Bass, rays, and sharks from the surf

Binh invited me to join Mike, Andre and him for some surf fishing last night. I've been seeing reports of leopard shark and guitarfish, so I decided to stick with squid even though Binh offered to share his mackerel.

Here's the top secret spot when I arrived.


The first half of the night was nothing but bass for me. I was fishing squid on a 5/0 octopus hook, 60 lb mono leader, 4 oz pyramid sinker on a sliding rig, a couple yards of 40 lb mono abrasion leader, and 30 lb braid main line. I ended up getting one barred sand bass and five kelp bass. One of the kelp bass was pretty respectable, definitely a PR. I'm terrible at remembering to take measurements. Maybe 18 inches?

Kelp Bass (Paralabrax clathratus)




Binh jogged over carrying a beastly shovelnose, just to let me know they were around. Thanks Binh, haha. He also said he got a nice soupfin earlier (but didn't feel like jogging over with it apparently). I continued fishing the same rig, and my next catch wasn't a bass! It was a small thornback ray.

Thornback Guitarfish (Platyrhinoidis triseriata) - new hook & line species #460

It was very cool seeing one of these up close for the first time. Mike says they're a minus one.



I like them though, cute and pokey at the same time.



The bite died down where I was, so I came over to join the rest of the guys. As I was talking to Binh his rod started dancing and he hooked into a nice fish.



Leopard Shark (Triakis semifasciata)






I set up on the other side of Mike, and pretty soon he hooked up as well.



Soupfin Shark (Galeorhinus galeus)

Andre had tough luck and ended up wearing the stripe. I think he was using squid and store bought mackerel. Fresher mackerel was definitely the key for the bigger sharks. Squid was working for the smaller stuff, but I had a smaller hook size.

Overall it was a great night, with 6 species total between the 4 of us. I'll get out again soon for those original targets!

California resident, San Dieguito Lagoon

Critter fishing was a success! Went to Del Mar North Beach, which is by the mouth of the San Dieguito River Lagoon. Didn't see any signs that said no fishing, so I figured I was good. Sand crabs were nowhere to be found, so I used frozen shrimp purchased from Walmart. First fish was a small spotted sand bass.

Spotted Sand Bass (Paralabrax maculatofasciatus)

Next was a round ray. The whole morning was pretty much spotted bass and rays.

Round Stingray (Urobatis halleri)

Grumpy guy.

Biggest bass of the day. Not huge but still put a smile on my face.

Spotted Sand Bass (Paralabrax maculatofasciatus)


Before the tide came all of the way in, I went down the beach to a tide pool that I had seen small fish in the week before. I figured they were juvenile opaleye, but it didn't hurt to check. They were juvenile opaleye.

Opaleye (Girella nigricans)

At high tide I saw some croakers cruising near shore. Caught one of them.

Yellowfin Croaker (Umbrina roncador)


Around noon a lifeguard came up to me to let me know that fishing is not allowed at that beach. There are two trails going down from the road, and sure enough the one I came down did not have any signs, but the other one did. He was cool about it though and suggested I head down the road to a stretch of shore in the lagoon that allows fishing. Glad it wasn't someone writing a ticket who broke the news to me. I was a law abiding citizen the rest of the day.

The rocks were swarming with opaleye. It was a challenge getting my bait to drop to the bottom without one of them grabbing it on the way down.

Opaleye (Girella nigricans)


I saw a fish on the bottom with a red mouth, and after three or four opaleye, I managed to dive bomb my bait down to him. He grabbed it, and I hoisted him up. Wasn't sure what it was, but after coming home I IDed it as a bay blenny. Woohoo, a new lifer!

Bay Blenny (Hypsoblennius gentilis) - new hook & line species #458

He wins the prize for derpiest fish of the day. He actually gave me a pretty good bite with that derpy mouth.

Occasionally a juvenile barred sand bass would rush in and beat the opaleyes to my bait.

Barred Sand Bass (Paralabrax nebulifer)

I caught another blenny, and this one looked pretty similar to the rockpool blennies I caught in the tide pool last year. I'm fairly certain that's what it is.

Bay Blenny (Hypsoblennius gentilis)


On the walk back to my car I decided to fish this spot for a bit, because I saw some big mullet cruising around and occasionally picking stuff off the bottom in the shallows near the grass. I knew my odds were slim, but it's always worth a try.

I did not catch a mullet, but I did get this diamond turbot instead! Second lifer of the day!

Diamond Turbot (Hypsopsetta guttulata) - new hook & line species #459

Shot of his bottom side.

I thought I was done for the day, but after letting the turbot go I discovered that something had pulled my bait into the rocks. At first I thought my hook was snagged, but then I felt it pull into the rocks deeper. I pulled and pulled until a suction cup covered tentacle emerged. Octopus! He had me beat though. There was no way my 6 lb line could get him all the way out. I bet he would have been delicious, ah well.

