Fishing for buffalo, catching carp

March in Illinois means a few warm days that hint at spring's arrival.  Sure enough, we had a streak of warm days that pushed the remaining ice fishing thoughts out of my head.  My focus for this spring will be Illinois suckers - buffalo, carpsuckers, redhorse, chubsuckers, spotted suckers, and blue suckers.  My first target was buffalo at the Shelbyville spillway on the Kaskaskia River.  This was my first time fishing this spot, and I'm guessing by the underwater benches that the water level was a little higher than average.  On top of that, the water was quite cold because the lake above the dam still had ice on it!

I met up with Garren King, a fellow species fishing enthusiast.  We fished worms on the bottom and had a very slow day.  Nonetheless, it was great to meet up with another guy who enjoys fishing for every kind of fish willing to bite.  While we were there we saw quite a few people drive up, fish for an hour, and then leave empty handed.  Fortunately we did get a few bites, and the one hookup for the day was this common carp.  As Garren put it, "Hey, a fish is a fish!".

Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio)

We did see other people catch a few smallmouth buffalo - small ones about 14 inches.  It was encouraging to at least see one of our targets, even if we didn't catch them ourselves.

The next weekend I continued my sucker quest closer to home, fishing by myself from the bank of the Spoon River near its confluence with the Illinois River.  I had heard rumors that buffalo hang out in this stretch of the river as well.  To change things up I tried corn and shrimp as bait instead of the usual nightcrawlers.  I tied a crude version of a hair rig with a J-hook for the corn, and I put the shrimp on a small octopus circle hook.

I saw the tip of the shrimp rod quiver just once, but man oh man did the corn get bites.  The tip of that rod was constantly bouncing up and down.  It took some practice learning when to set the hook, but before long I was catching carp after carp.

I swapped the shrimp out for corn on the circle hook and started catching fish on that rod as well.  At the end of the day I decided to take six carp home, the biggest being 24 inches.  I cleaned half of them, putting the fillets in the chest freezer for future meals, and the remaining fish I buried in my compost.  This is a practice I only condone for non-native species that are harmful to our waters, which in central Illinois means common carp, grass carp, silver carp, and bighead carp.  The feeding habits of common carp uproot aquatic plants and contribute to low visibility, which further prevents plants from growing.  Unfortunately, we'll never be able to rid the state of these fish, but maybe in some small way removing a few adult fish (the females happened to be full of eggs) will help keep their population in check and make some room for native fish (i.e. buffalo).

Ultimately it's up to each angler to decide whether or not to remove non-native species from our waters.  I would never look down on someone for releasing the carp they catch, and likewise I would never judge someone for taking the carp they catch and burying them to become fertilizer.  The only practice that I absolutely despise is the killing of any fish and leaving them on shore to rot or throwing them back in the water to later wash up on shore downstream and rot.  That is never cool.  To my fellow Illinois anglers - pick up your trash, don't leave fish on shore to rot, and let's take care of the waters of our state!

Lake Whitefish from Sturgeon Bay, WI

This weekend Ruoxi and I met our good friends the Leisens for another fishing double date!  We met up on Friday in Green Bay and then continued to Sturgeon Bay on Saturday morning.  We compromised between roughing it on our own and hiring a guide by doing an unguided shack rental from one of the guide services.  The guide met us at the boat ramp, and I followed him in my Subaru out to our shack.  I have to say I've ever seen so much blue on my GPS screen.  Is this photo giving away our fishing spot?





This ice shack was our home for the day.  It was spacious and fairly clean.  Even though it wasn't very cold, it was nice to have a heater and benches to sit on.



Our guide gave us a few pointers and then moved on to help his other clients who were doing guided or semi-guided trips.  He checked in again once in the middle of the day and then at the end of the day to take us back to shore.  Other than that we were on our own.

Joy was the first to hook up with a whitefish.  We were pretty excited to see our first fish!  Apparently purple was the lucky color of the day.



Before long I hooked up with my first one as well.  We were fishing in 85 feet of water, bouncing weights on the sandy lake bottom and then finesse jigging until a whitefish hit the waxworm on a plain hook above a barrel swivel about a foot above the weight.  I caught my first one jigging by hand and then hand lining the fish in.

Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) - new hook & line species #267


Ruoxi caught the next fish, and it turned out to be the biggest of the day at 20 3/4 inches.  It was a good looking fish!

Josh was the slow poke, taking a while to get his first fish.  However, he made up for it by catching three more after this one!  I caught one more, so we had eight fish total between the four of us.

The fishing hit its peak when Josh and I got a double.  This is a pose that Joy invented years ago.

In the afternoon the bite really died down.  We had plenty of beers though, so we didn't run out of entertaining things to do.  In hind sight, did the bite really die down... or did we lose our focus?



Slow day or not, we had a great time.  Lake whitefish was a new lifer for Joy, Ruoxi, and me, and we put enough fish on the ice to take home and smoke.  We were really happy that we did an unguided shack rental.  It removed a lot of the stress of trying to figure out a new location for the first time, but we still felt like we worked hard for our fish.

Tennessee winter microfishing

Against my better judgement I joined Miciah for a road trip to Tennessee over the weekend.  On the drive down I felt the start of a cold, and sure enough it hit me hard the next two days.  A cold front was moving through the midwest, and the only way we could escape the low temperatures was to drive south.  We knew fishing would be tough, so we kept our expectations low but checked out a bunch of spots to increase our chances of finding something.



We skunked out in the Cumberland River drainage, but at a small tributary in the Duck River system we found a few darters.  Miciah caught a fantail, and I caught this redband. I'm guessing it's a male that hasn't developed its spawning colors yet.



Redband Darter (Etheostoma luteovinctum) - new hook & line species #264


Here's a photo from a spot where we didn't catch anything.  I'm including it in the post because it does a good job of showing what Tennessee microfishing looks like in February.



In the southern part of the state we found a nice spot, but unfortunately I wasn't able to find any new species.  We caught rainbow darters and Tennessee shiners here.

Rainbow Darter (Etheostoma caeruleum)


Tennessee Shiner (Notropis leuciodus)




After checking in to a small town motel, we tried some quick nighttime microfishing in the creek nearby. It was really cold!  Miciah caught a rosyside dace, and I caught this northern studfish.  We were tired and couldn't feel our fingers, so we called it a night.

Northern Studfish (Fundulus catenatus)


Our last stop before heading back north was a nice little tributary of the Duck River. We thought the creek was too big for orangethroat darter variants, but we found a bunch of buffalo darters in the vegetated side pools. Banded sculpin were hanging out under the larger rocks. One of the deeper pools had a large school of minnows, and between Miciah and I we caught striped shiner, rosyside dace, and largescale stoneroller.

Buffalo Darter (Etheostoma bison) - new hook & line species #265




Banded Sculpin (Cottus carolinae)




Largescale Stoneroller (Campostoma oligolepis) - new hook & line species #266


Three new lifers from a weekend road trip in February is nothing to complain about.  Miciah and I drove home feeling successful, but we also knew that we missed dozens of species that were right under our noses.  We can't wait to go back when it warms up!

Powerton blue catfish

A week ago my friend Brad and I visited Powerton Lake in Pekin, IL. The target was blue catfish, which are stocked in the warm-water cooling lake. Brad brought a cast net, and we took turns trying to figure out how to use it. Neither of us were very good, but we did manage to catch plenty of small threadfin shad to use for bait.

Threadfin Shad (Dorosoma petenense)


The weather was great, but unfortunately we spent the day catching tiny channel catfish instead of the blue catfish we were hoping for. Nonetheless, we were catching open water fish on a sunny day in January, so we weren't complaining!

Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus)


Today I couldn't find anyone to join me to try Powerton again, so I made the trek over to Pekin by myself. The weather was not pleasant. It snowed all day, and it was just warm enough that the ground became a muddy mess. Bleh!



I put out two rods, each with a 4/0 and 8/0 hook suspended off the bottom with a length of line to a pyramid sinker. Cut channel catfish was the bait. It didn't take long before one of my baitfeeder reels began to click. I let the fish run for about 10 seconds and then picked up the rod and put tension on the line. With such heavy gear, the fight was pretty short. It was a blue catfish! It was only 26 inches, but it was my first so I was quite happy.

