Monday, December 8, 2008

Finally identified, Takifugu niphobles (grass puffer)

I got bored at work today and decided to figure out what species of puffer I caught last August in Japan, or die trying. It actually wasn't that difficult, even though I had spent considerable time trying to identify it when I first got back to the states.

Image from fishbase.



Picture of me holding two of the puffers from Shiraishi Island, Japan.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Goals for 2009

The name of the game for 2009 will be to add more species to the list of fish I've caught. In the past 6 months I've caught 18 distinct species (see my profile) plus several hybrid sunfish that I'm not very good at identifying yet. Counting previous years, I've also caught channel catfish, as well as several fish in the Florida Keys back when I was in high school. The only one I remember for sure was mahi mahi, but I can't remember if I was the one to actually reel any of them in, so I won't count it.

http://www.wiscfish.org/fishid/wFrmWisconsinFishList.aspx

There's a huge list of fish native to Wisconsin that I've never caught. This should make my task of adding to my species count easy enough. My challenge will be to get out of my comfort zone of going to the usual spots in Madison, and also learn to fish with methods that I'm not currently familiar with.

1. Catch 2 or 3 species of catfish.
- should be in any of the local lakes, but probably go to the Wisconsin river

2. Catch at least 1 species of carp.
- seen them feeding regularly in Lake Monona, need to find a good bait

3. Catch a few minnow, sucker, and darter species.
- get some lighter tackle and find smaller streams outside of Madison

4. Catch a gar.
- Jeff says he's seen them at the warm water discharge from the power plant on Lake Monona, verify this and try to catch one!

5. Catch a musky.
- any of the lakes or channels in Madison should be ok, fish the same way as for northerns

6. Catch and identify a new kind of sunfish.
- first of all make sure I can identify a longear sunfish, warmouth, and various hybrids etc.

7. Catch a lake trout (ice fishing).
- my buddy has an ice shack on a lake about an hour north of Madison, we caught a big one last winter but I didn't have a fishing license and I didn't really help at all

8. Catch another kind of trout in a stream.
- a few people I know have experience fishing for trout in streams, ask them for suggestions

Monday, November 10, 2008

Maybe I should start fishing in my aquarium

The pumpkinseed and the sucker (under the rock).



The two smallies, aka the eating and pooping machines.

Friday, October 17, 2008

A new season for fishing

It's cold now!

Chuck and I went out to the Yahara yesterday. Unfortunately, the sun was going down almost as soon as we got out there, so we weren't able to fish that much. It finally started to get cold this week, and it has had a big affect on the river. The water level has continued to drop, and the weeds are all dying off - leaving the water much clearer than we've been used to. The first thing we noticed is the sunfish are gone; they must have moved down into the lake. There were plenty of minnows though, and we could hear the white bass feeding on them against the sides beneath the bridge, so that's what we went after. Chuck caught 2 of them on his first few casts, one of them pretty big. I didn't have as much luck on my side. He was using a small plain silver spoon, something I don't have in my tackle box. Next time I go shopping I'll have to pick up a few so that I have more choices for white bass besides small spinners.



Jeff inspired me to try out buzzbaits and spinnerbaits, so I gave both of them a try. I used the orange and yellow one with silver blade (below), and the spinnerbait on the far left. The spinnerbait was too heavy for the river, but the buzzbait worked well right up on the surface or a few inches below. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be anything moving in the river. With the clear water I could see the bottom almost half way across the river, but no fish.

Well... this is the first time in 2008 that I got skunked! Chuck gave me the smaller white bass (12") though, so I still got to eat fish for dinner. Delicious! Edit: I just realized... yesterday I didn't eat any storebought meat. I had a duck for lunch that my friend Terry gave me, and I had white bass for dinner. I'm a man of the land!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Pics from 9/27

Chuck, catcher of 8 inch bluegill... as well as every other fish in the entire river.



Ben, who tried to display his 7 3/4 inch pumpkinseed but it kept flopping around. Dangit!



Cleaning up the catch, I think the white bass fillets are already in the bowl.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Fish fry, no pics yet

My friend Terry came to town this weekend, and on Saturday we met up with another friend, Chuck, and did some all-day fishing. We took a canoe out to picnic point so that we could get at all the hard to reach spots along the shore. Not much was biting though, and we left after a few hours with one pumpkinseed in the bucket. It was a PR for me, at 7 3/4 inches.

