tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61138916454866961052024-03-12T17:57:46.437-07:00Bass on the Golf CourseTales of a Suburban Kid, on the water and Waving a StickBrandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-67590318430382175682018-08-30T20:18:00.000-07:002018-11-09T20:18:13.434-08:00Party Boat Wreck Fishing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My grandfather was living with us for the summer, but the busyness of my schedule meant that we weren't able to go fishing as much as I would have liked. </div>
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So when the end of August neared, I decided to take us out to the coast for a day wreck fishing on a party boat. The main targets for the day would be black sea bass and red hake (called "ling" locally), both of which would be new species for me. Funnily enough, I had never fished for these locally abundant species before, despite living so close. I was fairly confident that we would encounter sea bass and red hake, but I knew there were opportunities for several other bottom-dwelling fishes. </div>
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The morning came quickly, and at sunrise the boat motored off towards the Atlantic. </div>
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My grandfather enjoying the sunrise</div>
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The boat planned to stop at several inshore wrecks to target Black Sea bass, before moving to deeper water for red hake.<br />
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Upon arrival to the first stop, anglers dropped their lines as did I, and within a few seconds I have a bite and cranked up a double-header of black sea bass, a male and a female. We were using high-low rigs with clams as bait and 6-8 oz sinkers.<br />
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The black sea bass–species #130.<br />
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Both fish were too short, so back they went.<br />
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My grandfather and I did eventually tie into several nicer specimens that we kept for dinner.<br />
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The action was hot, although most fish were short. My grandfather caught a very plump Atlantic chub mackerel that we cut up for bait in addition to the clams.<br />
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Once most people had gotten their limit of two keeper sea bass, the boat left the area and headed east towards deeper water. It took a while to get there, and once we did, it took even longer for the boat to be positioned, since the lack of wind made for a tough drift. The first few spots produced a fish or two for some people, but the action just wasn't present. Finally, at one of the spots I got a little knocked, cranked up 200 feet of line, and pulled up a little baby hake that was missing an eye.<br />
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Species #131, the red hake.<br />
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As slimy as they are, I was able to position this one nicely enough to get a decent photo. </div>
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After the first ling broke the ice, fishing improved and I caught several more hake. A man next to me was consistently catching American conger eels and ocean pout, but I couldn't replicate his success. </div>
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Then on one drop, I got tangled with one of my neighbors (a common occurrence, especially on crowded days). After clearing the tangle, I felt weight on the line and set the hook into what felt like a much more decent fish than the ling we had been catching. Reeling it to the surface was an effort, but I was delighted to see an ocean pout on the end of the line. </div>
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That's species #132, if you're following along. </div>
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The pout was the highlight of my day, one of the strangest fish that inhabits our waters and one that I was really hoping I would encounter. </div>
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Cool as they may be, they present quite a challenge to any person wishing to straighten one out for a quick photo. </div>
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Beautiful pectoral fins on this specimen. </div>
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I ended up finally getting a decent shot of it before sending it back into the ocean. </div>
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One notable comment regarding the ocean pout: ocean pout are able to produce an antifreeze protein to prevent their body fluids from freezing in sub-freezing saltwater. My final project in Biochemistry is on antifreeze proteins in fish, and in researching it I came upon this knowledge; one more interesting thing about this species. </div>
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No more new species would make an appearance, but as the day wound to an end I did get several nicer-sized red hake. </div>
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A solid day fishing with my grandfather; we combined for a multitude of ling and sea bass to take back home to cook. And I got three new species out of the endeavor, bringing me to 132. I am on the road to 150!Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-51986703423825188332018-08-07T16:48:00.000-07:002018-11-20T17:54:24.151-08:00Scientific Illustrator?<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
While I was working at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, in my free time I had been experimenting with scientific-style illustration of fishes. In particular, I had drawn a bluespotted sunfish and a satinfin shiner on Procreate, a digital drawing app I use with my iPad.</div>
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Just for kicks, I decided to post them in some of the online fish enthusiast communities I am a part of, and one of my fish-related acquaintances noticed it. This particular acquaintance of mine is a graduate student working on his dissertation. We discussed matters for a little while, but soon enough I found myself commissioned for a project that would involve the digital illustration of 6 salmonids for a research manuscript. </div>
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I have attached finished versions below, but for a detailed account of my process, click <a href="http://bassonthegolfcourse.blogspot.com/p/scientific-illustration.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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Spawning male kunimasu (<i>Oncorhynchus kawamurae</i>)</div>
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Spawning male stream-spawning sockeye salmon (<i>Oncorhynchus nerka</i>)</div>
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Spawning male lake-spawning sockeye salmon (<i>Oncorhynchus nerka</i>)</div>
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Ferox trout (<i>Salmo trutta</i>)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM5jtUdE3Au-CZwvNOtbI6fRePa5Ypna4vYXZhfY4YG8brb4CsUIBJKPI9ponfmTcoC3vhLFSX-50NboFs-hcKMwn2dY00HLtBbsP1shW0jtUyiwWof7N-abZOZLsUHroN7ux_kSHRIz8/s1600/IMG_5080.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM5jtUdE3Au-CZwvNOtbI6fRePa5Ypna4vYXZhfY4YG8brb4CsUIBJKPI9ponfmTcoC3vhLFSX-50NboFs-hcKMwn2dY00HLtBbsP1shW0jtUyiwWof7N-abZOZLsUHroN7ux_kSHRIz8/s400/IMG_5080.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Gillaroo (<i>Salmo stomachicus</i>)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVcrJYpEI5-C-2qfGKx36kMiUQtHS4Q9H2j3HB0V_VkDByQYxRSBw3absGryHwamJ-wPu1KgwkcC2FOMjPCwNBNtyG8kq2UPrZ5dnRBu6Rg3SKvlOY1dx_13Sdp4aiSUTAiO5dWvOb2I8/s1600/IMG_1320.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVcrJYpEI5-C-2qfGKx36kMiUQtHS4Q9H2j3HB0V_VkDByQYxRSBw3absGryHwamJ-wPu1KgwkcC2FOMjPCwNBNtyG8kq2UPrZ5dnRBu6Rg3SKvlOY1dx_13Sdp4aiSUTAiO5dWvOb2I8/s400/IMG_1320.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Sonaghan (<i>Salmo nigripinnis</i>)</div>
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This project was my first foray into extensive digital painting, and I feel that throughout the process I made notable improvements in technique and understanding of salmonid anatomy. </div>
