Bait?

Bass bait! I won’t claim the thought didn’t go through my mind. When I caught a little shiner while bream fishing with my son at his pond, I naturally wondered what might happen if I re-hooked the shiner on a larger hook and pitched it back by the dock or near a shoreline bush.

I used to do that with other golden shiners at a creek near my house while I was growing up. It was fun, and I recall a bit of extra pride that came from catching fish on another fish I had also caught by rod and reel.

As luck would have it for the shiner, I only had the one light rod, which was rigged with a 1/48-ounce jig that had a No. 8 hook. It wasn’t worth hanging onto the baitfish and tying on a bigger hook — and my rod wouldn’t really have been suited for the job. 

So the shiner, which was a new species for me in 2026, got away with just smiling for a single photo before being tossed back into the pond. 

I really need to check some notes and write out my whole list, but with the shiner and some kind of chub or sucker I caught on another recent trip, I think the ‘26 species tally is at 22.