Apologies to the city of Del Mar for fishing on your no fishing beach. I'm not sure why you banned fishing there though. None of the other beach goers had any problem with me. Thanks to the lifeguard for being nice. And thanks for pointing me to a spot where I ended up catching two new species for my lifelist.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot - another guy fishing the rocks caught a really big rock wrasse, which is a species I don't have. I'll have to go back soon and see if I can find one. I bet there are a lot of other fish that come in and out of that lagoon with the tide as well.

2017 NANFA convention part 2 - Meramec River

Gerry and I had fishing plans for day 2 of the NANFA convention, but they were not as ambitious as the previous day because we were attending presentations in the morning and the banquet and auction in the evening.  We started out at the Meramec River in the state park.  Gerry fished bank rods, and I caught micros near shore.  I caught northern studfish, bigeye shiner, wedgespot shiner, and rainbow darter.  I needed help with the ID of this wedgespot shiner - thanks Bob!

Wedgespot Shiner (Notropis greenei)


After the presentations - which were very good - we snuck out for a bit more microfishing.  We drove a half hour away to Blue Springs Creek.  Here we found active chub mounds with carmine shiners, Ozark minnows, bleeding shiners, and rainbow darters.  I held my camera underwater and snapped a few photos.  They're not great, but if you look closely you can see all four species in the photo below.



The rainbow darters looked like they were only hanging around so they could eat freshly deposited eggs.  If you look in the bottom of the photo below, you can see a few with their heads buried in the rocks, looking for food.  The fish on the right is an Ozark minnow.



It's pretty easy to catch fish when they're in spawning mode.  We took the time to catch one of each of the shiners.  Man were they colorful!  The carmine shiners were blazing, and the Ozark minnows were interesting because their fins were yellow instead of red, which I've seen in other drainages such as the Current River.

Carmine Shiner (Notropis percobromus)


Ozark Minnow (Notropis nubilus)


Bleeding Shiner (Luxilus zonatus)


Further downstream I found a school of Ozark minnows in a riffle.  They must be comfortable spawning without chub mounds, whereas the carmine shiners were concentrated on the mounds.  This is my favorite photo from the trip.



I spotted a saddled darter in the riffle, but it quickly darted out of view (no pun intended).  The species in the Meramec drainage has been split from the Missouri saddled darter that we saw in the Gasconade drainage.  I looked around for another one, but all I could find were rainbow darters.

Rainbow Darter (Etheostoma caeruleum)


This riffle was pretty small, so I headed downstream looking for a bigger one.  The next riffle was very shallow and very fast.  It looked like good habitat for saddled darters, but seeing them would be an issue.  I got in the water near the middle and slowly worked upstream.  The surface of the water becomes smooth at the upstream end of a riffle, so that was the only place I'd be able to sight fish darters.



Sure enough, this riffle had several saddled darters.  They spooked more easily than the rainbow darters, but eventually I found one that didn't bold and was feeling hungry.  Success!

Meramec Saddled Darter (Etheostoma erythrozonum) - new hook & line species #445


I showed Gerry the saddled darters, and soon he had caught his lifer as well.  We continued exploring downstream and found another riffle with even more of them.  We also saw a pair of greenside darters, a lone fantail darter, northern hogsuckers, hornyhead chubs, stonerollers, northern studfish, and smallmouth bass.  After much frustration, Gerry entered a zen like state and was able to catch one of the stonerollers.  We grabbed fast food for lunch and headed back to the convention to catch the rest of the talks.

On the drive home the next morning we stopped at Carlyle on the Kaskaskia River.  I spent roughly four hours trying to catch a gizzard shad, but ended up empty handed.  However, between the two of us we did catch shortnose gar, spotted gar, bighead carp, yellow bass, white bass, bluegill, and freshwater drum.  A lot of shad were snagged by accident.  We saw someone else catch a silver carp, and Gerry had something big on the end of his line that broke off before we could ID it.

Shortnose Gar (Lepisosteus platostomus)


Thanks to Gerry for being an excellent road trip and allowing your car to become very dirty over the course of three days.  It was good to fish central Missouri again, and it was really good to see old NANFA friends as well as make new ones.  Next year's convention is going to be in Georgia.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it, but it sounds like a good one!

2017 NANFA convention part 1 - Gasconade River

The NANFA convention was held in Missouri this year.  Gerry Hansell, a friend from the Chicago area, and I drove down from Illinois together.  The convention was in Meramec State Park, but on Friday we did a mini road trip to the Gasconade River drainage to do some microfishing.  Our first stop was Little Piney Creek.  Sampling data showed plains topminnows there, so we looked for them in the side pools and near vegetation.



However, the only topminnow-ish fish we could find were western mosquitofish.  Pretty much every species in the creek would be a lifer for Gerry, so we spent some time microfishing for whatever we could find.  We caught orangethroat darter, rainbow darter, redbelly dace, and Ozark sculpin.  The darters weren't particularly colorful, but I was happy to get good photos of the other two.

Southern Redbelly Dace (Chrosomus erythrogaster)


Ozark Sculpin (Cottus hypselurus)


We had several backup plans for plains topminnow.  The first was Lane Spring, which was just a few minutes down the road.  It's pretty big as far as springs go, and it empties into Little Piney Creek.  I had a good feeling when we saw all of the vegetation.