Back to the Yahara! We set up shop under the bridge where I'd had luck in the past. Pretty soon we had several 8 inch bluegill added to the bucket. There was a lot of splashing going on under the bridge by the sides, and we found out that white bass had moved in to feed on minnows. Chuck was having a ball with them, catching 3 or 4 with two good keepers. He also caught a 14 inch walleye that we threw back. He was having quite the day! He even had a huge musky on the line at one point. It came up to the surface, thrashed around and really churned up the water before coming off the hook.

Terry wasn't having as much luck, catching a few crappies that were too small. He had his dog out with us too, and when some other people came by with dogs that wanted to play... well let's just say the fishing was pretty much done. After his dog was tired out, we took our catch back to the house and had one heck of a fish fry. All three of us ate as much as we could, and now I probably have 2 lbs of leftovers in the fridge. Fish sandwiches anyone?

Terry took a few pics on his camera, so hopefully I can get those up in a few days. What a day to forget my camera!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Still fishing?

Took some time off work yesterday to throw some hooks in the water. I went to the spot on Wingra creek where I've caught northern and largemouth in the past. I had some worms I wanted to use up, and the bluegills were happy to help out.

While I was down there, two game wardens pulled up and came over to check my fishing license. One of the guys read it over several times, and then asked for my ID. I gave him my IL drivers license. He frowned at that, and asked me if I had a 2nd ID for verification. I gave him my university ID. He looked back and forth at the two pictures several times and then read my fishing license again. Then he looked back to the road and asked if that was my car. Yeeeess...? He asked my why I was fishing down here. I told him I was catching bluegills. He said, why aren't you up at the lake with everyone else? I told him there were plenty of fish here. At this point, a car load of black guys went by, and one of them yelled out the window, "hey you still harrassing people???" and drove off. He frowned at them, turned back and frowned at me, and asked if they were friends of mine. I was laughing at this point and told him no. I think the only reason he left then was because he was so frustrated. I have no idea why!

I saw a northern going after bluegill in the weeds, but by the time I got my gear ready he was gone. It was pretty cool seeing him in attack mode!

I gave up there and drove over to Lake Monona to get away from the weeds and fish some deeper water. It was a nice day still, but the water was cloudy with dead plant matter and the action was slow. I did end up catching one largemouth, at 14.5".

Monday, September 15, 2008

My girlfriend the fish expert!

She did it! The last person I expected to ID the fish I caught in Japan (no offense, if you're reading this) was my girlfriend. It's called a Japanese whiting or シロギス in Japanese. It's popular fried in tempura.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_whiting

Here's the website she used to ID it.

http://fishing-forum.org/zukan/fjysrch.htm



Fish in the freezer

Went out yesterday with a guy from the lab. We had an early start at 6am out at picnic point. It was cold and windy. Not a lot was biting, mostly small perch and smallmouths. The only keeper was a 12.5" drum. We cut our losses around 9:00 and went to the Yahara to catch bluegill. We got 6 or 7 nice big ones and an 8" perch. We finished around noon and took the fish back to my house. Filleted them up, now they're in the freezer. :)

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Big fat bluegills

Went fishing on Lake Monona between the terrace and Monona Bay. I caught bluegill, green sunfish, rock bass, smallmouth bass, and largemouth bass. I kept the 3 largest bluegill and filleted them up at home. The largest was 8 inches and the other two were 7 1/2. They made for a good dinner. :)

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Aquarium update

1. Very few minnows left. I tried to move them to a 10-15 gal tank but must have done it too soon, because a lot of them died. I don't think temperature was the problem, so it must have been chlorine or whatever else was in the tap water.

2. The pumpkinseed seems to be doing ok, but I haven't seen him eating. He may have been eating minnows, but I'm not sure. He doesn't show much interest in the worms I drop in.

3. The two green sunfish are eating pieces of worm I drop in, expecially the smaller of the two. They seem to be easy to take care of given their aggressive nature.

4. The logperch is plenty active but hasn't been eating anything that I've seen. I have to be very careful about making sudden movements around the aquarium because he freaks out easily and rushes around the tank scaring all the other fish. It's amazing how much commotion that one darter can cause!

