31 Species in 2015

I may be getting ahead of myself. After all, nearly two weeks remain in 2015, and who knows what kind of fishing I might end up doing. I don't really think I'll likely tally any new species in that time, though, and if I were to, I could always post an update, so here we go:

As of now, my 2015 species list is at 31. That's my largest tally in the few years I've been keeping a list, and a pretty fair number, I think, considering that I didn't do any coastal fishing this year. Next year's fishing plans look like they'll include a decent amount of saltwater, so the list could be longer and look a lot different.

The way I keep my list, which has no purpose beyond my own journaling, is to record the first fish of any given kind I catch in a year and list the species, water body, state and month.

The top contributing state this year was a tie between my home state of Georgia and neighboring Alabama, with six listings apiece. A dozen states accounted produced at least one.

Top month, quite easily, was January, with nine. That doesn't mean I catch the most fish during January. It gets first crack, though, so it easily grabs the first pond bluegill and bass and stuff like that. Plus, I did an Arkansas trout trip and a Pennsylvania ice trip in January this year, and both offered completely different species. Nine months yielded at least one listing (all except March, August and December).

The most geographically distant species this year was a whitefish, which came from a little stream in Olympic National Park in Washington. Closest to home were bluegill and largemouth bass, which came from the same pond, which is about 4 miles form my house.