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What is your favorite?

20K views 31 replies 28 participants last post by  ldp82 
#1 ·
What is your favorite species of fish to catch?

For me it's a toss up between perch and catfish.

I have a real good spot where the bluegill get 8-9" long and pound for pound I'd say perch fight harder than bass.

I also love fishing for catfish. Cast your bait out, set your pole down, and relax untill you get a hit. Then when they start biteing it's nonstop action. Last summer I landed six 3-4# flatheads in 30 minutes.
 
#2 ·
Pound for pound, nothing is more fun than surfcasting for bluefish. Sometimes you have to wait for the school, but when they arrive, it's a fight with every cast!

Trolling for big stripers is another favorite.

Fly fishing for brown trout.

Trolling for deep water lake trout.

Musky fishing... lots of casting and waiting truncated occasionally by extreme excitement when you get one on.

NYS has put a moratorium on it, but shad fishing with darts is a lot of fun too.

But the most fun of all is taking my 3 year old to the 2 acre lake at the end of my road and catching little stunted sunfish with her.

 
#3 ·
Years ago most of my fishing was for rainbows ...

Walleye is fast becoming a favorite ..... fun to catch, but also b/c they're so tasty.

Crappies are fun too - or really I enjoy anything that you can jig for.

Like liljake82 said - catfish is nice and relaxing ... and I'll even through Carp into that mix. Spent lots of summer nights along the river with dough balls and/or chicken livers left in the sun all day :lol:

Bass fishing is ok, but for me - its way down the list.

Also got to agree with drmsfd ... love fishing with the kids. Especially now that my oldest anyway (he's 7) is really starting to enjoy it and is able to cast by himself using a spinning reel, and put some thought into what he's doing.
 
#4 ·
The most fun you can have with your clothes on is Tuna fishing.

We drag ten or twelve jigs, complete insanity when you have ten fish on, at the same time!!

Albacore put up a VERY INTENSE initial fight, but peter out pretty quick.

I'm very fond of Salmon fishing as well.

I am crazed for fishing, turned pro about 5 years ago.
 
#7 ·
Fly fishing for salmon!
Trolling deep water for salmon is fun too, but taking salmon on the flyrod in tributaries is my favorite.
 
#8 ·
Grizzlyman:
You can thank us here in the great PNW for those Salmon, their introduction to lake Michigan is a wonderful success story.

My dad commercial fished on the lake in the 1950s out of Ludington.

The clean up and stocking of Lake Michigan with Salmon shows there is hope and also shows the resiliency of nature.
 
#10 ·
ricklin said:
Grizzlyman:
You can thank us here in the great PNW for those Salmon, their introduction to lake Michigan is a wonderful success story.

My dad commercial fished on the lake in the 1950s out of Ludington.

The clean up and stocking of Lake Michigan with Salmon shows there is hope and also shows the resiliency of nature.
It certainly does! For too many years industry treated the Great Lakes like a toilet for chemicals and hazmat. Now Lake Michigan is a source of recreation and enjoyment for many throughout the midwest. We need to work on keeping the GL's clean.
Thank you to the beautiful PNW...from the midwest!
We enjoy fishing the Pierre Marquette River just east from Ludington every single year. I love spending time up there. I caught the biggest brown of my life in the PM on a 9wt. flyrod.
It is just a taste of the PNW, but I love it.
 
#11 ·
I barely remember the lake when I was a little one, I was out on a fish boat b4 I could walk. I remember coming back to Ludington as a young teen to see foam and garbage washing up on the shores of the lake. Very sad.

Industry killed the lake and the fishermen who made a living there. Dad and grandpa did not really know what was going on in those days, I hope we are smarter today.

Fast forward to today....it's a wonderful thing, what man f**ks up does not take too long for nature to repair, if we give her a chance. And we stop f***ing it up. By preventing industry (think Gary, Indiana) from using the lake as their sewer, nature can recover.

Now if we can do something about the dams here in the PNW we can bring back the times that you could walk across the Columbia on the backs of the Salmon. Salmon are a little fussy about throwing up a concrete wall for them to pass by to go home to spawn.

