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
3 weeks ago