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Shortly after the six salmonids, another opportunity for me to scientifically illustrate fishes popped up, and this one required work of a significantly simplified style, which was in hindsight very good, as school was just about to begin.</div>
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I was commissioned to draw simplified illustrations of 10 Senegalese fish species that have a potential to control the disease schistosomiasis by eating the host snails which carry the disease at one of its life stages. </div>
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The paper: </div>
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Arostegui MC, Wood CL, Jones IJ, Chamberlin A, Jouanard N, Faye DS, Kuris AM, Riveau G, De Leo GA, Sokolow SH. In</div>
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press. Potential biological control of schistosomiasis by fishes in the lower Senegal River basin. <i>American Journal of</i></div>
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<i> Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2nyhAegQelXbM_r-Skk2wqSa19BJYsBdzY_-H0u-zyZPEhs2YU7DU76SLj5BjjAxHo4WluSulmkD24p3YxAyxgIAsb44jZYAr149OtUT1WuddGA5LiUelxMg8ZEBe2P0XubJRw3QMck/s1600/IMG_4946.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2nyhAegQelXbM_r-Skk2wqSa19BJYsBdzY_-H0u-zyZPEhs2YU7DU76SLj5BjjAxHo4WluSulmkD24p3YxAyxgIAsb44jZYAr149OtUT1WuddGA5LiUelxMg8ZEBe2P0XubJRw3QMck/s200/IMG_4946.PNG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_6U4OTd8kwNBtPOxgMeK2gJSjN-CMCWzft73g4__EMGERUzpTpmvhak-2X9ir507eIdCQkkv4GAsD2uzt-Py2LUNlPnHy2SVjAc_DrdevDJxtMiyWqcDomTiEOPlthYHPw5SO9RIAYLE/s1600/IMG_4948.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_6U4OTd8kwNBtPOxgMeK2gJSjN-CMCWzft73g4__EMGERUzpTpmvhak-2X9ir507eIdCQkkv4GAsD2uzt-Py2LUNlPnHy2SVjAc_DrdevDJxtMiyWqcDomTiEOPlthYHPw5SO9RIAYLE/s200/IMG_4948.PNG" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a></div>
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Synodontis ocellifer Synodontis schall</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgji3O1eaHlmAIBs7RqKeihinXYIWGJ5Z4HVSXbTHzBzyQeJle8J_eSRpVH2eEZW98IdQIT40p3JsmAtq8JDJapkO2uFd6V4-44-rQSqwYG9R-nIUJAXXpWqiDZY9EHKDEQ92ggsE2MYzs/s1600/IMG_4957.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgji3O1eaHlmAIBs7RqKeihinXYIWGJ5Z4HVSXbTHzBzyQeJle8J_eSRpVH2eEZW98IdQIT40p3JsmAtq8JDJapkO2uFd6V4-44-rQSqwYG9R-nIUJAXXpWqiDZY9EHKDEQ92ggsE2MYzs/s200/IMG_4957.PNG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQB417yReJ1-Iaary247FXJsMcMRjyJMLho-2Oq87mScIHrkl74pgoNTCA3tfvqhDZHHbdp2D_XbGqsi-VJ7RpGMAZv6dPT-jCG8EDQc56n_c4Ktk1HPyGSFzzbiMtpmQ4nbakSbiWhq0/s1600/IMG_4945.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQB417yReJ1-Iaary247FXJsMcMRjyJMLho-2Oq87mScIHrkl74pgoNTCA3tfvqhDZHHbdp2D_XbGqsi-VJ7RpGMAZv6dPT-jCG8EDQc56n_c4Ktk1HPyGSFzzbiMtpmQ4nbakSbiWhq0/s200/IMG_4945.PNG" width="200" /></a></div>
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Synodontis nigrita Clarias gariepinus</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOxMoRgh1Kg8HcMYGFHzoHWeDVn6AH0XYf_p2WntpxRZDLjQTFXjHAzbu6Tvo1S6YS_iviG_eUaDgHsffwiGuxCNlCHPq2jNF6hmQC745UNMOv_LVm_Gxk3Fmf6KuO2pLdfcN5d-_eZzo/s1600/IMG_4947.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOxMoRgh1Kg8HcMYGFHzoHWeDVn6AH0XYf_p2WntpxRZDLjQTFXjHAzbu6Tvo1S6YS_iviG_eUaDgHsffwiGuxCNlCHPq2jNF6hmQC745UNMOv_LVm_Gxk3Fmf6KuO2pLdfcN5d-_eZzo/s200/IMG_4947.PNG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJkEeQrlfUTjcyaC0WTbXYf-0-TTKSnsurIh-Ng_Wato1RmnqyzAkZVux4T7TW0A-qMBEjuOt7rTzH2A0bCEDlDZ5NMejj1-Jd6IZUrcxalDoz0CzP1-LhdWvpq1OTKApp9-7Gn2S1Kng/s1600/IMG_4956.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJkEeQrlfUTjcyaC0WTbXYf-0-TTKSnsurIh-Ng_Wato1RmnqyzAkZVux4T7TW0A-qMBEjuOt7rTzH2A0bCEDlDZ5NMejj1-Jd6IZUrcxalDoz0CzP1-LhdWvpq1OTKApp9-7Gn2S1Kng/s200/IMG_4956.PNG" width="200" /></a></div>
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Malapterurus electricus Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH60ciGCNLKk66CS7znOqcKsAfqTubConHp6hJ-IC-zMt42VJJmMEEsKddS4OMe6CTN1kbXnbEy9eRP1MTQFTWefSHQEKWDLhauZaJt3l9KyY1dVpaF6mtvxKrfRMFkNw9wp11MaIhhQc/s1600/IMG_4954.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH60ciGCNLKk66CS7znOqcKsAfqTubConHp6hJ-IC-zMt42VJJmMEEsKddS4OMe6CTN1kbXnbEy9eRP1MTQFTWefSHQEKWDLhauZaJt3l9KyY1dVpaF6mtvxKrfRMFkNw9wp11MaIhhQc/s200/IMG_4954.PNG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQZV3JqzrR8fNornu1UrnBd1gZ1356UeHRlk17Sqbxv6uz5AYc9HOYfGuqgN7eGwsYcn6GOqlDZi2RhNQkTWPKoli-PsfsLJVlmfJah7CVnLhowJ1CFdYbS3LR0kuv05V2PGKtWpVeHs/s1600/IMG_4944.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQZV3JqzrR8fNornu1UrnBd1gZ1356UeHRlk17Sqbxv6uz5AYc9HOYfGuqgN7eGwsYcn6GOqlDZi2RhNQkTWPKoli-PsfsLJVlmfJah7CVnLhowJ1CFdYbS3LR0kuv05V2PGKtWpVeHs/s200/IMG_4944.PNG" width="200" /></a></div>
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Labeo senegalensis Hemichromus bimaculatus</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt5m8sDAOU9y3-TCsQzWE4aUS0lgM9YV1iHQ3YhG7JcKJtDoSuY4UlCIVHhq6WbDZsVLONGEbUzdFhKqnh0ogpbRZTMmigsh78RLu0bmEeGBqap2W7YXBA7pzb340n8aFbzE0K5f5kuwg/s1600/IMG_4958.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt5m8sDAOU9y3-TCsQzWE4aUS0lgM9YV1iHQ3YhG7JcKJtDoSuY4UlCIVHhq6WbDZsVLONGEbUzdFhKqnh0ogpbRZTMmigsh78RLu0bmEeGBqap2W7YXBA7pzb340n8aFbzE0K5f5kuwg/s200/IMG_4958.PNG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRWOpcLfFpePnYImGuctv-CVe2Qksz979sNggQ_Z5Bb7M30orDP6FGj9et7VSImu-bklbYSoG85yoF4_jWsxaaFuvPoMGGxiM_qQc4LUANwwUxeVxDL3LkFSoWHToIXd902rPiSRuZ-iA/s1600/IMG_4955.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRWOpcLfFpePnYImGuctv-CVe2Qksz979sNggQ_Z5Bb7M30orDP6FGj9et7VSImu-bklbYSoG85yoF4_jWsxaaFuvPoMGGxiM_qQc4LUANwwUxeVxDL3LkFSoWHToIXd902rPiSRuZ-iA/s200/IMG_4955.PNG" width="200" /></a></div>
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Citharinus citharus Protopterus annectens</div>
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Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-34551576659434501182018-07-01T17:07:00.000-07:002018-11-18T17:08:11.253-08:00ANSP Internship–The beginning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
One of the things I was really excited about for the summer was the opportunity to work as a summer intern in the Ichthyology Dep. at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. </div>
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One of my teachers, Dr. Clark, knew someone who used to work there and urged me to contact him, as he knew I had a passion for fish and the natural sciences. I got in touch with Dr. L, Dr. Clark's acquaintance, and he pointed me to Dr. S.</div>
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After several conversations with Dr. S, we came to an agreement for me to work several weeks at the Academy.</div>
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This would be the start of a wonderful experience; one that would foster my personal development in addition to being exciting and fulfilling.</div>
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June rolled around, and it was time for me to head to Philly. I had never lived alone in a big city for such an extended period of time before, so I was happy to see how I would fare in a new environment. I had found a college dorm that a student was sub-leasing for the summer in a great location that allowed me to walk pretty much anywhere I needed to go. Still, it was a lot of walking. I regret not bringing a bike, and going back home to get one was not worth the effort. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ143Xh_pigl-WpxE-D3ovw4xQjoZzpAjsWPCPP9sVknFKsEVM3EwuNUVDVxIzXRQJf-Ee3QX5IaUxDm5GOfjKRjScelboOS3Lx3E8ofdN0EjO9tPj1t08nmTkPccwAJBUTV6VDhLIwWI/s1600/07F22FD7-C9D7-47A7-907D-B5A024D90FA7-349-0000001CA8959019.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1237" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ143Xh_pigl-WpxE-D3ovw4xQjoZzpAjsWPCPP9sVknFKsEVM3EwuNUVDVxIzXRQJf-Ee3QX5IaUxDm5GOfjKRjScelboOS3Lx3E8ofdN0EjO9tPj1t08nmTkPccwAJBUTV6VDhLIwWI/s640/07F22FD7-C9D7-47A7-907D-B5A024D90FA7-349-0000001CA8959019.png" width="494" /></a></div>
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The first couple days at ANSP was primarily a learning experience for me. Although I have a strong passion for fish, with regards to ichthyology I have barely scratched the surface.<br />
