 3 Redears that totalled that weight. Beautiful fish! Hard to imagine, even seeing it, what a sunfish that big would be like to catch.