Blue Catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) - new hook & line species #263


That's an 8/0 hook in its mouth. It's a little big for this fish, but for a 75 lb blue catfish (which are in Powerton) it would be about the right size to deal with their larger jaws.



In hindsight I should have tried microfishing for a threadfin shad...

Grand Isle, Louisiana

Last week Ruoxi had a conference in New Orleans, and I obliged her request to join her for a short vacation once she was finished. I hoped to find Rio Grande cichlid, blue tilapia, or some brackish micros in the urban ponds and canals in New Orleans. I spent half a day in City Park and Louis Armstrong Park but couldn't find a single fish, so I'll skip ahead to our excursion to Grand Isle.

Grand Isle is on the Gulf of Mexico two hours south of New Orleans. The drive down was scenic - brackish backwaters, shrimp boats, and houses on stilts. After dinner I dropped Ruoxi off at our motel and went to the marina to buy bait. I picked up a bag of frozen shrimp and took one of my travel rods out on the pier to fish for a few minutes before Ruoxi noticed I was still gone. I dropped down a sabiki rig baited with shrimp and right away caught a new lifer, a silver perch.

Silver Perch (Bairdiella chrysoura) - new hook & line species #261

The next morning I let Ruoxi sleep in and went out again. For an hour or two I was the only person on the pier.  It was low tide, so I wasn't expecting the fishing to be great.  The tide would be rising all day, so I expected it to pick up before long.

I put whole shrimp on #4 circle hooks and let them sit on the bottom with my two travel rods. They didn't get any bites. I baited up a sabiki on my micro rod. It didn't get any bites.

Mid-morning two guys showed up with heavy gear. They used cut mullet for bait and cast their rigs out about 50 yards to where a channel was cut for boats entering and leaving the marina. They ended up catching two big black drum back to back. After an hour or two of no bites they packed up, leaving me their leftover mullet. I tried cut mullet for a while, but I couldn't cast my rigs to the channel and didn't get any bites.

Black Drum (Pogonias cromis)

Ruoxi and I took a break for lunch, walked around the state park at the other end of the island, and then headed back to the same pier. We used shrimp again. After several hours of no bites, I finally saw my micro rod twitch, picked it up, and felt a fish on! The group next to us had a net with a telescoping handle and helped us land the fish. It was a sheepshead, a new lifer, and a pretty good sized one at that!

Sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus) - new hook & line species #262

The guy fishing on the other side of us caught an interesting fish. He had a pretty heavy rig with a wire leader but didn't expect this little eel to swallow his hook and bait whole. I hope my photos are good enough to ID it.  I'll come back and edit this post if I can figure out what it is.

Shrimp Eel (Ophichthus gomesii)

It was a slow day of fishing, but Ruoxi and I enjoyed our time in Grand Isle. South Louisiana is an interesting part of the country, and I'm glad I got a chance to see it.  I hope you enjoyed our report!

Return to FL part 5 - Bouncer's Dusky 33

To conclude our Florida adventure, we made a stop in Miami to visit Martini and do one more fishing charter. Thanks for inviting us to your home Martini! After staying the night at a hotel downtown, we drove a few minutes over to Miami Beach to meet Captain Bouncer Smith, a charter captain who according to Martini has no equal in the Miami area.

After leaving the marina we bought ballyhoo from a bait seller and then motored over to a marker platform where herring and pinfish could be easily caught. Our mate Josh set us up with sabikis, and we filled up the livewell with bait for the day. Atlantic thread herring was a new lifer for me, and I desperately wanted a photo of one, but Captain Bouncer wouldn't have it. When I got out my camera, he barked out, "Get that herring in the livewell NOW! We don't have time to take photos of bait!" Being a species fishing guy, it tortured me all day that I didn't have a photo of that herring, haha.



We headed offshore a few miles, trolling as we went. Reminiscent of our previous charter, the morning started off slow. Once we set up over a wreck though, we started jigging up interesting species. Terry started us off with the first fish.

Pluma Porgy (Calamus pennatula)


We only had one jigging rod set up, so we took turns catching fish. After a few nibbles with no hookups, something big took my bait. Whatever it was was making me work to get it to the surface! It turned out to be a red grouper with a notch in its back where something had tried to take a bite out of it when it was younger.



