Late Bluegill Addition & More

A few taps of my jig and a snap of my wrist connected me with a solid bluegill, which had a bit of a surprise element. Catching a bluegill is seldom a surprise because they inhabit so many types of waterways and are quick to bite. Neither was catching it on a finesse bass bait.

The surprise was that it was April 1, and I was just catching my first bluegill of the year. I’m not consistent enough with keeping annual fish lists to quantify how rare that is, but I can say with confidence that I seldom catch 10 other species before adding bluegill to the list.

It was a pleasant surprise that came courtesy of a Rebel Ultra-Finesse Jig and that bit at the end of a presentation, when I was about to lift the jig out of the water and make another cast. Unfortunately, it was alone — or if it had buddies, they weren’t buying what I was selling.

Other Species Added

A little later the same morning, at a different river, I added two more species to this year’s tally: a shadow bass and a Coosa redeye bass. Both are regional species that are found in some North Georgia rivers.

The shadow bass looks and acts like a rock bass. In fact, when I caught it, I was thinking it was a rock bass. Only later did I remember that shadow bass are native to the Coosa River drainage, where I was fishing, and rock bass don’t actually live there. 

When I went back and looked at shadow bass photos online, I could see dark splotches that match my fish and that aren’t on true rock bass. Maybe they are the namesake. I’m not sure.

The Coosa redeye (also called just Coosa bass or redeye bass) is one of a handful of native upland river black bass species found in North Georgia. It’s one of the species that is part of the Georgia Bass Slam, but mine was tiny — well below then 8-inch minimum for qualifying fish. Hopefully, I’ll catch a bigger one some time this year! For now, those fish were species 12 and 13 on this year’s catch list.

Fish Species Tally?

 

I’m have trouble settling in my mind whether threadfin shad should count in my 2026 fish species tally.

I caught two in back-to-back casts while fishing a causeway at Lake Guntersville last month. Both were snagged on the rear hook of my jerkbait but both fully unintentionally.

I’m not sure why I struggle to count them.

I definitely would count a shad or other baitfish hooked in the mouth, and in truth the smaller and more minnow-like it was the more proud I’d probably be of the novelty of the catch. And I typically would count a foul hooked gamefish, since the snagging would never be intentional.

I suppose with most snagged fish I’m inclined to assume they swiped at my bait and missed but I got them sideways when I set the hook. With a jerkbait fished through a big school of shad, it seems more like they just got in the way. That makes them seem less like accomplishments, but I guess not less of “catches.”

As I’ve put my thoughts in written words and looked at it, I seem to have convinced myself that the shad should indeed qualify as a fish species I’ve caught this year. 

2026 Fish Species List to Date

• brown trout
• rainbow trout 
• spotted bass
• smallmouth bass 
• threadfin shad
• largemouth bass

Still No 'Gill

With no late-winter ice trips or spring headstart trips to the coast having occurred through March, my fish species catch list for this year has been slow to develop. With April only a few days away, the tally is seven species.

In my mind, the most noteworthy missing piece a quarter of the way into the year is a bluegill. In fact, I haven't caught a bluegill or any of a bluegill's nearest kin (redear, redbreast, green sunfish, etc.) so far. The closest thing to one, I suppose, would be a white bass, and that really isn't very close.

That'll get fixed. I have zero doubt about that. I might need to be intentional about fixing it very soon, though!

Bass on the Fish List

With two months having already passed, my 2018 fish species list remains sadly sparse. I did add a two bass species a couple of weeks ago, though. Largemouth bass and spotted bass doubled my tally, and the list now includes two species of trout and two species of bass.

The bass came from Lake Eufaula, an impoundment of the Chattahoochee River along the Georgia/Alabama border, and the first of each came from creeks that come in on opposite sides of the river, so I actually caught my first largemouth of the year from Alabama and my first spot from Georgia. The day actually produced a handful of bass and I caught a few more during the days that followed while traveling. However, I only tally the first of any given species on my list.

