What's your favorite fish to fish for?

I live in southwest Ohio and we don't really have a lot in the way of big game fishing. Catfish and carp can get pretty big, but catching one of them with a lot of size proves to be elusive.

I enjoy catfish fishing and crappie fishing. Every once in a while if I catch some nice catfish out of a clean lake I'll take them home and clean them up. But the scientists have warned us not to eat the catfish out of the river that flows by my house (I live within walking distance of the Great Miami River) due to polution. PCBs I think is the major contaminant. They are working to clean up the river and have been mildly successful so far. Hopefully one day it will be clean enough to take catfish out of again. I go crappie fishing at Caesars Creek Lake, about 30 minutes away, usually with my dad. I've heard that crappie can be had all year at that lake. You just have to know where to find them. But dad and I usually have the best luck in the spring and in the fall. If we catch a nice mess of them we'll take them home and have a fish fry the next day. I think our most successful day at the lake was 52 of the little buggers caught. If you've never had crappie, I highly recommend it. They have a very mild flavor to them and are excellent fried up with beer batter.

So, what kind of fishing do you like to do? Do you catch and release or do you keep your fish?

We've been doing fly in trips to Canada for about 20 yrs now. We fish mainly in Manitoba Lakes and Rivers. What a wonderful place to fish, 100 fish a day is pretty common. The northern lights can be spectacular, in July and August.
We keep 4 walleye per day for shore lunch and evening meals, all northerns are released, we release all walleye over 24 inch's.
Funny you mentioned carp, one of my favorites. Local lake I've been fishing for years has produces many 20-30lb. My personal best was 33.

largemouth and smallmouth bass. 99.9% of the time I'm catch and release. That final 0.1% of the time I'll keep a bass if I think it is hooked so badly that it will die. In that case I figure I might as well eat it rather than feeding it to the turtles.

I also fly fish for trout. Most of the trout fishing around my area is for stocked fish, put and take, as it is known. I have no compunction against keeping factory bred fish so many of those end up in the frying pan. When I fish for wild trout they go back in the stream.

Last year I started fly fishing for striped bass and I think I've developed a new addiction. :P

Bluegills and crappie are dandies on a fly rod, but nothing eats better than catfish at our house.

We stocked it 15 years ago with Bass, Goggle Eyes, Channel cats, and Bream.
Biggest Bass has been 8.3 lbs
Biggest Channel Cat is 12.7
Goggle Eyes weigh about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds.
I release every thing.

I've never heared of them. I'm betting that that is just a different name for something I know by a another name. Just like we don't usually use the term bream here in Ohio.

They have huge mouths for their size.
Have seen 1 over 3 lbs.

Works for me!

2 lb channel cats seem to be the best size. I never keep the Bass.

I rarely catch bass because I don't go after them. Bluegill and crappie are good eating, too. It's usually catfish for us.

Like another poster here, what I do with them depends on where I'm fishing. Salmon fishing is strictly catch and release...most of their numbers are too low for me to ethically take any permanently, but I don't mind the challenge of trying to hook one or two where and when it's legal (salmon numbers are so low in California that the "where and when" definition is getting smaller and smaller).

Wild trout fishing is also primarily catch and release, partially because of mercury pollution in the rivers and streams in the area I reside in, and partially because I don't like taking more than I can eat (I'm the only fish-eater in my household). Stock fish, on the other hand, are fair game. They are stupid, they mess with the natural fish stocks, and since they are unnatural to their environment, I have no problem pulling and keeping them. Wild fish DO taste better, but there are more than enough stock fish to go around, while the wild ones are a limited resource.

Personally I cannot wait until they get the whole San Joaquin river flowing again. There used to be a HUGE salmon population there that
is now totally extinct, but which may be able to be recreated using Sacramento River Chinook after the water gets flowing year-round again.

I just read in LBN that he's cutting 80% of the northwest and 50% of California's salmon rehabilitation. Any stream or river that doesn't have salmon now, too bad, no protections. I am so disgusted. I live in Oregon and we can actually eat salmon here without harming the population. At least we could. We've just started really getting the population back in the last few years. I don't know what these people are thinking about.

9 pounds --C&R only.

Where did you catch it and what did you catch it on? I think if I were a bass fisherman I'd do the catch and release thing, too. A lot of my fishing is catch and release anyway, but I'll admit that it's due to fishing in poluted waters rather than a moral idea.

at Lake Hodges CA this October on a watermelon/red flake Yamamoto "Fat Ika"
rigged like this but I use a 4/0 Gammie hook instead of a 5/0.
http://www.bassdozer.com/articles/misc/backward-ika.shtml

And a white spinner bait, my favorite all around lure, works every where.

didn't get the 9 lb'er but earlier in the day it got this 3lb 8oz'er:



That day was one of my best:
A 9, 4lb 5oz, 3lb 8oz, 3lb 8oz, and three more in the 1.5 to 2 pound range.

In those little creeks that aren't much more than the flow from the kitchen tap, but sooo cold.