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I spent much of my time reading publications and books and learning fish skeletal anatomy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsg8PILmIgUDPvawzp5rrVD1YZxrPv5ypbsvSvbs5mpGT3n9IJjx9T803-dGZp0G4NBsabQ4_sunbgnexjs4LafW5a5l6dvQ3qpXV1GcZ7iANXiAgPWnVGh_SWYpKkPelRFNxcLPzx-N8/s1600/IMG_0689.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsg8PILmIgUDPvawzp5rrVD1YZxrPv5ypbsvSvbs5mpGT3n9IJjx9T803-dGZp0G4NBsabQ4_sunbgnexjs4LafW5a5l6dvQ3qpXV1GcZ7iANXiAgPWnVGh_SWYpKkPelRFNxcLPzx-N8/s400/IMG_0689.JPG" width="300" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5dWaVfbw1RFv9VRiy3X9pVanB0LPqLKruV52xirKuzeTOTiVB-_Epi4-nj8pouYnOnuZvtfX6QdNIrvmoxsHEHF1s1ryw6oSRnzMvQwq7ZNUufwQeJljmrQ0DEXKvGNZ8O42uJxdrYg/s1600/IMG_0688.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5dWaVfbw1RFv9VRiy3X9pVanB0LPqLKruV52xirKuzeTOTiVB-_Epi4-nj8pouYnOnuZvtfX6QdNIrvmoxsHEHF1s1ryw6oSRnzMvQwq7ZNUufwQeJljmrQ0DEXKvGNZ8O42uJxdrYg/s400/IMG_0688.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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I also familiarized myself with the software that I would be using in the future to digitally dissect and label CT scans of fishes too small to clear and stain or physically dissect. This method of analyzing a species' morphology provides clearer data to make distinctions between specimens based off of morphology.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOnSWHlQSDYLfzAcs7EtRBBljuWXzOuQlWCFiQZM3S4oa9dRGOLNknucRx_Ldaz_kPziJtxw_Ux8h7XyM4N6kzQJ2ztYoJvVl6KUSMagRe5HEu4pZvSMipNJ0VZOmJ7Emrt0ukrgdun3Q/s1600/IMG_0690.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOnSWHlQSDYLfzAcs7EtRBBljuWXzOuQlWCFiQZM3S4oa9dRGOLNknucRx_Ldaz_kPziJtxw_Ux8h7XyM4N6kzQJ2ztYoJvVl6KUSMagRe5HEu4pZvSMipNJ0VZOmJ7Emrt0ukrgdun3Q/s640/IMG_0690.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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My favorite part of the Academy were the collections: There were walls upon walls filled with jars of preserved fishes. I had never seen anything remotely like it, and each jar was just as fascinating as the next.<br />
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One particular specimen from one of the oldest collections in the Academy caught my eye: the label read <i>Catostomus elongates</i>. The reason it caught my eye was that I wasn't aware of any such species existing. Upon opening the box, however, it became clear that this was <i>Cycleptus elongatus</i>, the blue sucker, but the specimen was so old, that at the time taxonomists had placed it in the <i>Catostomus </i>genus with the long nose and white suckers. Incredible.<br />
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Ah, yes: reading. </div>
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When I had some free time I would walk over to the Fairmount dam and watch Northern Snakeheads (Channa argus) swim in the heaving current by the surface. What they were doing is unclear, but they would not respond to any lures the local fisherman were throwing at them. Several were snagged, however, and tossed onto the bank.<br />
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I spotted a cheeky longnose gar on one of the statues in the city. </div>
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Some of the structures I was studying. </div>
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A coelacanth replica mount in the department library, where I would spend much of my time reading or doing an errand of sorts.</div>
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As nonnative as they are (just like almost every other fish in the river, btw), you hate to see wanton waste like this. </div>
<br />Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-20721321495959556192018-06-21T19:24:00.000-07:002018-10-20T19:25:17.873-07:00A Channel Catfish AttemptThe start of the contest meant the annual rite of the channel catfish trip. The previous summer, I had landed my personal best of ~12 lbs. As this spot has always produced for me, I thought of it as sure-fire for my contest channel.<br />
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Thus, on a fine afternoon my friend Alex and I headed to the locale armed with cutbait and bottom and float rigs.<br />
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A northern watersnake holding his prize catch of the day greeted us.<br />
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A yellow bullhead meets an unfortunate fate</div>
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While the action was hot, we initially had trouble connecting with takes. While tossing out bigger cutbait on sliding sinker rigs, I also placed a smaller suspended bait under a float right next to shore by some overhanging brush.<br />
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Lo and behold, that rig was the first to go off. There's no adrenaline rush like seeing a float trotting off and shooting underwater, whether that be fishing for bluegills in a creek or casting livebaits for pike.<br />
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I tightened up, and realized quickly that I was connected to a very solid brown bullhead—my biggest ever, actually. It didn't take long for me to get it in, but I did baby it a little since the fish was hooked by a tiny flap of skin. Absurdly enough, this bullhead completely cleared the water twice, almost tailwalking—a behavior I had never observed nor heard of any catfish species doing.<br />
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I do believe that this brown bullhead is my personal best for this species, which is always a good achievement. Furthermore, it added to my tally for the June contest.<br />
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Later on, while we were still lacking any sign of channel catfish, I was messing around with freelining chunks of bait by a ledge when I inadvertently tangled my line with an angry watersnake (there was no shortage of snakes in the area that day). After a struggle in getting the creature free, I realized that a fish of decent caliber was on the other end of the line. I passed the rod to Alex, so he could have a go at it.<br />
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In the meantime, another bottom rig went off with a hard hit, but upon reeling it in I knew it was a small bass. Landing the bass quickly, I then netted the channel catfish which Alex had at this point brought to shore.<br />
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A double header! Quite ironic, after going so long without any sign of life.<br />
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While Alex had caught a channel catfish, I had yet to do so and I still needed one for the contest. As a last resort, I send out some smaller rigs with half a nightcrawler on each instead of half a bluegill, and quickly picked up my smallest channel ever, a cute and oddly blue-colored specimen. A species is a species!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6-JjJgH3JKIzfKLctmM5bx1YC6icCUVBLZrMurz5C6ECRhKMI-mKSa37NQ73IMkZaJLcBxs0cJrIQ86131jdyxOOHX9Hpr8GwIiwrAmmmCNJvNzleQzsBelv8wHGlrHHIFyRmNG97pHI/s1600/IMG_0777.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6-JjJgH3JKIzfKLctmM5bx1YC6icCUVBLZrMurz5C6ECRhKMI-mKSa37NQ73IMkZaJLcBxs0cJrIQ86131jdyxOOHX9Hpr8GwIiwrAmmmCNJvNzleQzsBelv8wHGlrHHIFyRmNG97pHI/s640/IMG_0777.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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With that we decided to call it an outing—a personal best and two more contest entries were more than enough, although we never did encounter a behemoth catfish.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-17612430542504934222018-06-21T18:58:00.000-07:002018-10-20T18:59:02.235-07:00Start of Summer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
In accordance with tradition, June began with my annual participation in the Roughfish.com Spring Species contest. Although I have yet to have winning aspirations (this year especially), it's always fun to see what local species I can scrounge up within a month. </div>
