roughfish.com species contest continues

currently in the contest i am at 17 species. not terrible but not that great. last outing i took for the contest i was able to pick up 5 more and i plan to target an orangespot sunfish this evening. while fishing with ben for the contest i nearly got spooled by a large mystery fish on the mississippi. the beast took one huge run before snapping 15lb power pro. ben also was able to catch a nice bowfin. all in all a succesfull day minus my frustration with quillbacks that evening i think i did alright.

bens bowfin

black bullhead

 bowfin

channel catfish

brown trout

shorthead redhorse

silver slaughter

recently discovered a spot where very large carp can be easily taken with fly tackle and little did i know it also holds great numbers of massive silver redhorse. i fished here a few days in a row with my usualy fishing buddy ben and we caught tons of them! some real monsters too. i first tried fishing them with my fly rod but only armed with light tippet line i was just breaking them off. i rigged up my spinning rod and drifted crawlers past their noses and caught a new personal best with ben also catching a personal best the next day. unfortiunately this spot is well known by the local bow killers and i havent seen the silvers in the same numbers as usual in this portion of the creek lately.

my big silver

a drum that decided to grab one of my carp flies

another large silver

carp

bens personal best silver

a nice golden redhorse

just an update.

sorry for the lack of posts lately i guess ive just been very busy competing in roughfish.com's june species contest(even though im still getting my ass kicked.) hopefully ill have a few new articles up by the end of the week. i will also be taking a trip to florida with my main focus being freshwater exotic species so hopefully i have some exciting reports to look forward to.

roughfish.com 2011 june species contest

should be loads of fun!

bowFUN

so this year it seems the bowfin are thicker than ever in one of my favorite spots. ive never seen them in such numbers before and ive been fishing this stretch of river for a few years now. hopefully they stick around all summer because after catching so many the last few days i still just wanna fish for bowfin!

dufek's personal best fin

ben's lifelister fin!

double. ben with the fin cyndie with the cat

ben's personal best fin

cyndie's lifelister bowfin!

my personal best fin

non-native fish on the yampa river to be euthanized

sport fish are being removed from the yampa river to help create a better enviroment for the native endangered species such as the bonytail chub, colorado pikeminnow and razorback suckers. hopefully this is a successful operation and can remove some of the competition the native fish are facing. seems like theres a large amount of idiots with a sport fish mentality who are apposed to this. the words "useless trash fish" are being thrown around alot by the local fishermen. its upsetting to see that there seems to be almost no regard for the fish that are meant to be in the river in the fist place. as a species angler i hope to see the bass, catfish and esox species completely eradicated from these rivers so someday if i venture out this way i can have a shot at the many glorious native fish.

news article about the story
http://www.9news.com/rss/story.aspx?storyid=195199

forum responses
http://www.fishexplorer.com/co/fxrforum.asp?action=det&pid=202010

river monsters

buffs are running good right now. its unfortunate but this one was fowl hooked on the cannon river and kept by a meat hunter.