5. I stirred up the gravel last night to see if it was getting dirty. Holy smokes! The water was swirling with bits of dead worm and uneaten fish food and other waste. There were even a few dead minnows that somehow made it under the gravel. It smelled absolutely terrible. I wish I would have moved the fish to the small tank before I did it. From now on, I plan on getting smaller red worms that the fish can eat whole. Right now I have been tearing off small pieces of earthworm. The pieces don't move at all so the fish lose interest once they settle on the bottom. If the fish don't eat the food I give them, I need to take the pieces out of the tank, and not leave them on the bottom in hopes that the fish scavange.

6. The inlet tube for the filter is pretty long, but doesn't quite reach down to the bottom of the tank. I wonder if I get another attachment to make it longer then it will pick up more junk before it settles on the bottom.

7. The fish need more rocks to hide under. The green sunfish try to get under the one rock with the darter and the darter gets agitaded and tries to push them out. It's funny to watch, but I'm sure the fish would be a lot happier with more hiding spots.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

A successful Saturday!

The weather was great today and I had no desire to sit around and watch football like everyone else in Madison. I'll take a day at the Yahara over TV any day. :) One of the first fish I caught was a 9 inch perch, which I brought home. It was actually the first time I've eaten perch. I got two small but decent filets from it, and fried them up in butter with three cheese bread crumbs. It was incredible. I'm going to get hungry any time I see a perch in the future!





I also caught a PR rock bass, at 7 3/4 inches. I know that's not very big, but I was pretty happy with it. I also caught plenty of bluegill, pumpkinseed, and green sunfish.



I couldn't stop thinking about those darters that I tried to put in my aquarium the other day. I was determined to try again, so I went to the same spot and put on my smallest hook. It took a while, but I managed to catch two more of them. One was pretty small and the other was the biggest I've seen. I took them home and slowly added water from the aquarium to the bucket they were in. The little one wasn't doing well and went belly up. The big one seemed to be ok, so after 15 minutes of slowly adding water, I put him in the aquarium. He was breathing rapidly for quite a while and I thought I would lose him like the other ones, but he calmed down and began to swim around the tank and respond to the other fish. He's been in there several hours now and is doing just fine.



Bonus points if you notice the other two new fish in the tank. Unfortunately they will have to be temporary because they'll definitely get too big.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Logperch pro, I'm famous, and 2 greenies in the tank

Went out to the Yahara again last night when I should have been doing research. My plan was to prove my logperch catching skills and then move down to the bridge and try for a walleye. I really need some smaller hooks for these tiny fish! I was getting bite after bite but could never hook them. I caught the one in the picture below, along with some perch, bluegill, green sunfish, and a tiny smallmouth, and then headed up to the bridge.

As I reached the bridge, another guy who had been fishing the other side came across on his bicycle. He stopped to ask me how I did, and then asked, "You don't.... have a fishing blog, do you?". I wasn't expecting that! He said that he googled Yahara river fishing to see if there was anything in there, and my blog came up as one of the hits.

If anyone in Madison is reading this blog and wants to meet up to do some fishing, you're more than welcome to join me!



I didn't catch any walleye, but I got plenty of other fish. I caught largemouth, rock bass, pumpkinseed, and one drum. That's a total of 9 species in one evening, which I believe is a new personal best. :) As it was getting dark I decided to catch a few small sunfish to take home. I chose two green sunfish that seemed healthy and were very small. They are doing well in the aquarium now. The pumpkinseed checks up on them from time to time to remind them not to hang out in his favorite spots, but for the most part doesn't care that they're in there with him.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Mystery solved - logperch!

Need help ID'ing this species

It's some kind of darter. I caught two of these while fishing with nightcrawlers yesterday. My first thought was fingerling muskies because of the vertical bands, but after looking at some google images I ruled that out. I put both of them in my aquarium, but unfortunaly they both died within the first hour. I remember catching rainbow darters with a net when I was a kid, and never being able to keep them alive in our fish tank either. Maybe they're just not able to handle the change in environment.