Certainly March will bring spring fishing opportunities, and I can get this catch list cranking a little better!

This Year's Fish List

Well, I went back and updated my fish list, best I could. I could only think of seven additional species from the second half of the year. Diminishing returns are common with my annual list because I only list first catches of any given species. Still, I most likely missed one or two obscure panfish or pier catches. So it goes when you don't keep up with stuff when you should.

It may be a little premature for summing up the year as it is certainly possible that I'll find water at least one more time before Sunday. If I do, though, chances are pretty good that the catch will only include fish already on this list -- most likely rainbow, brook or brown trout. And if I'm wrong, I can always make an update. List includes one marginal listing, obvious by the fact that I called it a mystery fish. I don't even remember what it was, but I obviously recognized it as something I didn't recognize that was clearly distinctive from other fish on the list. And Pier 60, where I caught it, was a favored destination when I was growing up, so I'm familiar with a lot what is commonly caught out there.

Tally was 40. Florida was by far the top producing state last year. March topped the month tally. Enough discussion, though. Here's the list:

Rainbow Trout, Norfork River, Arkansas, January

Brown Trout, White River, Arkansas, January

White Bass, Colorado River, Texas, February

Largemouth Bass, Colorado River, Texas, February

Speckled Trout, Texas Bayou, Texas, February

Flounder, Texas Bayou, Texas, February

Peacock Bass, Lake Ida, Florida, February

Bluegill, Tenococ Fishing Area, Florida, February

Hardhead Catfish, Charlotte Harbor, Florida, February

Ladyfish, Charlotte Harbor, Florida, February

Butterfish, Big Pier 60, Florida, March

Pinfish, Big Pier 60, Florida, March

Stingray, Big Pier 60, Florida, March

Mystery fish, Big Pier 60, Florida, March

Warmouth, Rodman Tailwater, Florida, March

Spotted Sunfish, Rodman Tailwater, Florida, March

Killifish, Rodman Tailwater, Florida, March

Redbreast Sunfish, Santa Fe River, Florida, March

Striped Mullet, Santa Fe River, Florida, March

Mudfish, Santa Fe River, Florida, March

Smallmouth Bass, Tennessee River, Alabama, March

Shoal Bass, Flint River, Georgia, May

Longear Sunfish, Flint River, Georgia, May

Walleye, Lake Erie, Ohio, May

Drum, Lake Erie, Ohio, May

White Perch, Lake Erie, Ohio, May

Channel Catfish, Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, May

White Crappie, Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, May

Yellow Perch, Lake Rabun, Georgia, May

Sucker, Main Stream, Maine, June

Chain pickerel, Pushaw Lake, Maine, June

Chub, brook in Maine, Maine, June

Brook trout, brook in Maine, Maine, June

Redfish, Mobile Bay, Alabama, September

Yellowtail, Gulf Shores Pier, Alabama, September

Spotted bass, Lake Ouachita, Arkansas, October

Skipjack, Kentucky Lake, Kentucky, October

Blue Catfish, Lake Moultrie, South Carolina, November

Black Crappie, VIP Adventures, South Carolina, November

Striped Bass, Lake Guntersville, Alabama, December

2017 Species List Ailing

I've kept an annual species list for the past several years, tracking species of fish caught. This year's list is ailing. It's not the catch that's the problem. Instead, it's the list an my lack of attention to it. This summer, my old laptop decided it had done it's job long enough, so I had to buy a new computer. I did salvage my files, for which I'm thankful, but the 2017 species list file has just sat there on a portable hard drive, untouched since June.

This list was pretty solid for half a year, with 33 species, including a good mix freshwater and saltwater species from various regions. It even included a few oddballs, like the mullet pictured above, which hit a Rebel Crawfish. Less likely catches like that, of course, are good for the tally.