Solar and wind, instead of turbines to grind up the fry of the fish who somehow make it back to spawn. Commercial and sport interests are finally uniting to fight the real enemy, the hand of man.

Despite claims to the contrary, fishing is the oldest profession. A man must have sustenance b4 he can avail himself of that profession that claims to be the oldest.

Spawn till ya die :D :D :D
 
#12 ·
Well, my favorite fish to eat is salmon, but I rarely get out to fish for it myself. Second favorite is crappie which I catch LOTS of. There is nothing like eating a pan fried crappie dinner while outside on the warm Summer nights. 8)
 
#14 ·
My favorite is wading/floating creeks and streams in Southern Missouri and fishing for smallmouth. They put on a hell of a fight with small gear. I use a 4'6" ultra light and a micro spinning reel. No live bait and I often file the barb down on the hook as to not injure the fish. Smallmouth are on the decline in many rivers in this area due to grazing near the stream beds and of course gravel mining. People can flat out ruin some good habitat. I'll be fishing this week from Wednesday to Sunday and if the fish don't bite I'm content to sit back by the stream and drink beer and watch the world go by.
 
#15 ·
Mine would have to be Rainbow Trout. Growing up in Montana with a fly rod in hand provided me with many hours of entertainment to be sure. Also, many (talking hundreds) ice fishing outings with my father hoisting rainbows out of Mission or Duck Lake. Now living in Florida, I am a bass fisherman for the most part. It can be great fun.

All time favorite fish caught is a Rainbow and the tale is worth telling. I was fishing Big Beaver Lake in Western Montana in the spring, late evening. I love using ultralight tackle to make it a real challenge. On this evening I got my wish for sure. I was using a 5 foot one piece ultralight Ugly Stick, ultralight reel with 4 pound test mono when I hooked a really nice Rainbow. I didn't know how big for a very long time, but I knew BIG. It was a dance between him and I for 45 minutes before I got a good look at him. When I reached in the water and hoisted him up, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Ten pounds, seven ounces of beautiful mountain Rainbow trout. Up to that point I had caught literally thousands of Rainbows ranging from quarter sandwich size up to pushing 8 pounds, but this was the king. No record by any means, but it will be one I will never forget.
 
#17 ·
I just like fishin'! A mouth to grab a hook on one end and a tail on the other to provide some fight.

All that said, I really enjoy off shore fishing for dolphin, tuna, king mackerel, and wahoo, but end up doing mostly stream or lake fishing for whatever is biting that day.

HWD
 
#18 ·
I fish for whatever is biting, I have no preference at all, but, after my uncles return from a tournament the other day he brought home a barracuda and that has to be one of the best fish i've ever eaten. It was a fairly small one so the mercury content wasn't to bad. I will try to catch more of these in the future.
 
#23 ·
Silver salmon on a fly are awful hard to beat, but since I own an offshore boat down here on the Texas Coast I have learned to love big sow snapper, ling (cobia), king mackeral and wahoo, don't have the range for tuna or bills, but sometimes I can hitch a ride on a big boat, and that's a heck of a thrill, billfish lit up in the spreads. Or just sittin in my lawn chair on my dock catching speckled trout.
 
#26 ·
Tn Jim said:
GUN SLINGER said:
My fav is hooking big large mouth bass in the early morning on top water bait. The best rush you can have on the water is hearing the splash and feeling the tug on your line before the sun gets up.
You said it! :D
But there's even more of a rush when saltwater fishing at night trolling through the canals going from light to light looking for 30" trout and redfish occasional sheepshead. Using a pop r or however you spell it and seeing the monster fish observing the lure from 5 or so feet away then coming in sitting under it for a second then just exploding on the lure in a frenzy...now that is a rush. When we aren't doing that we are in my neighbors 48 foot deep sea boat pulling in tuna or dolphin or the occasional 400lb blue marlin is quite a rush as the neighbor calls them " the fu$&ing king of the sea" that is a rush you'll never forget
 
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