The aquarium is set up



Friday, August 29, 2008

Shiraishi Island

Fishing in the sea?! Is that allowed on this blog? My girlfriend and I were staying a few days on Shiraishi Island, which is a 30 min ferry ride from Kasaoka, Japan. There was a small restaurant/shop by the shore that offered all day fishing for $5. They had a shed full of tackle and a freezer with shrimp for bait. No supervision, you just took whatever you wanted and returned it at the end of the day. The owner recommended that we fish out on the end of a floating dock nearby, by I was eyeing some big rocks a 1/4 mile down the coast and took my girlfriend there instead. We were able to hop from rock to rock until we could fish in 4-6 foot deep water. I had my trunks on and eventually just jumped in and waded around to find good spots. Fishing was easy. It only took a few seconds to get bites. The only challenge was hooking the shrimp well enough so they didn't fall off too easy. We lost a lot of bait. We caught a lot of fish too though, especially puffer fish like in the 1st and 3rd pictures. We caught over 20 in the one day. We were also catching fish called "bera" or "bela" in Japanese. They are in the 2nd and 4th pictures. My girlfriend caught the biggest one (2nd pic) of the day, and the shop owner said it would sell for about $5 in a sushi restaurant. I'm not sure what the fish is in the last picture.

Good times... if you're ever in western Japan and looking for a relaxing day, this is it. :)






Thursday, August 21, 2008

Asahi River Dam - fishing in Japan

Getting the boat ready in the morning.



The awesome view.



Jun, one of my powerlifting friends from Okayama.



Nagase, pro bass fisherman and super nice guy.



And the trophy fish of the day, a whopping 12.5". :)

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Asahi River Dam preview

I don't have my camera cord with me right now, so my pictures will have to wait for a few more days. This is a pic from Nagase's blog.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

The kids go fishing in Japan

Yes that's right, I have already dominated the fishing scene in Japan! :) I went out with my girlfriend, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend to do some fishing on a small river in the area a few days ago. We used waxworms and the smallest hooks imaginable. What do you catch on gear like that? The smallest fish imaginable! We caught 3 or 4 different kinds of minnows. The fish in the 2nd and 3rd pictures is a funa (sp?). It looks like it's related to the carp family. After we got bored of the little fish, we drove around till we found a small pond by the side of the road. It had a healthy population of largemouth. I caught 5 or 6 and my girlfriend caught one. She was pretty excited about catching her first bass, but she refused to put her thum in its mouth, lol. Her sister and her boyfriend didn't do as well though, getting skunked on the bass pond.








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Friday, August 8, 2008

The last hoorah before Japan

Walleye! I finally got one! Caught my first walleye last night under the same bridge where I caught the white bass. I was using nightcrawlers on the bottom, and was catching bluegill and drum when this guy finally got on my line. 15" may not be impressive, but I was a happy camper.





I also had some luck with some small blue plastic worms I just bought. Caught a few nice largemouths on them.



Prior to catching the walleye, I also caught a smallmouth, a rock bass, two drums, a hybrid sunfish, and more bluegill than I cared to count.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

There's something about that first cast

16.5" smallmouth at Picnic Point

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Catching monsters with Terry

My buddy Terry was in town so we went over to Lake Monona for an hour or so. The bluegill were biting fine, but not a whole lot else. Terry caught a handful of bluegill and 1 green sunfish. I caught over a dozen bluegill, 1 rock bass, 1 smallmouth, and 1 largemouth. The smallmouth was definitely a trophy fish. (see the pic below)

And completely unrelated to fishing... I bench pressed 325 lbs today!!!!!!



First time using rubber worm

I left the live bait at home last night to make sure that I could still catch fish with artificial lures. For the first half of the night I used a small crankbait that my brother gave me. I caught one largemouth with it, and then I had this little guy go after it. I suspect that he was attacking it for going through his territory, because there's no way that lure could be food, it wouldn't fit in his mouth! Tim, is this another hybrid sunfish? Pumpkinseed and green sunfish maybe? Sorry I didn't get a shot of his whole body.



I've never used a rubber worm before, because I never knew how to use them. I decided to be a man and give them a try anyway. By the way, I was fishing in Wingra Creek. The spots I was fishing were ideal for trying out the worm because they were too weedy to use any other lures. I tossed the worm over to the other side of the creek and let it fall down without a weight. I felt a few taps and then a good tug. Success on my first cast! I caught 4 largemouths that way, including the guy in the picture below. He was definitely hungry. :) I also had a couple hits where I didn't set the hook. It seems I need a little more practice on that.