The way I keep the list is that I record the first fish of any given species that I catch during a year, noting the species, location, state and month. I'll look back at my calendar and then pour through some photo files and should be able to update list to some degree. I'm almost certain I'll forget some, though. Nevertheless, I'll post an update of where I think I ended up at the end of the year, which is approaching very quickly!

Catches & Catch-Up

There's no denying it. I've been woeful with this blog. The gap since the last post is the longest since I began the Jeff Samsel Fishing blog. I won't make excuses. I'll just move on. I also won't make any big promises, except that I'll try to do a better job of keeping things fresh.

That stuff acknowledged, I've gotten to do some good fishing since the last post. Not much local stuff, but trips to Texas, Florida and Alabama. The Florida trip in particular put a charge in the new year's species count because we did both freshwater and saltwater stuff and because a couple of the days produced a good mix of panfish species. The species tally through mid-March is at 21.

My most surprising catch of 2017 is pictured above. While fishing in Florida's Santa Fe River, I caught a mullet on a Rebel Crawfish, and the fish was hooked inside the mouth. Despite having grown up in Florida and having spent a lot of time around coastal waters over the years, I'd never before seen a mullet caught on an artificial lure, so when I realized what I had, I was pretty surprised.

My favorite fish this year has to go to big speckled trout I'll caught from a kayak in Texas. It took a YUM Swurm fished on a Bomber Shad-Head Jig-Head.

Only One Catfish?

For starters I'll should acknowledge that another post about 2016 indeed means that I've not yet been fishing this year. Not good. That should be reconciled by Tuesday at the latest, but for now please endure one more blog about last year.

It struck me today that while last year's fish tally of 38 species is the largest since I began keeping annual lists (five years), it only includes on species of catfish. My job that I began last year does have me fishing mostly with lures, which doesn't lead to as many cat catches, but I normally take one of my children to a catfish pond, slip in a weekend day for big blues, or at least catch a channel cat or a flathead on a bass lure during a year.

The one catfish I did catch, the big topsail catfish that is pictured above, took an artificial lure while I was fishing for redfish in Venice, Louisiana with tournament angler Keith Bird and his son. We actually caught a few cats that day, including both hardheads and sails, and a couple of them even hit topwater lures. I didn't catch any of the hardheads, though.

My smile is all genuine, by the way. I'm a huge fan of catfish, and when I catch one when I am fishing for something else, I'm never even a tiny bit disappointed. I see it as a bonus, like icing on the cake. Slimy icing. I'll admit that (especially with saltwater cats). But icing nevertheless!

Five New Species Catches

Looking back at my 2016 fish species list (which ended at a tally of 38), something noteworthy to me is that I caught five species that I had never caught before. I always like catching new species, and to me five seems like quite a few in a year, considering how much as I have always fished and all the places I've gotten to fish over the years.

I've actually mentioned a few of the species and posted photos of them in my most recent couple of blogs. Two were part of my back bass crawdad slam (Guadalupe bass and Suwannee bass), and another was my first snook, which I caught just last month while fishing in Jacksonville.

The other two were a butterfly peacock bass, which I caught in South Florida, and the lizard fish pictured above, which came from North Carolina. I had caught peacock bass before on two different trips to Brazil, but not butterfly peacocks. I'd never even seen a lizard fish and didn't know such a thing existed. The guys I was with told me the one I caught was a big one. I just know it was delightfully ugly and I really enjoyed catching it and adding it to my all-time species list.

A Somewhat Surprising First

I've shared in a couple of places that I caught the first snook of my life last week. Actually, I caught of a couple of snook while fishing with Chris Holleman, and I believe he caught three during the same afternoon. Both that I caught were brutally strong and a load of fun, matching everything I've always heard.

The fact that I had never caught a snook before seems at least a little odd because I grew up in the Tampa Bay area, which is in the heart of snook country, and I've traveled to Florida to fish many times over the years. I'd hooked a couple of other snook that I know about and maybe a coupe of others, but for whatever reason, I really haven't been in situations where I've seriously fished for them very often over the years. Other folks used to fish for snook and occasionally catch one off Big Pier 60 on Clearwater Beach while I was growing up, but I normally was locked in on the trout that I could catch all night instead of thinking about the one or two big snook that lurked in just a couple of pier lights.

