What is your bucket list fishing trips?

[fishinwrench]

Going on far away trips to catch amazingly beautiful, or exceptionally large fish is not in my bucket anymore.   It would just make me want to leave home and go live there. And since I am perfectly happy with where I live, and perfectly happy fishing for what's here....why tempt myself by starting an affair that will inevitably break me or leave me heartsick?   My running around, exploring the world, and chasing dreams, days are past.  No place makes me feel better than the Missouri Ozarks, and the fishing here is enough.   

[Greasy B]

2 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

No place makes me feel better than the Missouri Ozarks, and the fishing here is enough.   

I couldn’t agree more but, every now and then.....

Yankee Jim Canyon yesterday and Slough Creek today. 

 

I don’t keep a bucket list, no sense in dreaming of a trip so extravagant that I’ll never be able to do it, It’s more of a short list / long list of practical trips. The short list is a repeat the all things I love, overnighters on the Gasconade, Bluegill fishing in southern Illinois and the Bull Shoals tailwater. 

The long list is pretty doable: Red Fish in Louisiana, salmon and Steelhead in Michigan, Red Breast and Coppernose in North Carolina.  

 

[Gavin]

Yankee Jim Canyon on the Y Stone is a great float have done. Good for you! Bear Trap Canyon below Ennis Lake on the Madison is on my bucket list of floats. Requires a WW guide and raft for that. Some great memories at Slough Creek. Have hiked to third meadow. The fishing was a tad better but not by much. Always did better on the Lamar down by the park road.

[snagged in outlet 3]

10 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Going on far away trips to catch amazingly beautiful, or exceptionally large fish is not in my bucket anymore.   It would just make me want to leave home and go live there. And since I am perfectly happy with where I live, and perfectly happy fishing for what's here....why tempt myself by starting an affair that will inevitably break me or leave me heartsick?   My running around, exploring the world, and chasing dreams, days are past.  No place makes me feel better than the Missouri Ozarks, and the fishing here is enough.   

I'm more on board with you than the other way.  I got out of a trip to Napa Valley in a few weeks with my wife.  She's going with he sister, sister in-law and nieces.  I'll be fishing somewhere in the Ozarks thank you very much.  My wife asked if I had a bucket list last weekend.  I guess I don't.  Except I will going fishing every chance I get.  So I guess that's it.

[liphunter]

I always wanted to go smallmouth and walleye fishing up north somewhere. Maybe Canada. Clock is getting shorter. I should really get that done...

[FishnDave]

For me, there are WHATs that I'd like to catch that aren't found nearby, and so that necessitates the WHERE.  On my fly rod bucket list:

I'd love to catch a big ol' Napolean Wrasse wherever they might be found around the Indian Ocean (probably Seychelles).  So that'd be the long shot trip.

I'd also love to catch a big ol' Arapaima, so that would likely be somewhere in the Amazon basin.

I want to catch a lake trout.  That's probably more doable...I need to figure out how to make that one happen.

Another one that is more doable, an Alaska trip to catch some Dolly Varden and/or Arctic Char.

There are other, more likely species I may be able to pursue without leaving the lower 48, and some will become more available to me once I move to MO...bowfin, chain pickerel, blue cats, longear sunfish.  Heck, I've never even caught a spotted bass yet...there is ONE lake in Iowa that has them.  Tarpon....I'd like to catch one of those on a fly rod too.  Longnose & alligator gar.  If I sit here long enough, I'll just keep thinking of more species I wanna catch.

[Flysmallie]

11 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

No place makes me feel better than the Missouri Ozarks, and the fishing here is enough.   

True.

This place yanks my chain though.

 

Other than a fly in somewhere in Canada, I think my list has been fulfilled. Now I simply just fish.

 

[Al Agnew]

I'm a lucky man.  I've actually done a lot of everybody's bucket trips.  Been all over Alaska, several places in Canada, New Zealand, live part of the year in Montana and have done all of Gavin's trips except Beartrap Canyon, though I've hiked into it (and Greasy, you mean you're in my neck of the woods in Montana and didn't let me know???).  Fished for redfish.  Fished for salmon and steelhead in Michigan (as well as steelhead in Idaho).  Did fly-in trips, and long lake canoe trips in Minnesota and Canada.  Have caught redfish in Texas, salmon and steelhead in Michigan.  Have caught stripers off Long Island, though from a boat.  Tarpon, bonefish.  Big bass in Lake Fork.  Plus some trips that nobody has mentioned yet that were spectacular.  Crossed a couple off my own bucket list in the last few years--floated the entire Grand Canyon, and floated the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and the rest of the Salmon (river of no return), plus got back on the John Day River in Oregon.  There were other wonderful trips--Maine is a river smallmouth mecca that you don't hear too much about, for instance.

So I don't have many trips left on my bucket list.  And those I do have are all river trips, because I simply love being on rivers.  Mitch's idea of fishing for marlin has zero appeal to me, as does anything to do with the ocean out of sight of land--scenery is too boring.  Don't care about lake fishing, even up north Canadian lakes, been there, done that, and it's too buggy and the scenery doesn't appeal to me.  In fact, of all the trips I've done that were on other people's bucket lists, some were as great as advertised but others were a bit of a disappointment.

Just a few that I still have to do:

Devil's River, Texas--smallmouth, turquoise water, remote desert river in south Texas.

Umpqua River, Oregon--smallmouth again.

Go do the Grand Canyon again, hopefully without a huge rainstorm that got the river muddy--if you hit it right, it's good trout fishing for a hundred miles.  But that doesn't really matter, it's just experiencing the greatest river on earth.

Owhyhee River, Oregon--great rapids and if you hit it right, smallmouth again!

Duck River, Tennessee--don't know why but I've been drawn to that river every time I crossed it going somewhere else.

Some more Maine river stretches, including a long float on the Allagash.

Several MInnesota and Wisconsin rivers.

Smith River, Montana--gotta get a permit, and although I've had my chances they have always fell through.

[tjm]

I'm a lucky guy, people come from all over the world to fish in the Ozarks and I get to live here. My fishing bucket list is to go fishing tomorrow.  Whenever that might be.

[Ham]

Lots and Lots ; I wanna catch a fish in all 50 states , Boundary Waters Trip, Lower Niagara River, Columbia River, Havasu for Big Redears, East Coast Multi Species Swing, Nebraska Sand Hill Region, and Florida Multi Species Run.