2025 Flyfishing Fish Pics

[FishnDave]

Unlike a lot of you, I don't catch many Spotted Bass where I fish.  And the ones I catch aren't as big as what often gets posted by others on this site.  This was my biggest one of the year!  2 pictures of the same fish... different lighting brings out different features.

 

[FishnDave]

Fished in the rain in StL on Saturday.  The rainjacket only held up for so long before I got drenched thru.  Did some urban fishing.  Caught largemouth bass, bluegill, green sunfish, 2 types of hybrid sunfish, and redear sunfish.

 

[FishnDave]

Caught my first Black-striped Black Crappie (a normal mutation) or Magnolia Crappie (a hatchery-created hybrid).  Unexpected, but pretty cool!

Went elsewhere and caught some smaller Redears and other fishes.

[FishnDave]

A fishing buddy from Iowa was gonna pass thru StL, and wanted to catch some fish.  Koi and Goldfish were selected, as this would give him species #200 and #201 on fly for 2025.  Yes, for just this year.  That's a considerable more species on fly than I've EVER caught on fly.  So, that was pretty cool.

[FishnDave]

Then I wanted to check out a spot Ham and I would be fishing the following morning.  We'd had a good rain on Saturday, and wanted to make sure the creek was even fishable.

Quickly caught a Bleeding Shiner and 2 Mottled Sculpins (which would be our target species the next day), and left.  I felt we'd have good success tomorrow.

 

[FishnDave]

@Ham and I hit our first spot for bullheads.  Maintenance work kept us from achieving what should have been a very quick and easy score.  On to the Koi and Goldfish ponds...

@Ham Got what he wanted, and more.  

The sculpin spot turned out to be more difficult than I'd predicted, but Hamilton captured his Flyfer!

 

[FishnDave]

@Ham decided to give the bullhead spot one more try, and I was excited to try the Wiper spot Hamilton and my other fishing buddy had just fished (separately), so I hit the road, armed with some great intel and advice!

I accidentally foul-hooked a Silver Carp:

Caught a good-fighting Freshwater Drum:

 

 

[FishnDave]

And I caught what I was after.... Hybrid Striped Bass!  Those dudes are STRONG!  Every one seemed to fight the same way.  I'd feel the pressure, like I'd snagged something.  It wouldn't move.  Then I'd notice it was moving slowing, so then I'd set the hook harder, and the fish would take off on a blistering run straight downstream, although one or two ran upstream.  Then they'd park in the middle of the fastest water, and just sit there.  I'd put a LOT of pressure on them with a 9 wt fly rod, with 12 lb tippet, and still often couldn't move them.  But, I'd persist, and put even more pressure on them, and eventually get them to move.  Then they do some shorter runs, and eventually I'd get them to the net and land them.  Pretty cool stuff! 

I caught some on Clouser Minnows and variants, and some flyrod jigs I'd tied up. 

I landed 11 of them, including a new PB Hybrid Striped Bass... 25"!

The 3 pics above are all of the 25-incher.

Below are some of the others.

 

[Johnsfolly]

Congrats Dave! I've only caught smallish hybrids. Can only imagine how fun a big one would be.

[FishnDave]

10 hours ago, Johnsfolly said:

Congrats Dave! I've only caught smallish hybrids. Can only imagine how fun a big one would be.

I hear you.  Even the small ones are a lotta fun.  My biggest ever before this was from quite a few years ago, at 20".