If I've remembered to tally all, the snook brings me to 38 species for 2016, and it's seeming unlikely at this point that I'll add more before the year is over. That's the highest number since I began counting, definitely aided by the fact that I did more saltwater fishing this year than I had done in many years.

Year's First White Bass?

When Eric Porterfield and I caught several white bass between largemouth catches in Oklahoma last month, I didn't even consider that I might be adding to my year's species list. White bass are such common catches in my travels that I normally log my first of the year by the end of spring. While updating the list the other day, though, I started looking up and down the list and found no listing of white bass, and as I think back, I can't specifically remember catching others this year. I could have caught others and forgotten to record them, but for now anyway, white bass is a November listing, my most recent, and species number 37 for 2017. I'm headed to the coast, where any cast is apt to produce a host of different species, later this month, so maybe the final tally will find the forties.

Species 30, I Think

I've been somewhat slack in recording species as I've caught them this year (and even slacker about recording interesting catches), but if my 2016 tally is complete, the fallfish pictured above is species No. 30 for the year. As I understand it fallfish, which are basically giant minnows, are fairly commonly caught by stream fishermen seeking other species in the Northeast. However, I think they much more commonly grab fly-fishing nymphs drifted close to the bottom than crankbaits. This one came from the Penobscot River in Maine while Asher and I were smallmouth fishing with Doug Teel of Northridge Outfitters.

Looking down the list my "firsts" of any give species for the year, which are the only fish I record, they have come from eight states. Arkansas has added the most species, with seven that all came from a single trip during April. Georgia and Florida are close, though, so with one third of the year remaining, one of those two could take the lead. Looking down the list, my favorite inclusions would have to be the Guadalupe bass from Texas and the Suwannee bass from Florida, both of which were all-time first catches for me.

I'm fishing in Georgia and Alabama next week. I wonder whether the list will grow.

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.

Banged Out a Drum

 

Most bass fishermen grumble when the fish at the other end of the line turns out to be a drum. Not me. But then again, I'm not necessarily a bass fisherman. I'm just a fisherman, and I like catching fish if all shapes and colors.

 

Freshwater drum, much like their saltwater cousins, are hard fighters that I really believe many anglers would like to catch if it weren't for the often random seeming designation of "trash fish." My guess is that many fish that get looked at in that sort of way originally got that label based on eating qualities, which is ironic if you're releasing bass anyway.

 

Oh well. I think they are fun, and yesterday's drum was species number 29 for this years fish species list.

Green Sunfish or Black Perch

I'd like to say I added both green sunfish and black perch to my 2015 species list while in Oklahoma and Arkansas a couple of weeks ago. The fact is, though, that they are the same thing. Green sunfish is the most popular common name for this kind of sunfish, but in the area I was fishing, they are more commonly called black perch. Whatever you want to call them, these fish are scrappy fighters that attack little lures like Rebel Crawfish with gusto that defies their size. They are a lot of fun to catch, which is a good thing, because we caught a bunch of them!

Assuming I haven't forgotten to record any species or failed to identify any unique sunfish, the green sunfish was species number 25 for me for 2015.

Chub Tales

Asher and I each caught a chub while we were flyfishing in the Chattahoochee River a couple of days ago, and each was noteworthy in its own way.

Asher's was just kind of funny. He was trying to make a cast and his fly line was coming out of the water as it should have. Although Asher is brand new to flycasting and his mechanics are far from perfect, our guide Jake couldn't figure out what Asher was doing wrong that was preventing his cast from working, so he took the rod from Asher for a moment, only to figure out that there was a 4-inch fish at the end of the line. He gave the rod back to Asher and let him land his prize.

My chub, which came from the same run a little later, had no good story, and it was about the same size. It was noteworthy only in the fact that I hadn't caught a chub yet in 2015, and it was species No. 20 on this year's list.