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Of course, I had to kick things off with the obligatory golf course session, which provided 2 species in short order, the largemouth bass and the bluegill. While I would have loved to stay and have fun with these guys, the big bull bluegills in particular, I had some other easy fish to check off the list. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosZ0wPTOOd5g3uDaJnUuoC_i7AENnV_uB5DjIDZG_tMlfgBc4hrOVwkOU4UXTcCxAUAMk-3I4SxB2nRz4GJdWmoPal7E2CQUOi7U3S2F6fkBGRQei2IKjXM4IDra4edt6aw3dfpJMNHU/s1600/IMG_0658.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosZ0wPTOOd5g3uDaJnUuoC_i7AENnV_uB5DjIDZG_tMlfgBc4hrOVwkOU4UXTcCxAUAMk-3I4SxB2nRz4GJdWmoPal7E2CQUOi7U3S2F6fkBGRQei2IKjXM4IDra4edt6aw3dfpJMNHU/s640/IMG_0658.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqzZUESB-8VWFVoTnLb3rX1DNFi0U3wtlNL7mESdp13If8AefOIObzxXH8j2ca03Ln0sKnqVJyYhKPtrH-Xpsmql_k805b-oDd7nmTfv2myKEWeB8Aen7Ii5NMjaOjcvGKxspPisYz6c/s1600/IMG_0660.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqzZUESB-8VWFVoTnLb3rX1DNFi0U3wtlNL7mESdp13If8AefOIObzxXH8j2ca03Ln0sKnqVJyYhKPtrH-Xpsmql_k805b-oDd7nmTfv2myKEWeB8Aen7Ii5NMjaOjcvGKxspPisYz6c/s640/IMG_0660.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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To find some more, I headed down to the outlet of the pond, the tiny creek through the golf course. Creek chubs came easily with a small jig.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisN16JMXmrlgZUhMNqON7C-ePNlYXWwirVaS6zKTfW-7-5JyPQelOM_733jcQI8rh0YHbYAxsv_0PEcZMmQ7S67BQI-AvabDvXAy_ABj71Qs5fDB8JEKz5B8PZxa8kWEd2W3zbMUcnSrA/s1600/IMG_0667.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisN16JMXmrlgZUhMNqON7C-ePNlYXWwirVaS6zKTfW-7-5JyPQelOM_733jcQI8rh0YHbYAxsv_0PEcZMmQ7S67BQI-AvabDvXAy_ABj71Qs5fDB8JEKz5B8PZxa8kWEd2W3zbMUcnSrA/s640/IMG_0667.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Followed by a pretty, albeit small, pumpkinseed. A species is a species. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdtHYT_qi1d_LZXDJxAs28BOduA9IQqoY7FYqSbvDYmmcAVhdDUcKY1g38RzjEZnafASuHtPVShFvQ7BAc8HO_4u3Us5Y2QkicXmjzhc349ySTTxC8j2fHk7BNVpwrH3q4D3pabvqfixg/s1600/IMG_0670.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdtHYT_qi1d_LZXDJxAs28BOduA9IQqoY7FYqSbvDYmmcAVhdDUcKY1g38RzjEZnafASuHtPVShFvQ7BAc8HO_4u3Us5Y2QkicXmjzhc349ySTTxC8j2fHk7BNVpwrH3q4D3pabvqfixg/s640/IMG_0670.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The green sunfish took slightly more effort. Technically an invasive species in New Jersey, they are definitely established in the local creek but for some reason never attain large sizes or numbers, as they are outcompeted by the various other <i>Lepomis</i> species occupying the same niche. Eventually, though, I found a small one in the shallows and sightfished it with a jig. Since greens have proportionally larger mouths than their <i>Lepomis</i> counterparts, this tiny specimen had no problem inhaling my presentation.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAVswnxSte2A1CduVgALOw2AOuHI55uNZqdkeA0zCoNfLQAqGIZ92cj7FYsTYhUEGer4PBOg_OW18p0e153lwu7sQW9HlEo3-cru3_27-p4CeTkV5XQoswkvvN9_FicZf0bOQMQwnnYjk/s1600/IMG_0673.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAVswnxSte2A1CduVgALOw2AOuHI55uNZqdkeA0zCoNfLQAqGIZ92cj7FYsTYhUEGer4PBOg_OW18p0e153lwu7sQW9HlEo3-cru3_27-p4CeTkV5XQoswkvvN9_FicZf0bOQMQwnnYjk/s640/IMG_0673.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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It fit the button perfectly, replacing this years contest mascot: the mooneye.<br />
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A trip to another section yielded further staples, the redbreast sunfish and the rock bass. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhDVXnGaOGLS-gyMk766J-VKPz_LLjoNmdnIZ3x1qzM-tyDk3lmzXh27w5UanIk5BG3etr9aDz2-S8JP0tEwSOhlbV0ySGMnjpM6Oq3WlETR1SP_0OwG_pG54zWGgnznFRfuXCLxhyphenhyphenr7s/s1600/IMG_0677.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhDVXnGaOGLS-gyMk766J-VKPz_LLjoNmdnIZ3x1qzM-tyDk3lmzXh27w5UanIk5BG3etr9aDz2-S8JP0tEwSOhlbV0ySGMnjpM6Oq3WlETR1SP_0OwG_pG54zWGgnznFRfuXCLxhyphenhyphenr7s/s640/IMG_0677.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7VHmret3c7oTeWKhnrerVd-q3CxkKaq9HhJ79d5KCeVuyk3tbA_e5kADXs6vv9A6yxRlLafz8UFdi-WFmqZ7hfpyRBl4R2He1gIBcTTTduKhKblrexyfR-6lGo5RtbwN3pfv-w7Q1GjY/s1600/IMG_0681.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7VHmret3c7oTeWKhnrerVd-q3CxkKaq9HhJ79d5KCeVuyk3tbA_e5kADXs6vv9A6yxRlLafz8UFdi-WFmqZ7hfpyRBl4R2He1gIBcTTTduKhKblrexyfR-6lGo5RtbwN3pfv-w7Q1GjY/s640/IMG_0681.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Those targets, caught relatively fast, would end my contest endeavors for the time being, since I had other matters of interest to pursue.<br />
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Most infuriating of which would most definitely be my (many) futile attempts to capture a creek chubsucker on hook and line. These notoriously spooky and finicky fish showed zero regard to any of my strategies, and not for lack of effort on my part.<br />
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To save you from the incredibly exciting tale of me perching motionless in the summer sun for hours on end, I'll cut to the notable bits, of which weren't especially notable.<br />
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Suffice it to say, the closest I got to a creek chubsucker was a half-eaten dead individual.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7JFpXqAFGBrTz8ZN67yngEf1uvdT-gBA_vhsyME11USxZUzhq8S_fih2O-XNxPazUQMr5n31XUDZ-OfLOz1E5zCfsoXgIgIPlNxAlIWGUmPt2KW0Z4RAygImf6soGna9okg0Pysaoxo/s1600/IMG_0718.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7JFpXqAFGBrTz8ZN67yngEf1uvdT-gBA_vhsyME11USxZUzhq8S_fih2O-XNxPazUQMr5n31XUDZ-OfLOz1E5zCfsoXgIgIPlNxAlIWGUmPt2KW0Z4RAygImf6soGna9okg0Pysaoxo/s640/IMG_0718.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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And from a angling standpoint, I found it amusing to catch a tiny green sunfish on a blade of grass I accidentally hooked. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifCmXpMfrHJvLyekUxhnby7BGhKDVyjuubD7hV5iMmK98UAJNsvYT8Cp4cWz01Jc1MaIpdS2Me2VyUHeDRoQZAqTw7VwZp3-XKEEE4IoBCsnmQJu-5HTKGmVMcFXN0aSF0s7oSGmBv9mI/s1600/IMG_0729.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifCmXpMfrHJvLyekUxhnby7BGhKDVyjuubD7hV5iMmK98UAJNsvYT8Cp4cWz01Jc1MaIpdS2Me2VyUHeDRoQZAqTw7VwZp3-XKEEE4IoBCsnmQJu-5HTKGmVMcFXN0aSF0s7oSGmBv9mI/s640/IMG_0729.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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My futile efforts towards the creek chubsucker did yield several enjoyable finds: a green frog and a northern watersnake, two commonplace inhabitants of the local microhabitat.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNkGVnjh5LCQBGE393lGNd5XTNi4DMUT2IzO2qaQ68SuaQKrJQIsFIs7aQ3T5zo-IHMrfGOCvEYcwVe0vFGLnE4nF4YIC9zCwCXeQdxF1PGAR6B-47zoIlnvnrydhu8Hkom74AZaAr7F0/s1600/IMG_0741.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNkGVnjh5LCQBGE393lGNd5XTNi4DMUT2IzO2qaQ68SuaQKrJQIsFIs7aQ3T5zo-IHMrfGOCvEYcwVe0vFGLnE4nF4YIC9zCwCXeQdxF1PGAR6B-47zoIlnvnrydhu8Hkom74AZaAr7F0/s640/IMG_0741.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYNuwPzWjhsp2BxWa1DUsJCnQV70YGZGoa818baNP089Tg_WyoiyK7oT5QDFgE0v_6vNvl0BiuA8yMYiMhBFNqEbhF0lm0G2vyZxt6CEWWQrkkWZj3_VDjPognuFbOVSRYC93_ErRZAMA/s1600/IMG_0722.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYNuwPzWjhsp2BxWa1DUsJCnQV70YGZGoa818baNP089Tg_WyoiyK7oT5QDFgE0v_6vNvl0BiuA8yMYiMhBFNqEbhF0lm0G2vyZxt6CEWWQrkkWZj3_VDjPognuFbOVSRYC93_ErRZAMA/s640/IMG_0722.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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And while no catches were particularly exciting in any fashion, the effort was a good way to kick off the summer by returning to my roots.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-17576547857031408842018-04-27T15:07:00.000-07:002018-10-14T09:21:46.171-07:00Armchair Lifer: Cutthroat Trout<span id="goog_1751388294"></span><span id="goog_1751388295"></span>Sometimes in the world of lifelist fishing, anglers realize they have caught a new species of fish long after the fish has been captured when looking at some old photos; that species is called an armchair lifer—supposedly the angler is sitting at his armchair and not fishing, hence the name.<br />