However, once again we found mosquitofish instead!  We got our hopes up when we saw some topminnows, but they turned out to be blackspotted.  In the creek we caught bleeding shiner, redbelly dace, creek chub, bluegill, orangethroat darter, rainbow darter, and Ozark sculpin.

Western Mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis)


Our last chance for plains topminnow was Wilkins Spring.  The U.S. Forest Service road we took to reach it was pretty dicey, but Gerry's AWD vehicle handled it without any problem.  We walked through the big puddles in our wading shoes before we took any risks with the car.



Wilkins Spring, which flows into Mill Creek, was dammed up a long time ago to form a small pond.  We were expecting clear water, but it turned out to be surprisingly cloudy, perhaps from limestone?



We walked the shore looking for topminnows.  It didn't take us long to find them.  At first we only saw a few, but pretty soon we were finding small schools of them everywhere.  Gerry had brought a 12 foot fixed line crappie pole that was the perfect length for reaching them.



This photo shows the cloudy water, the vegetation, and a small school of topminnows.  They spooked easily, so we had to stand perfectly still as we fished for them.



Plains Topminnow (Fundulus sciadicus) - new hook & line species #443


Gerry was racking up the new lifers, and I was happy to have one on the board.  Our next stop was the confluence of Spring Creek and the Big Piney River.  It had a wide variety of habitats and turned out to be a great place to explore and look for different species.



I wandered up Spring Creek looking for stippled darters, but they were nowhere to be found.  They probably prefer the headwaters over the lower stretch of the creek.  The mix of species was similar to the previous spots - sculpins, redbelly dace, bleeding shiners, and rainbow darters.  Gerry caught a huge northern studfish in one of the pools, and he set up a bank rod and caught a huge northern hogsucker.

Ozark Sculpin (Cottus hypselurus)


We saw some long slender fish in one of the deep pools that I identified as brook silversides.  I tried to catch one, but what ended up on the end of my line was a carmine shiner.  I'm pretty sure the fish we saw were silversides though.  I've only caught one in my life, so it would have been nice to finally get another.

Carmine Shiner (Notropis percobromus)


I waded through the riffle again, hoping to find something new.  A slender madtom came out from one of the rocks, so I coached Gerry through the process of catching it on hook & line.  Then, I spotted a darter that I knew wasn't an orangethroat or rainbow.  Its back was a light tan color, and it had several dark saddles that blended in extremely well with the surrounding rocks.  I was 99% sure it was a saddled darter, so I announced that we weren't leaving until I caught one.  After a few minutes of watching darters dash away from my feet, and after a bit of cursing, I found one that stayed put and went for my bait!

Missouri Saddled Darter (Etheostoma tetrazonum) - new hook & line species #444


At this point we had done a great job catching our targets for the day, so anything else would be a bonus.  We continued west to the Gasconade River and fished its confluence with Roubidoux Creek.  The river's water was muddy, but the creek's water was clear.

We were amazed to see debris stuck in the bridge, apparently from the flooding that had occurred earlier in the spring.  The river must have risen nearly 30 feet!



We could see a variety of larger species in the creek - smallmouth bass, rock bass, longear sunfish, northern hogsuckers, and redhorse.  The redhorse were actively feeding, and when one came close to shore I was able to get my bait in front of it.  After a short battle on light line, I was happy to see that it was a black redhorse.  This is the second one I've caught, with the first one being from southern Illinois a year ago.

Black Redhorse (Moxostoma duquesni)


Shininess is probably not a good ID characteristic, but from the few black redhorse I've seen, I've always noticed that their scales are much more shiny than golden redhorse.  The two species have similar colors, but to me the scales on blacks look they're made out of some sort of reflective metal.

We saw schools of micros but decided to focus on larger species, even though I knew none of them would be lifers.  My next catch was a northern hogsucker, which eagerly moved forward to vaccuum up my worm off the bottom.

Northern Hogsucker (Hypentelium nigricans)


The boulders near shore had longear sunfish hiding under them.

Longear Sunfish (Lepomis megalotis)


We had one more stop planned, but it was getting late in the day and we didn't want to drive further west.  Instead, we decided to park along Roubidoux Creek a few hundred yards upstream from the confluence.

I was once again looking for stippled darters, but all I could find were rainbows and orangethroats.  There were a lot of small sculpins and crayfish as well.  The pools below riffles had bleeding shiners and striped shiners that would attack your bait instantly.

Bleeding Shiner (Luxilus zonatus)


Gerry caught up to me and told me he could see gar in one of the shallow runs.  Sure enough, there was a trio of longnose gar holding in the swift current, and they were either spawning or getting ready to.  Every now and then they would lift their heads out of the water, but I could never get the timing right to get a good photo.

Longnose Gar (Lepisosteus osseus)


We were curious if the gar would go for bait, so I gave Gerry a shiner and he rigged it up with small treble hooks and freelined it to them.  They showed zero interest.  Oh well, it was worth a try!

When we climbed in the car we realized how hungry we were.  BBQ in Rolla on the drive back to Meramec State Park really hit the spot.  To be continued in part 2!