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3. Fly fishing species "life list" - what's yours?, Page 2

West Branch: Wow! Thats quite a list!!

Matt's been at this fly-flinging game longer than most of us so I'm not surprised...a bit envious but hey, I'm younger so I got time to catch up, right? I'm sure Matt's list didn't come easy, well maybe the sunfishies... ;oD

Jonathon

Fresh Water:
Atlantic Salmon – Landlocked
Brook Trout – Native and Stocked
Brown Trout – Wild and Stocked
Brown Trout – Great Lakes
Tiger Trout – Stocked (accidental)
Rainbow Trout – Native, Wild and Stocked
Steelhead – Great Lakes
Cutthroat Trout – Native and Wild
King/Chinook Salmon – Native
King/Chinook Salmon – Great Lakes
Dog/Chum Salmon – Native
Red/Sockeye Salmon – Native
Pink/Humpback Salmon – Native
Silver/Coho Salmon – Native
Silver/Coho Salmon – Great Lakes
Northern Pike
Muskellunge
Walleye (accidental and on purpose)
Largemouth Bass
Smallmouth Bass
Hybrid Striped Bass
White Bass (accidental)
Carp (accidental and on purpose)
Freshwater Drum (accidental)
Fallfish (accidental)
All sorts of Panfish that I never bothered to learn the names of
Pickerel (accidental)
Sea Gull (the fly was tipped with a cheesepuff) on purpose ☺
Channel Catfish (accidental)
Bowfin (accidental)
Bull Frog (accidental and hooked in the mouth)
Bats of various species (accidental and snagged)
African Tigerfish
Salt Water:
Bonefish
Tarpon
Permit – Flats
Permit – Offshore
Snook – Surf
Snook – Lagoons (accidental and on purpose)
Jack Crevalle and other Jacks that I never learned the names of
Cobia (accidental)
All sorts of Snappers that I never learned the names of
Lemon Shark
Barracuda
Manatee - kidding-just seeing if anybody is paying attention ☺
Ladyfish (accidental and on purpose)
Weakfish/Seatrout (accidental and on purpose)
Redfish
Several Groupers that I never learned the names of
Striped Bass/Rockfish
Bluefish
Dolphin
Little Tuny/False Albacore
Croakers and other surf fish that I never learned the names of
Flounder
To Do:
Atlantic Salmon anywhere in The Maritime Providences
Brook Trout in the Canadian Sub-Arctic
Arctic Char in Nunavut Providence
Steelhead in British Columbia
Arctic Grayling – Anywhere in Alaska or Northern Canada
Monster Pike in the Northwest Territories
No Desire to do:
Any Billfish
Any Large Tuna
Any Shark not on the Flats
Peacock Bass or anything in the Amazon
Dorado
Taimen
Inconnu/Sheefish

Since we're including non-fish species, do fishing guides count? How about trico snagged cows?

How many Yuenglings does it take before someone thinks this is a good idea? :)

Spence

Non-fish: bats, nighthawks, ducks, one muskrat

Tim...You forgot the Tag Alders! :) Over a lifetime of lost flies there I think I have also lost miles of leader material.

I was floating a couple summers back down below Wakeley somewhere in the bigger water. It was dark and we were in the middle of the river and as I was casting I heard and felt a thunk! At first I thought I'd hooked Jimmy because we were no where near the shore and the trees...I turned around hoping Jim was ok only to see him laughing..."What happened?!" He said, "You whacked a bat with your rod. Is your rod ok? You hit him hard."

Once I was standing in the river in the dark just up from Lower TU and a bat tried to land on my rod...I think he thought it was a tree limb or something.

Spence

Tim...I was in Grayling in September for the Manistee clean up and I took a friend over to Goodale's for some coffee etc before we headed over to the Old Au Sable..I was getting out of my car and I heard someone banging from inside on the window and it was your old buddy JR. He told me he's heading down to Holt for the FFF Fly Tying Expo on Dec 1st...It would be nice if you were tagging along. :)

Freshwater

Brook trout, wild,stocked
Brown trout, wild,stocked
Rainbow trout, wild, stocked
Tiger trout
Weird stupid genetically modified yellow "golden rainbow" trout ( thats what the pa fish commission calls them.) We always called them palominos as a kid. I wish they would all go away...
Cutthroat trout, don't know the strain
King salmon (great lakes)
Steelhead
Coho salmon
Largemouth, smallmouth, spotted, rock bass
Hybrid striped bass
Freshwater striped bass
Channel catfish (on a dry fly, and streamer)
Carp
Walleye (on a popper and streamers)
Bluegill
Pumpkinseed
Long eared sunfish
Green sunfish
Chain pickerel
Northern pike
Muskellunge
Hybrid muskellunge
Peacock bass
African ciclid (not sure of the species)
All of the chubs in the eastern US
Dace
Bullfrog (on purpose, they will eat a pooper like crazy, and they taste good)


Saltwater:

Striped bass
Bluefish
Flounder
Speckled trout
Squeteague
Triggerfish
Mangrove snapper
Red snapper
Other snappers that I do not know the names of
Several groupers
Spot
Croakers
Pinfish
Sea robins
Cow nosed ray
Southern stingray
Scup
Blue shark
Lemon shark
Bonnet head shark
Hammerhead shark
Mako shark
Spinner shark
Bull shark
Mahi Mahi
Yellowfin tuna
Blackfin tuna
Bluefin tuna
Skipjack tuna
Little tunny
Amberjack
Bar jack
Jack Crevalle
Blue runner
Rainbow runner
Red drum
Black drum
King mackerel
Spanish mackerel
Hickory shad
American shad
Lizardfish
Ladyfish
Common Snook (one of my most favorite fish to fish for)
Fat Snook
Swordspine Snook
Barracuda
Spadefish
Tarpon
Bonefish
Horse eyed Jack
Almaco jack
Permit
Pompano
Lookdown
Pufferfish

Non fish:
Several gulls
Big brown bat
Little brown bat
Pelican
Terns
Mallard duck ( hooked but not landed, maybe that doesn't count)
Loggerhead turtle( hooked but not landed)
Snapping turtle (landed that one!)
Cormorant
Sea urchin
Several species of crabs
Oysters
Mussels
Clams


Oak
Alder
Willow
Hemlock
Laurel
Rhododendron
Bull thistle
Sumac
Several grass species
Maple
Box elder
Poplar
Several species of algae
Water hyacinth
Water lilly
Pickerel weed
Water cress
Spanish moss
Mangrove

Once fought a large seal to a draw. Well, almost - in truth I only ended up with a third of the large yellowtail. Actually got him up to the boat after several runs and a long sound before his thrashing at the surface "severed" our relationship...:)

Oh, and I have also caught a 40 ft. gray whale on a fly, but that's another story.

Fun to see everyones catch and wish list!!
Freshwater-

Rainbow
Brown
Brookie
Cutbow
Cutthroat
Black Crappie
Bluegill
Largemouth bass
Sucker
Carp

Saltwater-
Blue Fin Trevally
Bonefish
Barracuda
Lizard Fish

Want List-
Northern Pike
Golden Trout
Tiger Trout
Walleye

A story I would love to hear! Let me guess, caught on a size 26 midge? You put the 20/20 club to shame :)

Eric...The other night "Anatomy of a Murder" was on and I watched it for the million(th) time...For those that may not know this Robert Traver aka John Voelker wrote this and a movie was done with Jimmy Stewart and others...In it he has a fly stuck in a law book like a bookmark and ends up giving it to the judge to angle for bullfrogs with.

Kurt, I'm with Kyle...When are we going to hear the whale story? Now we will all believe (wink, wink) that you just couldn't help yourself and it "rose" to your fly and you weren't out snagging after a few too many whiskeys...:)

Spence

Yeah, come on Kurt I want to read that "Whale Tale" too.

Well, there wasn't any whiskey (or perhaps more appropriately tequila) involved, but a few irrelevant Coronas were consumed, especially after! I was on the Sea of Cortez off the coast near the town of Loreto when it happened. Fishing for Yellowtail in February is delightful when the fish are up, but boring the rest of the time unless you're one of the die-hards. The day was windless warm and the water was as smooth as a sheet of glass - a water skier's dream (if it weren't for the hammerheads). It was also one of those boring periods when a "boil" of feeding fish at the surface was nowhere to be found. This meant deep dredging with large shrimp patterns. The deal was to cast as far as you could and let it sink as deep as it needed to go. This usually meant that the last half of the retrieve was completed with the rod pointing straight down in the water. Such was the case in this particular instance. I was absentmindedly staring down into the clear blue green working my retrieve as we drifted over a barnacle covered reef. I turned to ask the guide why we were drifting in so close when I noticed we were still hundreds of yards from land. Looking back at the water my head started to swim with disorientation because we were moving over the reef far faster than the boat felt to be moving. The reef grew longer and longer under the boat before the truth began to register. As I watched in amazement, the "reef" finally passed under and with a stroke of a giant fluke only a few feet from both boat and surface, caused an up-welling that made me stumble to the point that I dropped my rod and had to grab the gunwale with both hands to steady myself. About this time my Fin-Nor started to bounce around on the bottom of the boat like a kernel of corn popping. I forgot that I still had a cast out there! The rest was a blur of frenetic activity, but I do remember somehow getting my hands on the rod. She (assumed because of the size) was moving slow enough that by the time I got my wits about me and pointed the rod at her with the reel clamped down, the 16 ft. Panga was already re-oriented in line and slowly pulling behind her. After a little while that seemed like an eternity, she finally pulled free...

Then the guide went crazy! He had a big boat rod with a mounted level wind full of hundreds of yards of 50 lb.(?) line. On the end dangled a big spoon-like lure with a giant treble attached. With whoops and Spanish war cries he began a series of frantic casts in the hope of a snag. Why he did this, I haven't a clue other than perhaps he thought it would be fun to get towed around awhile. When I explained to him in my broken (and very excited) Spanish that she might not take it too kindly if hooked in a tender spot and decide to pay us back in a very unfriendly manner, he just shrugged his shoulders...

Anyway, that's the whale story.

It’s always disappointing when we lose that big fish. And I understand how, at times of increased excitement, we sometimes forget to do the right thing, so I’m sure Kurt that you learned a valuable lesson. Always set the hook.

+1 Love the story!!!

Ha! Very good, Allan. Yes... And have a change of pants nearby!:)

Thanks, Matt. It was exciting, to say the least.

That gets me thinking, Kurt. What is a whales diet...? Plankton? Well, let me see what size hook would that be... :)

Thanks for the story.

Sam