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Anyways, I was going over my old photos and came across this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSc6aatIbxWp5v8ZXOf_5j40L0vfR4vhGU-L6R7jVF6mXhlUKlgkbJg4VJoH57luaDLQ59Oc4iPFu1YoaG_eABxdWDEBZkpvrhhTePm_mZpL8dcorlE9YCkbwCXcnMsrlcl_k2rQ316g/s1600/1779E2BC-4D72-43A8-9DF3-9035FCF5A4EF-8130-0000029F8896FDD5.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSc6aatIbxWp5v8ZXOf_5j40L0vfR4vhGU-L6R7jVF6mXhlUKlgkbJg4VJoH57luaDLQ59Oc4iPFu1YoaG_eABxdWDEBZkpvrhhTePm_mZpL8dcorlE9YCkbwCXcnMsrlcl_k2rQ316g/s640/1779E2BC-4D72-43A8-9DF3-9035FCF5A4EF-8130-0000029F8896FDD5.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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This fish was caught way back in 2014, in Lake Crescent, Washington. I had identified it as a beardslee trout, <i>Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus</i> f. loc. <i>beardsleei</i>. This is a local form of coastal rainbow trout endemic to Lake Crescent. At the time, I thought that the above fish was a beardslee and thus my lifer rainbow trout. </div>
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Upon further, more recent consideration, I have determined that this fish is actually a crescenti cutthroat trout, <i>Oncorhynchus clarki clarki</i> f. loc. <i>crescenti, </i>a local form of coastal cutthroat trout also endemic to Lake Crescent.</div>
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Some factors playing in to my identification:</div>
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- Fin pigmentation: coastal cutthroats, as well as crescenti cutthroats, have yellowish fins and often display brighter oranges at the fin tips. Beardslee rainbows have clear fins.</div>
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- Color: Crescenti cutthroat have a greenish tinge, while beardslee are generally a deeper blue. </div>
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- Head proportions: the maxilla of the cutthroat is generally longer, as are the jaws. </div>
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- Spotting below lateral line: In crescenti cutthroats, there are much more spots below the lateral line, and those spots are more well-defined. </div>
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- Cutthroat marking: although coastal cutthroat trout sometimes lack the "cutthroat marking," and certain subspecies of rainbow trout sometimes possess it, you can see a tiny bit of pigment where the cut should be.</div>
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For comparison, here are some images of crescenti cutthroat trout:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxKnYs__H5QoGbNVpEm8yjck4QE8yI2qu_fNzlUszB9Nlmo0dcmakpBigXnxU7_OFnAHiv0XvNcW2L1yRqSroDhJzEd_ivr4W4_-dKJykn-WbA3T4DgNsqj-mAmXRSojH3kcJSlAlBK4/s1600/IMG_4414.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxKnYs__H5QoGbNVpEm8yjck4QE8yI2qu_fNzlUszB9Nlmo0dcmakpBigXnxU7_OFnAHiv0XvNcW2L1yRqSroDhJzEd_ivr4W4_-dKJykn-WbA3T4DgNsqj-mAmXRSojH3kcJSlAlBK4/s640/IMG_4414.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHk8HRzo2MaVqvv1KMbH6jzC7eXkhfSNDiI_hOrOAXVtR_FLOfBXNAFSpzwzxFTmMktBnU6hJVbeDO_LfqRal2ImmZXMZbwx_8ondkCc-d5V5w-FAQYf3y5OC7h0CWfz9N_PV_wYZpFjY/s1600/IMG_4412.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="956" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHk8HRzo2MaVqvv1KMbH6jzC7eXkhfSNDiI_hOrOAXVtR_FLOfBXNAFSpzwzxFTmMktBnU6hJVbeDO_LfqRal2ImmZXMZbwx_8ondkCc-d5V5w-FAQYf3y5OC7h0CWfz9N_PV_wYZpFjY/s640/IMG_4412.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Xn_h7mBDOHIU0-q16RLCNAwtovz0p6hO48eburQauoVBGuRiw4YnUXESmBUhXEaE_Y4My5FAd4Yq735txyayO-bmkzx1SkTJcWCot21L-nkJ-5BUay-wxAFdRKrxr26MZWghcoeDXIM/s1600/IMG_4415.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Xn_h7mBDOHIU0-q16RLCNAwtovz0p6hO48eburQauoVBGuRiw4YnUXESmBUhXEaE_Y4My5FAd4Yq735txyayO-bmkzx1SkTJcWCot21L-nkJ-5BUay-wxAFdRKrxr26MZWghcoeDXIM/s640/IMG_4415.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjecx7MfN2WzzdIQa87baR_F1sph3kG3DoGlXhI8ONlZ62JTzr6S0Fq-EjpqeKVr2XUGxGCoSUl2GTfMdEFnXoBkZKWLQbcCkanIDXgCHrqQhaUfcmWBC-gsEMHI0YPjYWBAX9g4uevJzI/s1600/IMG_4413.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjecx7MfN2WzzdIQa87baR_F1sph3kG3DoGlXhI8ONlZ62JTzr6S0Fq-EjpqeKVr2XUGxGCoSUl2GTfMdEFnXoBkZKWLQbcCkanIDXgCHrqQhaUfcmWBC-gsEMHI0YPjYWBAX9g4uevJzI/s640/IMG_4413.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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And here are some images of beardslee rainbow trout:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9r0-_w-nuu1_UuZKLdcOjQPlcu1vxRRer1nkQOkuXzOHyEF2Hc-AINi5Kuk2bm3comvkYw0Amu2Yct6YPHHrMqRTQuISF8QtOrvr1aMMEd8ieRVxpjGjtJu8uTHTmgtg5jnk6NJlpOo/s1600/IMG_4416.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9r0-_w-nuu1_UuZKLdcOjQPlcu1vxRRer1nkQOkuXzOHyEF2Hc-AINi5Kuk2bm3comvkYw0Amu2Yct6YPHHrMqRTQuISF8QtOrvr1aMMEd8ieRVxpjGjtJu8uTHTmgtg5jnk6NJlpOo/s640/IMG_4416.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYITWO9rYl2gGckKBjOyxoEGztT7YAgxs7vHLYgTkNwTlIBBAShiGMdIYwBX3xZQLVVkiaSlbq51MMLl6EoZ5-Q4zbIQfsiayZUEwsqbP2_45V4LcW1ooJaOcsVfvauJHx27LhBAds9Cw/s1600/IMG_4417.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="960" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYITWO9rYl2gGckKBjOyxoEGztT7YAgxs7vHLYgTkNwTlIBBAShiGMdIYwBX3xZQLVVkiaSlbq51MMLl6EoZ5-Q4zbIQfsiayZUEwsqbP2_45V4LcW1ooJaOcsVfvauJHx27LhBAds9Cw/s640/IMG_4417.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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This means that the cutthroat trout belongs on my lifelist, at the moment bringing my total up to 127 species of fish. It also means that I caught a cutthroat trout before a rainbow, which I think is pretty cool. </div>
Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-71942057710934867012018-03-20T11:49:00.000-07:002018-10-14T09:31:34.028-07:00Fishing Ecuador (again)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
March 2018 led me to Ecuador again, on a similar botanical research expedition to the Cordillera del Condor region near the Peruvian border.</div>
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I was beyond excited to have the opportunity to fish South America once more; this time I was determined to encounter a greater diversity of species.</div>
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Like last time, fishing was a side project of mine, so I was always trying to use every possible bit of free time by the water. This year, due to either pure luck or increased knowledge and skill, the results were far better. </div>
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The very first drift with a bit of worm under a float in a current seam resulted in a fish and a new species, <i>Astyanax </i>sp. cf. <i>bimaculatus.</i></div>
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This is where the taxonomy starts getting confusing, as was the case for many of the species I caught on this trip. This particular<i> Astyanax </i>is a member of the massive <i>A. bimaculatus</i> group, most likely an undescribed species. However, as I have not caught <i>A. bimaculatus </i>before, this is species #118.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6bkb8BQYTTW3zq5pitFC10fxgmmC1PThVCzK1TKFCUd7k80Vt7Ygsd11isjWGwxTYv2q3OIqGIRXp3XuMHMOG2J0v1dg11_L7sapNjhHEhltyxwFmnX1E9dycuKpn7O-CJzh0POBdT_8/s1600/IMG_3809.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6bkb8BQYTTW3zq5pitFC10fxgmmC1PThVCzK1TKFCUd7k80Vt7Ygsd11isjWGwxTYv2q3OIqGIRXp3XuMHMOG2J0v1dg11_L7sapNjhHEhltyxwFmnX1E9dycuKpn7O-CJzh0POBdT_8/s640/IMG_3809.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The <i>Astyanax</i> was it for the day, but I returned after sundown for a quick session and connected with a catfish species, <i>Cetopsis plumbea, </i>species #119. Interestingly enough, I only caught these fish in the pitch black of night—their vestigial eyes are also under their skin, as they have no use for them.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglVzfQ-t9ZwF5nVY-Hso_Ng_6q8TkTOMzYjxfeh2bwr-NqtmRCb3gPrWsMUBWH8rwSnnFAEG3utnKPyic9s7Ft7KqOn-AFgI5a_mlc729ApaQyP6mjboc-vHIIs1XPjtgWqeHErfJFtsc/s1600/IMG_3757.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1168" data-original-width="1558" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglVzfQ-t9ZwF5nVY-Hso_Ng_6q8TkTOMzYjxfeh2bwr-NqtmRCb3gPrWsMUBWH8rwSnnFAEG3utnKPyic9s7Ft7KqOn-AFgI5a_mlc729ApaQyP6mjboc-vHIIs1XPjtgWqeHErfJFtsc/s640/IMG_3757.