Indiana roundup

In the first week of June I drove over to Lafayette, IN to meet up with some friends: Olaf from Illinois, Miciah from Michigan, and Mike from Indiana.  It was a tri-state roundup!  I don't think any of us had any lifelist ambitions other than perhaps some rare suckers like river redhorse, spotted sucker, or black buffalo.  Mostly we were getting together to hang out and catch up.  I started off throwing a pearl colored curly tail jig and was surprised to hook up with a pretty sizeable buffalo.

Smallmouth buffalo (Ictiobus bubalus)

Next I switched to fishing a small piece of worm on the bottom.  Drum were a common catch, and silver chubs were as well.  Until this point I had only caught one silver chub in my life, so it was neat to see more of them.

Freshwater Drum (Aplodinotus grunniens)

Silver Chub (Macrhybopsis storeriana)

At  this point it began to rain pretty steadily, so we packed up our gear and moved to a tributary where we could fish under a bridge.  Again, we had hopes for redhorse and other suckers but mostly just wanted to see some variety.  Fishing under the bridge wasn't as productive as we hoped.  My only catch was this one rock bass.

Rock Bass (Ambloplites rupestris)

The rain died down after we had lunch at the local diner, and we went back to our original spot to continue fishing.  I didn't want to catch more drum, so I tied on a spoon to see what predatory fish were biting.  It was slow, but eventually I hooked up with a nice skipjack.  What a beautiful fish!

Skipjack Herring (Alosa chrysochloris)

I switched to a small black spinner and before long caught another cool fish, a goldeye.  This was the second one I've ever caught.

Goldeye (Hiodon alosoides)

I continued swapping out my lures, and the last catch of the day was this darkly colored smallmouth bass that hit a larger spinner.  It was a satisfactory last fish of the day.

Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu)

As  always it was good to catch up with friends, and the fish diversity made for an good day of fishing.  I've explored very little of Indiana, but so far I've had nothing but good experiences.