Species No. 19

With Darl Black and I having tallied eight species in a day over the weekend, I figured I'd probably added at least a couple of fish to this year's species tally. When I pulled up this year's list, though, I realized I'd already caught at least one of seven of the eight species that we landed. The lone newcomer to my 2015 tally was a walleye.

The walleye was species No. 19 for this year. With that addition, Pennsylvania ties Georgia for the number of species added to the list. Each has contributed four. Through late May, species have been added from eight different states.

Looking back a year, a walleye was the last species added last May (from South Dakota). It was No. 17, so I'm two species ahead of last year's pace, for whatever that is worth.

Laker Fest

Mark Davis of Big Water Adventures had the area of Lake Ontario the lake trout were using and the general technique to use dialed in before ever putting down a line this morning, and it didn't take long for him to figure out the specific drift lines, depths and best baits to maximize the opportunity so it was never long between bites. I don't know how many lake trout we caught and released, but I know it was a lot, and I couldn't begin to guess how many it would have been if we hadn't been working on photos and hadn't stopped early to chase smallmouths around.

I actually came in early because I'd driven all night the night before to get here and had work I needed to wrap up. Mark took Brian Evans back out, and they went right back to catching lake trout like we had been.

Lake trout are fun fish for me to catch because they aren't fish I get to target most places that I fish and simply because they are strong fish that grow really big. Today's first laker also added one more fish to my 2015 species list!

Month of the Carp?

Landing a carp, which hit a Rebel Bluegill. Photo by Joe Sills.

In a lifetime of fishing all over the country, I've caught four carp on artificial lures. Three of those have been in the past few weeks. As noted in a previous blog, I caught grass carp on back-to-back days from two different lakes in Alabama earlier this month. Both were hooked in the mouth, and one hit a Rebel Bluegill crankbait, while the other attacked a Pop-R.

The Rebel Bluegill did the job again last week at Lake Powell. While fishing way up the San Juan River arm of the lake and catching mostly smallish smallmouths, I about had the rod snatched out of my hand from a strike, and at first I thought I'd hooked a seriously big largemouth or smallmouth. After a few minutes, though, I got the fish close enough to see it in the clear water and realized that yet another carp had grabbed a lure. Eventually I got the powerful fish close enough to get a hand beneath it's belly and land it.

From looking at the large unusual and unevenly distributed scales on the side of the fish and comparing photos to photos online, I'm almost positive it was a mirror carp. It definitely wasn't a grass carp, like the two from Alabama, so I got to add it to my 2015 species list. Now I just need a common carp to complete a "slam" of the most common carp species for this year.

This trip's smallmouths were also the first of this year for me. With April winding down, the count for '15 is at 16.

Surprise Carp

While bass fishing in a small Alabama lake last week, I was certainly surprised to catch a big carp on a crankbait, with the fish hooked in its rubbery lips. Adding even greater surprise, I caught another carp, the very next day, in a totally different lake, with a Pop-R. The second carp, with probably weighed 5 or 6 pounds, absolutely annihilated my little popper on the surface, hitting it with as much vigor as any striper or redfish I've ever caught.

I've only caught a few carp in my life, so to catch two on back to back days in different waters, and both on artificial lures, was pretty odd. In both cases, I was astounded by the fish's strength, speed and stamina. Considering that carp live fairly slow-moving lifestyles (from my understanding anyway), not doing any hunting, they seem to be amazingly fit. I actually don't know when or if I would have gained enough control of the bigger first-day carp to unhook it without "gripper" help from another angler.

Carp was species 13 on my 2015 species list. The first of a couple of spotted bass I caught the next day on the Coosa River was No. 15. To be more specific about the carp listing, I'm guessing grass carp, simply based on the fish having been stocked in small private lakes for grass control. However, if you know the carp species, based on the photo, please let me know (jeff.samsel.fishing@gmail.com).