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The next morning I was greeted by a <i>Bryconamericus</i> sp. I am fairly sure that this is the same species as I caught the previous year, so as of now, it is not a new species. However, since it remains unidentified, this status is open to revisions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCuB9IS9yd1c-IRU4nS_LQvxUKSPCKn-Ia5OMzqUyGVhawVzxdIEQgaBMeAcln2_1rgi8FRwMKkbcuHExCZaN2fnkoaNayoGoCUqbgUnQnXWbryiy1M2QlH3UbAOSCmakrb2nvSlx23Q/s1600/IMG_3753.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCuB9IS9yd1c-IRU4nS_LQvxUKSPCKn-Ia5OMzqUyGVhawVzxdIEQgaBMeAcln2_1rgi8FRwMKkbcuHExCZaN2fnkoaNayoGoCUqbgUnQnXWbryiy1M2QlH3UbAOSCmakrb2nvSlx23Q/s640/IMG_3753.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyP9IBhLmJohv6am30rkBI66O4C9ZLHWLPujU_W30TBMgWGReNE6NfupE0mM3t7bLejCMdPEd02Zkt1N4voqz_G-oQIKUaauA23NvwqTm2ETeGGL8gafzDq739gfbivjVMgpktX7FQSZM/s1600/IMG_3746.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyP9IBhLmJohv6am30rkBI66O4C9ZLHWLPujU_W30TBMgWGReNE6NfupE0mM3t7bLejCMdPEd02Zkt1N4voqz_G-oQIKUaauA23NvwqTm2ETeGGL8gafzDq739gfbivjVMgpktX7FQSZM/s640/IMG_3746.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The current around the bend prevented me for fishing in the main channel, but using some of the smaller characins as cut bait in the slightly deeper water to the side, I received a solid whack on my rod and was ecstatic when I saw a pike cichlid on the end of my line! These voracious predators are high on my bucket list of fish to catch, and their diversity is incredible.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyndofqAmenHW452YgTMO0EC0MVM8qHOSVlLQEDOX4ePncIhMgUU6aUeA0g6IiyLhE2U37zBNXI9Y0PfirkbsbW3TSPC0oz1sTakufpa3DMDWNYKOI5vXHEoGMq8Hkx5juOqIOar230cY/s1600/IMG_3744.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyndofqAmenHW452YgTMO0EC0MVM8qHOSVlLQEDOX4ePncIhMgUU6aUeA0g6IiyLhE2U37zBNXI9Y0PfirkbsbW3TSPC0oz1sTakufpa3DMDWNYKOI5vXHEoGMq8Hkx5juOqIOar230cY/s640/IMG_3744.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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I believe this species is <i>Crenicichla anthurus</i>, species #120.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kQjbzHbN9kiGLRC1NfwU7iBf9MVE0ml3qHkio_TEUhf0yzcobWwo5SA0Ja1lNDbjpsheKuf83zLg32WqtMme2WVawIuiuVe6oMoiKZScEsL4YCxh5VMWZBTy5JQk1OadyP23usPD8RQ/s1600/IMG_3736.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kQjbzHbN9kiGLRC1NfwU7iBf9MVE0ml3qHkio_TEUhf0yzcobWwo5SA0Ja1lNDbjpsheKuf83zLg32WqtMme2WVawIuiuVe6oMoiKZScEsL4YCxh5VMWZBTy5JQk1OadyP23usPD8RQ/s640/IMG_3736.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0zY1NNBA3kyAOj2MjxgwoJWYWWx49zF1IgdZUdv3UrnQG2-zyJ7dOj63DWzieuQnnPM-PCwycyG95qgzv2tnB3fnn_eKrwzaWX-HDBRA_Gmh1Ac6k-UPZLAwTdiuSY03bgYL6FoiM70s/s1600/IMG_3735.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0zY1NNBA3kyAOj2MjxgwoJWYWWx49zF1IgdZUdv3UrnQG2-zyJ7dOj63DWzieuQnnPM-PCwycyG95qgzv2tnB3fnn_eKrwzaWX-HDBRA_Gmh1Ac6k-UPZLAwTdiuSY03bgYL6FoiM70s/s640/IMG_3735.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gbpTC8dHvmP42ru-jarDQsTFAinyfnfnwQhdZ03Bo_VLkVk-yaQ6TGIRpNmB6yDpj5XX4QAWDpswV811pfnUNe3uzCvem1njamtFl4sgOR006cXoRXHFbDYVMR8cQqZ-eNKH1ruOaG8/s1600/IMG_3732.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gbpTC8dHvmP42ru-jarDQsTFAinyfnfnwQhdZ03Bo_VLkVk-yaQ6TGIRpNmB6yDpj5XX4QAWDpswV811pfnUNe3uzCvem1njamtFl4sgOR006cXoRXHFbDYVMR8cQqZ-eNKH1ruOaG8/s400/IMG_3732.JPG" width="300" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiF7D6kUDXI67CQnllNJyaNrE5mjSIqaRxEeT8rerYHwTtqO_nnpAUiZ-SPdVr6teOFDZQXWWTydQyYkvwL3xgNuug9-JgRQJRyIdPuDuGaYmauM6-ihrbFkdG7zKJ2PPUiBiyjDoCZwA/s1600/IMG_3731.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiF7D6kUDXI67CQnllNJyaNrE5mjSIqaRxEeT8rerYHwTtqO_nnpAUiZ-SPdVr6teOFDZQXWWTydQyYkvwL3xgNuug9-JgRQJRyIdPuDuGaYmauM6-ihrbFkdG7zKJ2PPUiBiyjDoCZwA/s400/IMG_3731.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemvbMDujXGjifvaHfI1yJ0qvmnLC5M4cJFu9MVRouNIF0TRMaLwTcaMq9-nu-N74FaRAyBQqKLLEXlDboiRinF78AqkM628J1bGn8xjnhXJVE-N7oS9K87wiAuBoY07oz_NpVulYNS_E/s1600/IMG_3724.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemvbMDujXGjifvaHfI1yJ0qvmnLC5M4cJFu9MVRouNIF0TRMaLwTcaMq9-nu-N74FaRAyBQqKLLEXlDboiRinF78AqkM628J1bGn8xjnhXJVE-N7oS9K87wiAuBoY07oz_NpVulYNS_E/s640/IMG_3724.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Just a couple minutes later, I was fishing the same setup and connected to a noticeably stronger fish—I had hoped for a new species, but as the fish came up in the muddy water, I realized it was another <i>C. anthurus</i>, albeit larger. Not what I had hoped, but welcome nonetheless.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKer0P_nTlrmFOWImuxH6rYfCmni0Z2AViLZg6n9O25W6BKagKdIgbJ_NRwjDpmxWor4WvqzqinJ4_kBtjt1dfCU-fqsNsf7THXYGXwU6POTMWzP9YO_M21FzvsvkkZ97XBjPXGxbhRZ4/s1600/IMG_3711.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKer0P_nTlrmFOWImuxH6rYfCmni0Z2AViLZg6n9O25W6BKagKdIgbJ_NRwjDpmxWor4WvqzqinJ4_kBtjt1dfCU-fqsNsf7THXYGXwU6POTMWzP9YO_M21FzvsvkkZ97XBjPXGxbhRZ4/s640/IMG_3711.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhelso9Kc6qWWfXR_x1SmBQGNwEDfAxURGGSUvGv5qJThzGgvUa_nW5Sll5MNe2PO8aizMWWzzilvWbbilrPC5dPZ_KkEYir97TSf9oU6LFIZRZJaMxZmGDVafjQKatlluovt8tf_UQ5SE/s1600/IMG_3522.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhelso9Kc6qWWfXR_x1SmBQGNwEDfAxURGGSUvGv5qJThzGgvUa_nW5Sll5MNe2PO8aizMWWzzilvWbbilrPC5dPZ_KkEYir97TSf9oU6LFIZRZJaMxZmGDVafjQKatlluovt8tf_UQ5SE/s640/IMG_3522.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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In the meantime, I captured another <i>Bryconamericus </i>species fishing worms under a float, this time what I am fairly certain is <i>B. brevirostris, </i>making it #121. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCBOPXTAKQDOKOB4nHLNnFOalMOVxQudxTjSY63SVGKrM4c1udF2Yopr9DS6YAjNMcI54yDGdiV_d1GLSyCIAEmcKUuEcLi_IZKneLFUNlTrXG2x2d5E4cwGRQr-Dke3w16Nd59vu_Gnc/s1600/IMG_3702.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCBOPXTAKQDOKOB4nHLNnFOalMOVxQudxTjSY63SVGKrM4c1udF2Yopr9DS6YAjNMcI54yDGdiV_d1GLSyCIAEmcKUuEcLi_IZKneLFUNlTrXG2x2d5E4cwGRQr-Dke3w16Nd59vu_Gnc/s640/IMG_3702.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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On a different location on the river, I caught some tiny brycons that I am positive will be impossible to identify.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcIBkSmV0jQf4SI_Tw3l1CkqzbkVsOcRyQNm2l8eJd6Gckx5CBzMXn7Cu-WZh64eUzTkKg5gPvV0xQwtssTS0IqHWCcz-vvbNv291RG-YrJpRI1HjmzrloBphKzrSp4A7mdhQjByUFS8Y/s1600/IMG_3699.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcIBkSmV0jQf4SI_Tw3l1CkqzbkVsOcRyQNm2l8eJd6Gckx5CBzMXn7Cu-WZh64eUzTkKg5gPvV0xQwtssTS0IqHWCcz-vvbNv291RG-YrJpRI1HjmzrloBphKzrSp4A7mdhQjByUFS8Y/s640/IMG_3699.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The group also encountered ammonite fossils along the exposed limestone slabs on the banks of the river.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtn6nhO0MPRWyvalfvdZ1nTpYJFE4H5pOc9qPSM_xRiSexy1TBb7OxPXeE4V8XPr36yeryRqgxg3FEDwTfL8AfclrbGeimfjbixIv4R3YZNxGAEhNJYo4M8sGWF_NBhWm8vJn6zjFSX_w/s1600/IMG_3697.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtn6nhO0MPRWyvalfvdZ1nTpYJFE4H5pOc9qPSM_xRiSexy1TBb7OxPXeE4V8XPr36yeryRqgxg3FEDwTfL8AfclrbGeimfjbixIv4R3YZNxGAEhNJYo4M8sGWF_NBhWm8vJn6zjFSX_w/s640/IMG_3697.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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In the tannin-stained creeks from formed from waterfalls, I encountered another fish I have previously caught: <i>Piabucina elongata</i>. Plentiful and aggressive, I kept some for bait.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH7ikK0BE1zClS2FYiaRxpIp_yNJ3pyGz_Nd-y-5S8QLTeff0fbnLmiNwa9EI9DDQT9aXffrSOKiKUG3ujPGnlgNpP7aq0ZqBD3V6U-PnuZJ4Vf4F0SOxedEb93R5RNbNCnEjBR2UzcvE/s1600/IMG_3679.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH7ikK0BE1zClS2FYiaRxpIp_yNJ3pyGz_Nd-y-5S8QLTeff0fbnLmiNwa9EI9DDQT9aXffrSOKiKUG3ujPGnlgNpP7aq0ZqBD3V6U-PnuZJ4Vf4F0SOxedEb93R5RNbNCnEjBR2UzcvE/s640/IMG_3679.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The last night before the team's departure to high camp, far away from the water, I spent some time soaking larger chunks of cutbait in the night in hopes of something larger.<br />
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In the light of my headlamp, I saw the rod tip twitch, then stay still. I carefully lifted the rod, and placed my fingers on the line. I felt some movement, so I set the hook and a battle ensued on my light gear. The fish was strong and used the current to its advantage, but I wasted no time in getting it to shore.<br />
