Coolest Fish You've Ever Caught

[Al Agnew]

Fishing a small stream in Zimbabwe, I caught a little fish called a "happy". It looked like an unmarked goggle-eye, except that on its otherwise clear anal fin there were scattered bright orange spots. In doing a little research, I found that these fish are mouth breeders. The female actually does the mouth breeding, keeping the eggs in her mouth until they hatch, but the male has the orange spots. The way it works, the female's instinct is to snap at the spots, thinking they are eggs. This stimulates the male to produce sperm to fertilize the eggs she has already taken into her mouth! Isn't nature wonderful?

I caught a smallmouth within clear view of the ocean 200 feet away, in a small stream on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. Also caught a bunch of nice largemouths in the same area.

Caught westslope cutthroats in a very tiny creek that probably hadn't been fished a dozen times in the last 50 years in Idaho.

Caught freshwater eels a number of times on Big River.

Caught a huge river sucker on the Yellowstone on a nymph.

Caught a bowfin in a very small wading size stream in Ste. Genevieve County.

[Paola Cat]

- Caught a 4# channel cat in a mud puddle

- Caught a river herring on a panfish popper in a Hillsdale Lake tributary about 25 years ago

- Caught a 3# tilapia on a crankbait in Lake Huites, MX

Caught ducks, sea gulls, and water snakes.

[tjulianc]

5 pound large mouth on a cane pole jigging for crappie.

[ozark trout fisher]

Coolest? I s'pose it's the Colorado River cutts I caught a few years back. They've been darn-near extirpated in their native range (west side of the Divide in CO, WY) by introduction of rainbows and brookies. Hard to get to, at least where I was, and hanging on by a thread above a natural barrier that kept out the bad guys. Small fish that have really got the odds stacked against them.

Colorado River Cutties certainly are a cool fish. Just about 10 miles from where I used to live in northwest Colorado there was a little mountain lake that I would fish for Colorado River cutthroat all the time-fished for them about twice a week every summer for five years. They are definitely one of the cooler varieties of trout.

Speaking of cutthroat, I'll never forget the day I spent on a tiny stream in the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. The creek was truly tiny beyond what you would think could possibly hold fish, and it was only because I had a wild hair and a bit of adventurous spirit that particular day that I even gave it a try. I literally put one foot one bank, the other foot on the other bank,and casted upstream when fishing it. It had maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of the flow of Blue Springs. But it had some relatively deep (2-3 foot) pot holes, and they were all just full of really nice cutthroat-12 inches all the way up to 17 and 18", and healthy, fat fish too. These fish could not possibly have grown to this size in this tiny little creek-there's a good sized trout stream a mile or two down the valley where they probably came from- but it was still cool to catch and release trout of that size from such a small stream. I believe those fish were Yellowstone Cutthroats, but they might have been Snake River cutts-I'm not sure.

[dennis boatman]

I remember catching pike all the way up Sac river all the way to Hwy 13!!!!

[Wheatenheimer]

Don't know how cool the fish was, I didn't strike up a conversation with her while I was taking this picture. But, I thought I was pretty cool catching this streamborn Brown on my first cast in Yosemite earlier this year.

[patfish]

Don't know how cool the fish was, I didn't strike up a conversation with her while I was taking this picture. But, I thought I was pretty cool catching this streamborn Brown on my first cast in Yosemite earlier this year.

Cool fish, cooler shirt.

[Fly_Guy]

150lb Tarpon - off of Daytona. Blacktip shark comes in second, same trip. Third have to be coho salmon, off of Oregon.

Yellowstone brown trout comes in next. super pretty fish.

[Leonard]

I oddest catch was also a Paddlefish...

On a 7wt fly rod using 8lb leader

[Flysmallie]

My oddest catch ever was actually Leonard. Think it was a 5wt.