Green Sunfish and going for thirty again

Remember how I said I would not try to catch thirty fish species caught again this year, well, I
changed my mind.  I'm going to shoot for it again. I'm not sure if I will make it. To be completely honest, I haven't exactly been trying very hard. Between hiking and bird watching, I haven't put in the hours fishing that I normally do.

At the moment I have caught nineteen species this year. I still have half a dozen easy ones left (such as pumpkinseed sunfish, which I no doubt caught ice fishing but didn't mark down). If I get motivated I should have no problem getting to twenty seven or so. It's always those last few that are the toughest for me.

Make no mistake, I understand that catching thirty fish species in a year in some places is a piece of cake. I'm sure the coral reefs by the Florida keys could give up that many species in a day. Closer to home Lake Champlain is said to have one hundred fish species. But for me, living in southeastern MA, catching thirty species seems like a tough enough challenge. I got thirty two species last year, and if I got lucky with a couple of other species (blackfish, bowfin, eel, or a couple of others) thirty five would have been in striking distance.

Today I went off in pursuit of two of the more exotic smaller species; golden shiner and green

sunfish. I started off looking for the sunfish. I went to a spot that I was pretty sure they could be found. It took mere seconds to catch one. I spent about fifteen minutes fishing for them, catching at least ten. The rocks just past the shoreline was infested with them.

From there I drove to Roger Williams Park where I have caught golden shiners in the past. I knew to catch a golden shiner I'd have to weed out a lot of sunfish. Sure enough I was catching one sunfish after another but I never landed a golden shiner. I fished in ninety degree heat under an afternoon sun. I tried four spots in the park, but after ninety minutes I decided to go to an air conditioned movie.

So I went one for two today. After work tomorrow if it's not to hot, I'll probably try for white perch in Norton Reservoir. After that either I'll go for a jog (which I should do) or go see if I can land a brown bullhead.

Saw this guy while fishing for golden shiners
and wanted to see how my zoom worked on my new camera