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It was a brycon of some sort, but which species? A little research online revealed it to be <i>Brycon coxeyi</i>, species #122.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbz3g7kMg_G6geTGuTMMmddEdbsURo_slOum02UpubPRqMs_tLzxGqIqg34ZyLNNkGC1qkbF7olydmrrmqVJqrI7hyguAYh3y5RGn4UlmgxQAdYkEauk-HY0vAVxNFz_KeW6B563HYGk/s1600/IMG_3658.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbz3g7kMg_G6geTGuTMMmddEdbsURo_slOum02UpubPRqMs_tLzxGqIqg34ZyLNNkGC1qkbF7olydmrrmqVJqrI7hyguAYh3y5RGn4UlmgxQAdYkEauk-HY0vAVxNFz_KeW6B563HYGk/s640/IMG_3658.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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A heavy set of dental gear</div>
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I waited it out for a bit longer, but besides the ever-present<i> Cetopsis plumbea,</i> nothing else decided to show up.</div>
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It was off to high camp for field work. Suffice it to say, no fishing was done here. Below you can find an image of our only drinking water source for several days. </div>
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After not showering for 4 days at high camp, I was glad to get back to the lodge to clean up but also to get some fishing in. </div>
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Soaking worms on the bottom resulted in a <i>Leporinus friderici</i>, species #123. Of this identification I am rather uncertain. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9CrznXJIn3u54Lff_YuOtOv4NZUNJS2TITl78LhGkOuqcei23r8niRe32XjUpkbUys-PKZzzsg6cOkBklKANxL4fjLrVNdfCkdINf57paxrfx9MGJ0umrBTpxDdZEAFzf0acox95X_NA/s1600/IMG_3644.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9CrznXJIn3u54Lff_YuOtOv4NZUNJS2TITl78LhGkOuqcei23r8niRe32XjUpkbUys-PKZzzsg6cOkBklKANxL4fjLrVNdfCkdINf57paxrfx9MGJ0umrBTpxDdZEAFzf0acox95X_NA/s640/IMG_3644.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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After that fish, I returned to the lodge to clean myself up.<br />
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Necessary hygienic activities aside, I returned to the river while everybody was catching up on some much-needed rest. I spotted some fish in a ditch by the path, and broke out the tanago hooks. I found Nile tilapia, an unwanted invasive that probably was the result of fish farm escapees. Nonetheless, a new species, this one #124.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8yGOxopbr34PKNspXayUhfqyO61GqJIXsQnPK9jOR7QMCXRKPpgXoi_rUnTrWlY-fFVYX1JCSGVAqtSWH5OUZZO_k5vCSsyf_z6FjrsLNO0rZqM9B4qjkIQIrJuFd4X8xSeFpD4bB-O8/s1600/IMG_3612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8yGOxopbr34PKNspXayUhfqyO61GqJIXsQnPK9jOR7QMCXRKPpgXoi_rUnTrWlY-fFVYX1JCSGVAqtSWH5OUZZO_k5vCSsyf_z6FjrsLNO0rZqM9B4qjkIQIrJuFd4X8xSeFpD4bB-O8/s640/IMG_3612.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Returning to my spot on the river, I caught another <i>L. friderici</i>, this one smaller but with clearer markings. I sent this guy out on a big circle hook, and received a screaming run. When I set the hook, I felt nothing but reeled in the tattered remains of this fishes head.<br />
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The next fish's hit almost sent my rod into the water, but I grabbed it just in time. After a hard fight, I brought in another anostomid. This one's identity remains a mystery to this day. The possibility remains that this is a large <i>L. friderici</i>, as the larger of the previous two specimens has slightly faded spots. If you look really carefully, you can see the markings where those spots would be. What is confusing is that exactly where the last black spot should be on the caudal peduncle is instead a definitively light marking. Still, because this fish remains unidentified, I will not count it as a new species until a verdict is come to.<br />
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The last night I was able to fish, although matters were complicated by a torrential rainstorm. The river rose about four feet, right into the underbrush.<br />
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Nonetheless, I was determined to stick it out in hopes of something new. I sent out worms in the dark, and was met with eager strikes, as expected, from catfish, which has hunting mechanisms not deterred by muddy, high water.<br />
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Only this time, the catfish looked different, much more like the bullheads back home. The species-specific identification of this fish is unknown, but I am confident it is of the <i>Rhamdia</i> genus. That makes it species #125.<br />
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The next catfish also wasn't a whale catfish, and it was different than the previous. I am calling this <i>Rhamdia</i> sp. and species #126. The differences between the previous catfish and the one below are as follows:<br />
- Head shape; the first is more convex and the second is longer and flatter<br />
- Body proportions; the first is far more elongate and its head is proportionally smaller<br />
- Whisker proportions; the first's maxillary barbels reach past the base of its pectoral fin, while the second's maxillary barbels reach past the base of its dorsal fin<br />
- The first exhibits a dark band across the posterior edge of its caudal fin, the second exhibits no such marking<br />
- The second exhibits spotting, while the first is uniform in color<br />
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Based on these differences, I am confident in calling this a separate species, especially considering the taxonomy on south american siluriformes, especially this region, remains spotty at best.<br />
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I had set out a fish trap with bread, and captured a different <i>Bryconamericus</i> species. But since I didn't capture this with hook and line, it doesn't count on my list.<br />
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After the first two catfish, all the rest were Cetopsis. The one directly below looked slightly different, but since pigmentation is highly variable I am assuming for now all the whale catfish were <i>Cetopsis plumbea</i>.<br />
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That would conclude my fishing in Ecuador. 9 new species were caught, possibly more although at the moment I'm not sure. Aside from fish, a host of other flora and fauna were encountered, but that will be a separate post as the biodiversity of this region is unparalleled.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-59952028377630612112017-11-17T11:24:00.000-08:002018-10-14T09:32:36.502-07:00FallAs junior year arrived, nothing particularly notable came around regarding my pursuit of fish. The school year was simply too busy.<br />
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Here's a pretty redbreast sunfish and creek chub, though, from one brisk November afternoon.<br />
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<br />Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-91669657735558088942017-08-31T11:16:00.000-07:002018-10-15T20:49:46.452-07:00Europe: Denmark and Sweden<br />
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I was off to mainland Europe after Iceland; this would offer a fresh opportunity to catch new species in new countries.<br />
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The first stop was Copenhagen, Denmark. While the city was beautiful, I had a tough time during our visit finding somewhere to fish—the canals, though plentiful, seemed mostly devoid of life. The river in front of the Royal Museum had some nice-sized carp, but the AK-47 carried on the guard shoulders radiated out an unmistakable "no fishing" sign.<br />
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The one place of note was the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, situated by the shore north of the city. After the museum visit, while the rest of my family grabbed dinner, I raced to the rocky bank to see if I couldn't catch a new species or two.<br />
