The Push for 100 Species in 2021

[Johnsfolly]

1 hour ago, FishnDave said:

I DO need a Redbreast Sunfish.  And Northern Sunfish.  And Spotted Sunfish....to get all 13 Lepomis species.  All on FLY!  

I did good toward that goal with your help @Johnsfolly and @Ham this year.  I added Dollar, Bantam, Redspotted, and Warmouth to my fly rod list.

Hey Dave get ready to have to catch a couple more. There was a paper that re-established Lepomis solis and Lepomis aquilensis from the Longear sunfish complex. L. solis is found in Alabama, GA, and upper FL. L. aquilensis is found in southern AR, LA, TX, and OK. There are also two other potential species in AR and MO, OK that the authors felt need more investigation. Hopefully you can open the paper.

Not sure how I feel about this, but kind of like when all I needed was a suwannee and guadeloupe bass then they added four more redeye bass species. And now the bartram, choctaw, Alabama, etc.. Just more to chase I guess.

Kim_et_al_in_press splitting longear sunfish.pdf

[Ham]

12 hours ago, FishnDave said:

I DO need a Redbreast Sunfish.  And Northern Sunfish.  And Spotted Sunfish....to get all 13 Lepomis species.  All on FLY!  

I did good toward that goal with your help @Johnsfolly and @Ham this year.  I added Dollar, Bantam, Redspotted, and Warmouth to my fly rod list.

Let me know if you are available for a road trip. I can get you 2 of the three EASILY.

[FishnDave]

I thought I heard Missouri only has 2 kinds of sunfish,...  Brim/Bream and Perch? 😜

Lepomis solis and Lepomis aquilensis... those will be tough for folks to sort out...I couldn't find ANY information or photos online of either of these at the present time.  There's an opportunity here, @Johnsfolly and @Ham for one of you guys to be THE PERSON who publishes the defining morphological characteristics of these "new" species!  😀

[FishnDave]

@Johnsfolly I found it interesting that paper showed a map with the Northern Sunfish (Lepomis peltastes) all up through Iowa.  I've NEVER heard of any being caught in Iowa.  Further research mentioned they had been found in Iowa, but are presumed extirpated.

[Johnsfolly]

On 9/28/2021 at 9:36 AM, FishnDave said:

I thought I heard Missouri only has 2 kinds of sunfish,...  Brim/Bream and Perch? 😜

Lepomis solis and Lepomis aquilensis... those will be tough for folks to sort out...I couldn't find ANY information or photos online of either of these at the present time.  There's an opportunity here, @Johnsfolly and @Ham for one of you guys to be THE PERSON who publishes the defining morphological characteristics of these "new" species!  😀

Saw that someone has posted photos of both species on Roughfish.com.

Here is a guy that was catching them this summer.

 

[Johnsfolly]

Ok so this one is not without a little controversy. I posted a similar fish (one that I had caught) on INat and suggested that it was a Longspine porgy. I got a response back that it was likely a scup. I have since seen other postings with fish that look similar to this one on INat with id's of scup and longspine porgy. I have also found images on line with fish similar to this one again being referred to as longspine porgy. For the purposes of this thread I will go with the scup until the dust settles elsewhere. Only real issue is that it would not be a lifer for Livie or myself if in fact it was a scup (😒)

Livie #96 Scup Stenotomus chrysops

Here's mine -maybe hybrid?

[Johnsfolly]

Livie #97 L Gray Triggerfish - Balistes capriscus. No controversy on this one 😁. She lost a bigger one while trying to get her line untangled from my wife's line.

[Johnsfolly]

Still plugging away 🙂

Livie #98 Silver Perch

[FishnDave]

(FND43) Walleye (Brotherof leaveittobeav) on fly:

 

 

 

[Johnsfolly]

41 minutes ago, FishnDave said:

(FND43)

Congrats on the wally, I mean walleye! Just think that a chain pickerel and a brown trout this year would have you at 45 species 😉.