Fishing Goal For 2014

[Ham]

ohhhh ONO = Wahoo. I'd love to catch a Wahoo.

[Al Agnew]

When I was a kid, my grandparents lived on a small creek. There weren't any bass in it, but plenty of minnows and sunfish. I spent a lot of time at their house, and would often run down to the creek with tiny hooks and worms on a little spincast outfit. I'd put on a bit of worm about the size of a BB on a #12 or 14 hook, just on the point of the hook and covering the barb, and catch minnows, pretending that various kinds of minnows were actually various kinds of gamefish...creek chubs were largemouth bass, bleeding shiners were rainbow trout, etc. I caught quite a few fat stonerollers on the bits of worm as long as I could get the hook down to the bottom where I was seeing them, before some active mid-water minnow grabbed it first. So catching stonerollers is doable. They aren't just grazers. In fact, you can catch them in minnow traps using dog food for bait. But the shiners and chubs are easier to catch. I've caught big hornyhead chubs and big striped shiners on bass lures.

[Kayser]

I'll go with some more common ones that you could probably get. Hybrids and harder species are in parenthesis.

In the Ozarks or Northern MO-

2 x Crappie

3 x Black Bass

3 x Temperate Bass (4 with hybrids)

3 x Catfish (6 with bullheads, 7 for madtom)

6 x Sunfish (bluegill, greenie, long-ear, rock bass, red ear, warmouth!, 7 with hybrids)

2 x Sucker (golden redhorse, northern hogsucker)

1 x Drum

1 x Buffalo (or 3, if you can get bigmouth and black instead of just smallmouth)

2 x Carp (common, grass. Asians could be an easy 3rd & 4th with a bit of travel)

3 x Gar (spotted, longnose, shortnose, 4 with Alligator)

3 x Perch (yellow perch, walleye, sauger- some in the MO and MS, and lots some places in IL)

2 x Trout (4, if brookies and cutts are included)

1 x Paddlefish

1 x Musky

1 x Bowfin

36 or 49

In the Missouri or Mississippi, you can get....

1 x Sturgeon (Shovelnose, 3 with Lake and Pallid)

2 x Herring (Skipjack, Mooneye)

3 or 5

39 or 54 total

Still hurting for numbers? On the smaller side...

2 x Chub (Hornyhead and Creek. They will hit nymphs and small streamers)

4 x Shiners (Duskystripe, Bleeding, Common, Golden)

1 x Sculpin (or maybe more. I have no idea how many there really are...)

1 x Logperch (small earthworms on the bottom work.)

8

47 or 62 total.

That's it, 47 primaries, excluding the rarer members of the families and hybrids. All of the primaries I have either caught on H&L or have seen it done via pictures or video (if it's small and on the bottom, nightcrawlers and red wigglers are king). I highly doubt you can get all 62 in MO and AR. Ever. You will probably have to resort to a bit of bowfishing or gigging to get them. There are a few more species in existence, but these are the ones that I feel you can either get yourself or find someone to help you that catches them with some frequency.

I'm 24 years old. Lifetime, I'm at 42/47 (missing striper, walleye, paddlefish, sturgeon, skipjack), and 52/62 (2x bullhead, 2x sturgeon, Alligator gar) in the regions described. I did have to grab the buffalo and asian carp by hand, as well as the madtom, but everything else was H&L. So you are trying to catch more species in one year than I have in my life. Good luck, and keep us posted!

[Ham]

I'll keep you guys updated, but try to remember y'all asked for it. I'm going to try to have photos of them as well.

[Ham]

I do appreciate the interest and the folks that listed all the different fish. Thanks Kayser. I'm gonna try real hard to get both Banded and Ozark Sculpin. I get Chestnut Lamprey attached to trout fairly often so that's another one.

[Haris122]

I caught about 14 different species I can remember for certain, in the 3 or so years I've been at it. Some though I snagged purely by accident, others I was very surprised to find on the end of the line, and totally wasn't consciously fishing for. But that is one of the draws to fishing for me. Not knowing what exactly is on the other end of your line, and how big it is. That's why winter gets rough. At a lot of places with any decent chance catching a fish, you pretty much know it will be a trout.

[rainbow]

ohhhh ONO = Wahoo. I'd love to catch a Wahoo.

Ham, ono and mahi are a blast to catch. Even better than that they are excellent grilled. Tarpon fight like crazy and feel like you tied on to a pick up going down the road. not a big deal to get to Boca Grand in the spring and get a charter. Send a private message if you are interested and i can get you some guide recommendations. Ever since that year and those goals i have never set fishing goals again. How could I top that year. I fish for fun and to enjoy a great crappie or trout dinner in january when you don't do much fishing.

[Mitch f]

I was just thinking a good goal would be to take a newbie fishing and instill in him a sense of conservation. Teach him why it's important to catch and release and value the resource we have here in the Ozarks.

[Ham]

http://www.roughfish.com OMG, There's guys a LOT crazier about their fishing than I am. Yeah, 52 species don't look so tough now.

[Haris122]

Cool site.