2024 Round up - A year in the life of a multispecies angler - aka nutjob!

[Johnsfolly]

I won't be fishing today to end out the year. I hope to get out tomorrow to start the 2025 year with some caught fish. Figured now would be a good time to post an end of the year round up for myself and my family. Most will be bullet points to keep it short but will mix in photos for those that like that kind of thing (like I do😉).

If you don't know me and my family very well, we fish a lot, travel a lot to fish, and try to catch as many different species as possible. The other thing to know about me is that I track a lot of fishing information, e.g., type of fish caught, number caught, date caught, locations, and baits used. Makes it pretty easy to write up a post like this one. One other point is when I talk about fishing outings, I do treat moving to a different watershed as separate outings.

This year I made 71 fishing outings and caught 712 fish which is not a lot compared to other OAF members.

Fished in and caught fish in 13 states, including MD, FL, UT (new state), PA, NJ, DE, NC, KS, MO, IN (on a KY recipricating license for the OH river), WV, CO (new state) and TX.

I caught 105 different species this year and 26 were new species.

My daughter Livie made 44 fishing outings and caught 430 fish (when she agreed to fish with Dad).

Fished in and caught fish in 8 states, including MD, FL, PA, NJ, DE, NC, IN (new state), and WV.

She caught 82 different species this year and 33 were new species. Back in Feb she caught her 171st species and end the year at a total species list of 203 species.

Her 200th fish species was a eyetail bowfin from NJ that she had to pull out of this little spot.

Livie's 201st species was an oriental weatherfish caught later that night also in NJ (I also caught one as well)

Photos of some of the more memorable trips.

Midas cichlid in the canal and Livie and I both caught them.

Parrots in the park overhead.

Key deer buck from No-name Key

Livie cured here needlefish curse with a redfin needlefish from Key West.

I could not catch one, and only caught Atlantic needlefish from that pier in Key West. Also in the keys Livie and I caught mangrove gambusia, a species that I did not know about until we had help with its id. Livie's male.

Fished one of our favorite reef fish spots in South Pointe park Miami. It's literally a fish bowl as you can see by the number of Sgt majors in this photo.

Livie's puddingwife wrasse was remarkable and one of the targets for this trip.

Sue caught a possible princess parrotfish, but have not fully confirmed its species.

We fished the intercoastal and Dania pier and had targets of a couple filefish species, bandtail puffers and a variety of snapper and grunts.

We all caught crested gobies in the IC waterway.

We all caught bandtail puffers from the pier.

Sue with a planehead filefish. I lost a nice scrawled filefish, but I'm not bitter 😒.

I was in Utah for business in March which was a big change over the FL trip.

My first UT fish was a white bass that I caught with a 1/16 oz chartreuse head and 2.5 inch pearl grub.

Back in Maryland and after a couple of breakoffs, Livie and I figured out how to hook and land cownose rays.

We made a couple of trips to PA. We love sculpin and did the three hours one way drive to catch a bunch of slimy sculpin (new lifers for both of us).

We also were both successful catching Chesapeake logperch on a night fishing trip just over the PA border.

One of the big targets for me this year was finally catching a ribbonfish. We have tried to catch them in VA and even in DE this year. Finally I made the decision after seeing lots of online reports to go to NC for them. I even booked a charter for them.

The night before our charter we ended up catching a bunch on 1/4 oz swimbaits from the Jeannette's pier in Nagshead. We caught a lot more (40 between us) the next day n the charter.

A swell from a tropical storm out by Bermuda created a swell that shut down other fishing opportunities for us on that trip.

We did a family reunion trip to Kansas City to spend time with grandkids and our kids at Great Wolf Lodge. I fished a little but only caught species that I have caught before. I could not find a Johnny darter though I fished several targeted locations. One the way home we stopped in WV to small creek that I fished a few years ago. Well the creek was a vanishing creek due to the drought but when microfishing you never know what will be in a small drainage.

Livie caught her first western blacknose dace from that pool.

We also caught green sunfish, creek chub and southern redbelly dace there as well.

We went back a few times to NJ to try for freshwater and saltwater lifers. In the pinelands of NJ we both caught lifer banded sunfish.

In the fall I piggy backed some fishing onto two business conferences, one in Denver CO and the other in Austin TX.

In CO I fished the mountains and warmwater creeks. 

Did catch a lifer brook stickleback on this trip!

In TX if fished the hill country around Austin and also the saltwater off Galveston.

In Galveston I fished this jetty and caught a lifer Molly Miller blenny - one of my targets for that trip.

In Austin I had hopes for Guadalupe bass. I thought that I saw a few but only caught small largemouth bass. I didn't expect bluff holes in TX like those in MD and AR but there they were.

Also the creek had Texas Cichlids which were another target for me.

Unfortunately I can't post it all in one post, but I figured that this would be a good round-up of our year in 2024.

I can't wait to see what we OAF'ers all can catch in 2025.

Don't forget to post photos 😉😁

[BilletHead]

    All these pics are worth a second look😃. Great year for sure for the Folly household.  I'm betting the next year will surpass this wrap up.

[Johnsfolly]

1 minute ago, BilletHead said:

    All these pics are worth a second look😃. Great year for sure for the Folly household.  I'm betting the next year will surpass this wrap up.

I hope so Marty!

[Quillback]

That's a great year of fishing!

I may get out Thursday to get my first fish of 2025.  It will likely be a smallmouth.

[Johnsfolly]

24 minutes ago, Quillback said:

That's a great year of fishing!

I may get out Thursday to get my first fish of 2025.  It will likely be a smallmouth.

Thanks Jeff. Good luck on you next trip. We have been having warm (mid 50's low 60's) weather and it's going to drop into the 30's after Weds afternoon. I am hoping to get my first 2025 fish tomorrow. Likely to be a local sunfish, bullhead or carp.

[Phil Lilley]

Thanks for taking us on your adventures!!

[Quillback]

8 minutes ago, Johnsfolly said:

Thanks Jeff. Good luck on you next trip. We have been having warm (mid 50's low 60's) weather and it's going to drop into the 30's after Weds afternoon. I am hoping to get my first 2025 fish tomorrow. Likely to be a local sunfish, bullhead or carp.

Thursday looks to be low 30's getting into the upper 40's with moderate wind.  Big cool down on the way next week, so may be my last chance to get out for a while.

[Johnsfolly]

59 minutes ago, Phil Lilley said:

Thanks for taking us on your adventures!!

No a problem Phil. Thanks for giving us a platform to be able to share with this group😉.

[Terrierman]

Wow!

[Al Agnew]

Love all the weird saltwater fish, even though I have no interest whatsoever in saltwater fish!  

Let's see...I fished two new stretches of river in the Ozarks this past year.  Both on four day trips.  I'd fished parts of both stretches in the distant past, but so long ago they were almost new water, and other parts WERE new water.  Don't remember catching any new lifer species.  Probably fewer days fishing in 2024 than in 2023.  Probably about an average year of catching.

Started off the new year right today...fished with a buddy and we ran some skinny water to get to a good winter hole that's nearly two miles long.  Only found smallmouth in two spots on it and only caught two, though I hooked a couple more.  But largemouth were scattered along the banks and we caught around 10, all over 16 inches, but the biggest was about 18 inches.  Oddly, no spotted bass even though this stretch is usually loaded with them.