End of the Year Review Part 2 All Fish not trout

In the last post I reviewed my trout fishing this year. In this post my goal is to review all other fish without making it as long as  War and Piece.

Fishing:
At the end of last year I set three goals for myself.

1. I would only eat one striper. I wouldn't keep any more no matter how big.
2. I would not use eels for bait.
3. I wanted to catch 50 trout.

How did I do:
1. I only kept one striper. It was 31 inches. Delicious but I let all the other keepers go to fight another day.
2. I used two eels. There was one night I was alone in Narragansett and I wanted to catch a keeper. I bought two eels. I did catch a keeper. So I failed but considering in the old days I bought 6 each outing, two for the year is pretty good.
3. I caught 224 trout.

I caught four species of fish this year I had never caught
Lake Trout
Rock Bass
Brown Trout
Tiger Trout

I ended up catching 27 species of fish. I am reasonably sure that I caught more species than I ever had.

Brown Trout, Brook Trout, Tiger Trout, Rainbow Trout, Lake Trout
Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Rock Bass, Crappie, Bluegill, Pumpkinseed
Brown Bullhead, Yellow Bullhead, White Catfish, Carp, Eel
Yellow Perch, White Perch, Pickerel, Golden Shiner
Stripers, Bluefish, Fluke, Scup, Menhaden, Silversides, Sea Robin

( I snagged the menhaden and scooped up the silversides with my hand- there were millions)

As  usual there are fish I could have caught but  for one reason or another did not. I only ran into hickory shad once. I hooked one but it came off at my feet. I love catching them, wish I did this year. I could have gone American shad fishing but never went to the Indianhead River. Saltwater fishing I could have caught skates, tatoug and possible dogfish if I used bait on the bottom. I wanted to catch a sucker but they never hit my line. I fished in a lot of places that have them. I tried once for a red breasted sunfish in NH but couldn't find any. Lastly I never caught any chubs while trout fishing in NH.

Without question, the hardest fish to catch was the lake trout. I put it in this post instead of the trout post. Although a trout, its not like the stocked hatchery fish. Lake trout are wild and methods for catching them are a lot different than for stockies. I never had to work so hard in my life to catch a first of a species.

This year was different for me than most years that I fish a lot. I usually only fish for stripers and carp. This year obviously I put in a ton of time trout fishing. Also though I took a lot of time from stripers and carp fishing for other species. DJ and I went at least six times fishing for small fish like sunfish and perch and three times catfishing

I went to Wachusetts Reservoir at least five times looking for salmon, lake trout, rock bass and smallmouth. I did terrible there, but I did catch all but the salmon. It took a lot of work, but I landed a lake trout. I knew going up that catching fish from shore would be difficult in a 4000 acre lake. I used each time as a learning experience. Even though I came home frustrated more times than not I never lost my resolve to catch fish form there.

Carp-
Last year I had a terrible year fishing for a carp. I was not only a jinx to myself but also to everyone else I was with. Luckily, that ended this year. As long as I stayed away from Hopping Hill I usually caught a couple. I did not catch any giants, my big fish was 17 pounds ( actually two that size). One of them was a mirror carp beating my previous personal best by almost four pounds.  All in all, it was a decent year. If I don't count all the wasted trips to Hopping Hill and pretend they didn't happen, I would say this year deserves a B for a grade.

Stripers- " You should have been here yesterday" That was the story of my fall. I only caught a couple of keepers but I only targeted them a few times. During the spring I got blanked very few times, however I never ran into big numbers. I think my best night was five.

The best thing about my striper season was I learned a lot of new spots. You would think that after fishing for so many years I would have fished everywhere I was going to fish. Not so... I learned more spots this year than every year since my first one surfcasting. Some spots were obvious. I never fished the West Wall for albies until this year ( still haven't caught one). Dave showed me a spring high tide spot in downtown Providence and a November high tide spot in Narragansett. Jeff showed me a spot to put in my kayak in Pawtucket only 15 minutes from home. DJ and I kayaked the Palmer River in July, if ever there was a fishy looking piece of water to try next year, that is it.
Striper grade C-

Everything not stripers, carp or trout summarized.

To make this quick- When I was not fishing for the above three fish and not at Wachusett I had a lot of fun. DJ and I caught tons of perch, bass, pickerel and crappie from the canoe the five or so times we  went freshwater fishing. When I went white catfishing I caught them. We fished the Charles River one night, we had nonstop action for yellow bullheads and eels. In saltwater I caught scup and fluke the two times I tried for them.  Although I only bass fished a couple times, catfished three times, scup fished twice and panfished five times I did great each time. Thats a total of about 12 fishing trips. Gotta give an A grade for those outings.

Report Card
Trout                 A+
Carp                  B
Stripers             C-
All other fish     A
Lastly, When it came to fishing this year I spent way more time fishing with other people than I normally do. I enjoy fishing alone, I don't get bored and sometimes I prefer the freedom for making decisions for myself ( should I stay, go to another spot, keep fishing in the rain, etc...). I won't pretend that I didn't enjoy the company this year.

DJ went fishing with me about 10 times this year. He is not much of a fan of fishing but he likes fly fishing and fishing for panfish. He had a good year. He caught a couple stripers on the fly rod. The first saltwater fish on a fly rod for either of us. Luckily my friend Dave had his camera He also kicked my ass every time we went out in the canoe for perch and crappie. DJ and I also went catfishing together three times. The most memorable was fishing in the pouring rain. It did not start raining until we got to the lake. Then the sky opened up. We caught some cats but I'm not sure it was worth it.

Jeff H. and I became close friends. We fished together almost every time I went to the ocean.  We each caught our first lake trout on the same day. We both fished in a lightning storm because we could not walk away from two pound scup on every cast. I was with him when he caught his first ever carp. We suffered through some very bad striper fishing this summer. Worse we suffered from the " you should have been here yesterday" syndrome all fall. Luckily we had some great nights fishing. We fished for huge scup one night also landing a fluke and a bluefish.  We also caught our largest blues ever the same day. There were some gorilla blues at an inlet we were fishing and we caught some monsters


I also made friends up in New Hampshire, with Clay and Dave. I fished with Clay once in June. He, along with his best friend Dave run a blog in NH called www.catchthemallnh.blogspot.com  They are trying to catch and eat every fish species in NH. I have to admit I was inspired to see how many fish species I could catch this year because of them. Since Clay and I fished together we have kept in touch ever since. He has the same passion as me, wanting to learn everything he can about a fish not just catch it. December 30 I fished again with Clay and met Dave and another guy named Todd. We unsuccessfully carp fished but had a few laughs.

I fished with Dave Pickering more this year than I normally do. He was fishing a lake right near where I work a lot so we made plans to fish a few times. As usual I owe him for a lot of fish I've caught. Although I have drastically cut down on the emails full of questions he did show me a few spots I'd never fished. We also saved me a lot of gas. I called him a few mornings to find out if the ocean was fishable. He saved me at least three or four wasted trips. We have been friends for many years. It goes without saying, I have caught many fish because of what I have learned from him.



My thanks to all of you