Red Grouper (Epinephelus morio) - new hook & line species #256


Terry followed up with this snapper.

Mutton Snapper (Lutjanus analis)


Ruoxi took a turn and soon had a fish on as well. She caught a pretty cool species, a sand tilefish!



Sand Tilefish (Malacanthus plumieri)


While Ruoxi and I were jigging, Terry and Kayla each hooked up with a kingfish that took drifted baits (one of them may have been on the kite). Kayla got hers to the boat, but it came off while they were waiting to see if it would attract more fish. When Terry got his to the boat they brought it in right away to avoid losing a second fish.

King Mackerel (Scomberomorus cavalla)


Terry also caught a bonito at some point, but I can't remember if it was drifting or trolling. Meanwhile, I continued jigging and caught another cool fish, a grey triggerfish.

Grey Triggerfish (Balistes capriscus) - new hook & line species #257


We moved to another spot that was deeper - over 200 feet if I remember correctly.  As I was jigging this spot, I kept feeling small tugs, but I didn't want to reel my bait all the way up if it was just a small fish nibbling at my bait.  Finally I felt a good solid tug and I reeled my line in.  The first hook of the chicken rig had a small yellowtail snapper on it, which was probably responsible for the small tugs.  On the bottom hook was an enormous lionfish!  Lionfish, which are invasive to the Atlantic Ocean, are rarely caught on hook & line.  Captain Bouncer was impressed with its size, and when we got back to the marina he checked the record online, weighed the fish, and told me I tentatively have the new all tackle world record!

Red Lionfish (Pterois volitans) - new hook & line species #258


At this point we set up a second rod with a whole pinfish suspended near the bottom.  The targets were grouper, large amberjack, and sharks.  Black grouper were in the mood for pinfish that day, because over the next few hours Kayla, Ruoxi, and I each caught one. We released mine because it was smaller than the two big ones Kayla and Ruoxi caught.

Black Grouper (Mycteroperca bonaci)




Black Grouper (Mycteroperca bonaci)


Black Grouper (Mycteroperca bonaci) - new hook & line species #259

It was getting late in the day, so we pulled up our lines and set up to troll on the way back.  I think this photo captures the moment adequately.



Fortunately, trolling in the afternoon was better than in the morning!  We started hooking up with blackfin tuna and frigate tuna.  Each person caught one or two, and we ended up with seven in the boat.  They fought as hard as they could, but they were small fish and came in pretty easily.

Blackfin Tuna (Thunnus atlanticus) - new hook & line species #260




To finish up the day, Terry and Kayla pulled in a double!





Once we arrived back at the marina, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief when I saw a couple of our thread herring still in the livewell.  Captain Bouncer didn't yell at me this time when I took a few photos for my lifelist.

Atlantic Thread Herring (Opisthonema oglinum) - new hook & line species #255


The remainder of our bait was enjoyed by the resident tarpon that hang around Captain Bouncer's dock.  They put on quite a show grabbing the fish as soon as they hit the water.

Tarpon (Megalops atlanticus)


We were also visited by a manatee.  It approached Captain Bouncer's dock with a sense of purpose, and Captain Bouncer told us to put the freshwater hose in the water.  Like an oil tanker filling up, the manatee sat there for nearly a half hour sucking on the hose.

Manatee (Trichechus manatus)


Before hitting the road, we brought the kingfish and a small piece of grouper into the restaurant at the marina.  The restaurant cooked them up for us, and we enjoyed them thoroughly after a long day of fishing.  I want to thank Captain Bouncer for running an excellent charter, and I also want to thank our mate Josh for working his butt off all day setting up gear and making sure that our fish made it into the boat.



I know a number of species fishermen who look down on charters.  They see them as nothing more than buying new species with money.  This way of thinking isn't necessarily wrong, but if you write off charters completely you'll probably never get to see many of the species we were able to see on this trip.  I don't regret it in the least.  Chartered trips are not cheap, so I am certainly not going to make a habit of doing them.  With that said though, I can't wait to go after some of the larger pelagic species such as sailfish, wahoo, and mahi and deep dropping for tilefish and other deep water oddballs.