Caught 2 but they were strictly an accident, and very small. For many years I've been doing fly in trips to Manitoba, fishing for Northerns, Lake Trout ( Not the same kind of fishing ) Walleye and Grayling. I'd love to latch on to a big Northern with a fly rod, that would be a Hoot.

Ten inches is a big Brookie.

They have a Trout hatchery just north of Payson. The Rainbows in their main holding pond averaged 7 to 9 lbs. They looked like Salmon swimming around. What a beautiful fish.

Only the Brooks are native to the very small streams. They almost dry up over summer.

Mostly small mouth bass, but some stripers as well. Fishing breaks the monotony of looking at all that beautiful scenery

don't'cha think? :P

I don't agree with all Hayduke believed in, but that red rock desert country is awesome!!

I'm lucky in that I live near the Mosquito Lagoon, which has the best flats fishing in the world, IMO. Out there I catch alot of redfish,which are easy. My target fish are large speckled seatrout over 5 lbs, which we call gator trout. My biggest is 7.5lbs but I've put mates on 9 lbers. We release most inshore fish, big trout and reds you are only allowed to keep one, I give it to my elderly neighbors.

To go offshore here is a long trip-you have to go 30-50 miles out to the edge of the gulfstream, out there we troll for dolphinfish, king mackeral and my all-time favorite, wahoo. We keep most of the fish we catch offshore, as they are good eating. If we get a sailfish, or small dolphin, they go back.

put a few kernels of canned corn on a hook. Use a slip sinker rig. Chum the water by tossing out a couple of handfuls of corn, and hold onto your pole!

27 1/2" X 17 1/2". I'm guessing it was almost 20 lbs. I released it too.

Fishing with a guide outside New Orleans, we worked the shoreline and cast the edges and structure like bass fishing. We were throwing 1/2 ounce crawfish patterns as far as we could pitch them. But where a lead head that size would freak the crap out of other species, Reds turn to the splash and eat it.

And man, are they good eating!

what I do with my catch!! My SO and I mainly go after trout, altho' he does like bass fishing too. I really think trout are beautiful fish, esp the Golden. (I've only watched them in the wild so far, on a hiking trip in the Eastern Sierra. By the time we got to where the fish were, we had to turn back.)

Just this past year I've started fly fishing in earnest. Went up to WY in June and caught some nice Yellowstone Cutthroat, and Rainbows. Our normal stomping grounds has been in the Sierra streams, mainly on the East side. We do what we call "Rambo" fishing, that is walk the mountain streams, instead of sitting on the lake shores or stream side in a campground. In late spring/early summer when the water is still high, it can make for an exhausting day but I do love it.

Like others, I only keep 'em if they're hooked bad enough that they'll die anyway. That's a big reason why I'm looking forward to getting better at flyfishing.......more "lip-hooks"!!

After I caught my first, I lost interest in all other fish.

I like to wade streams and creeks and fish for them. You can hook a 1 lb. bass and he thinks he weighs 5 lbs. They just don't give up.

especially in the winter when no one's out there.

I hooked into one last year and it was like a smallmouth on steriods and huge.
Other than that, I fish both salt and fresh water so I pretty much float between the smallmouth/largemouth bass, trout or Summer Fluke, Blues and Striped Bass. No matter what it is all a lot of fun.
Usually they are great days fishing but lousy days catching.

by far is the Smallmouth Bass and second is the Largemouth. I try to fish as many tournaments as I can each summer. Although I live in the north where gravel lizards (walleye) and Food Tubes (northerns) are king among many people who fish I get upset when I catch one of those lower fish species.:evilgrin:

My number 1 producer of big Northerns is a Red Eyed Wiggler in either chrome or gold. I make a couple of modifications to it because of the weed beds we normally fish. Year after year it always seems to produce bigger fish.

Crappie & Bluegill for eating, although my all time favorite to eat is Walleye (or perch) so I occasionally keep a couple for the skillet.


http://www.kliljedahl.net

they fight like hell. My father was a powerhouse operator, and SSRRAA a fish hatchery outfit, started farming salmon near the power plant...and the fish would come back every year, and swim around infront of the powerhouse, where the water would be pumped out(hydro plant). There was literally, thousands of fish, and all 5 types of Pac NW salmon, plus Rainbow trout from a nearby river....:) It was easy picking, which fish you wanted...but oh lord, heaven help you when you snagged one of those "torpedos"....We used halibut poles, 100lb test, with shark hooks...oh man, our freezers were packed with fish...:)

One of my first catches at the Power plant, was a 44lb king salmon...I was 11yrs old, and my father wouldnt' help me at all, I was in tears, crying about how I couldnt' go on reeling...but dad kept me going, and I finally reeled that sucker in....it was an overwhelming feeling, I tell ya...:)

I also like deep sea fishing....Halibut, Red Snapper...and I do love Cod fish...:)

For eating? Walleye or Perch, perhaps some sunfish. For fight? Smallmouths, maybe Carp. Just for fun? Largemouths. Muskie or large Pike when I want a challenge. Suckers or catfish when I can't catch anything else!