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The shore was rocky and full of seaweed, but there was much life in the calm and clear water. I saw pipefish and assorted small reef fish that didn't care for my bait. Standing on rocks protruding over deeper water, however, I saw tiny gobies on the sandy parts of the bottom and they were more than happy to oblige. </div>
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A quick look online revealed these to be sand gobies, species #111 and the fish that added Denmark to my list of countries I have caught a fish in. That species would conclude my short but sweet fishing in Denmark. It was off to Stockholm, Sweden, where I hoped I would have a more fruitful time chasing freshwater fishes.<br />
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The very first area we visited upon arrival in Stockholm was the Vasa Museum—a fascinating exhibit dedicated to a 17th-century warship salvaged after spending three centuries in the ocean. The boat was extremely well preserved. I managed to get some pretty cool close up shots of it.<br />
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Equally fascinating were the numerous, though small, European perch I observed swimming in the side basin next to the museum. Dropping a little feather jig was enticing enough, and species #112 was mine, <i>Perca fluviatilis</i>. With the yellow perch of the North America, <i>P. flavenscens</i>, I have caught 2/3 of the <i>Perca </i>genus; to complete it requires a trip to Kazakhstan.<br />
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After leaving the museum, I decided to fish around the little island a bit and caught some more European perch.<br />
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There were some cool boats around the dock; as interesting as they were, I was keen on finding fish in those waters.<br />
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The first day yielded just the perch, but there was plenty more to come.<br />
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I needed to find a spot I could walk to from where we were staying. With Google Maps, I found a set of fishy-looking docks next to some reeds by a canal a short 20 minute walk from the our place.<br />
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The second morning I woke up bright and early to get to the spot and get some fishing in before the events of the day. I was immediately excited when I spooked schools of fish hanging in the shallows. I found a good spot and waited for the fish to settle. It took a little convincing, but the first fish fell for a chunk of white bread freelined to the school.<br />
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The ide, species #113. A strong fighter and an aggressive fish, by European cyprinid standards, anyway.<br />
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The same tactic yielded a roach next, species #114, probably the most abundant fish in the canal.<br />
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There were the deeper-bodied common bream as well, the largest fish of the schools swimming by the dock, but for some reason I found them incredibly wary, contrary to what I had read online about their abundance to the point of pestilence.<br />
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With several ide and roach, I turned my attention to the smaller cyprinids hanging under the dock, which fell easily to a small piece of bread on a tiny hook. Most, it turned out, were juvenile roach, but between roach I pulled out a small, silvery bream. A lateral line scale count revealed it to be a white bream, the only white bream I would catch. Species #115.<br />
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Going to the same spot every morning, I was consistently greeted by more roach and ide.<br />
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On one of the mornings, however, I noticed schools of smaller, slender fish swimming near the surface towards the middle of the canal. They were too far to reach with my micro setup, although they seemed fairly aggressive, chasing but not committing to micro hooks placed nearer to the dock. Improvising, I tied a tanago hook to my regular rod and attached a small float above it so I could cast the setup out. For bait, I put a little piece of bacon fat on, leftovers from Iceland. Casting it out and reeling it back in so the bait moved just under the surface worked wonders, as the fish attacked the bait with vigor. It didn't take long for one to get pinned, and I had species #116, the bleak.<br />
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What remained were the common bream. I had a very close call with a very large bream, but missed the hookset, and for some reason the other bream weren't responding at all to my corn and anything else I threw at them. Perplexing indeed, but in attempting to catch bream I caught plenty more of the same species.<br />
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Every now and then, I would see perch swim by the docks, and so I decided to pitch some larger lures under the docks to see if any willing predators were around. It payed off, and I was rewarded with plenty of more respectable perch.<br />
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Live bleak and juvenile roach proved to be tempting for the perch as well.<br />
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Eventually, it came to my last morning at the docks, and by this point I was getting quite frustrated by the lack of cooperation from the bream. I decided to put all my effort towards catching them, but was still greeted with indifference.<br />
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Resorting to whatever I had in my tackle bag, I tied on a small hook with a single kernel of corn and a hot pink <i>Gulp!</i> maggot, and almost had a heart attack when one of them nibbled. This got me thinking. I found a school situated under the dock, and tried my best not to spook them. Directly overhead of them, I dropped a single, freelined pink maggot down, and watched carefully as one of them came up to it before turned away, and then another came and sucked it in without hesitation.<br />
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For all the trouble it gave me, it didn't really fight much and I grabbed it without difficulty. No matter, though, because I had finally caught a common bream, species #117. A success, and I could head back to the States with one less overseas grudge. A fine fishy ending to a fine summer.<br />
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All the fine natural baits I tried, and they opted to bite this pink smelly bit of rubber.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-79996142325355163952017-08-23T18:41:00.000-07:002018-10-15T20:58:19.155-07:00Iceland Part 2: Goose Chase<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I have always been fascinated by char.</div>
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It seems as if they carry a certain savagery and ancientness that other salmonids simply do not possess—a relic of wilder times. </div>
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For that reason catching the arctic char, the iconic circumpolar fish of the far north, was high on my list of goals for Iceland. </div>
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The first stop when we left Reykjavik was Lake Thingvellir and the river Öxará, home to massive Icelandic brown trout and three species of arctic char, two of them endemic. </div>
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Oxara was beautiful; full of scenic spots, pathways, and fish, from a ~20 lb trout swimming upstream near the mouth to tiny juvenile browns swimming around the shallows by the falls. Unfortunately, fishing isn't allowed in the river, so I turned my attention towards the lake.<br />
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Thingvellir is more like a small sea. Approaching it from shore is no easy task, and I cast a variety of presentations for several hours with nothing to show for it, which was unfortunate because I really hoped to encounter the two endemics, <i>Salvelinus thingvallensis</i> and <i>S. murta, </i>which are genetic splits from the arctic char adapted to fit different ecological niches in the lake.<br />
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The lack of success at Thingvellir was the start of a wild goose chase across Iceland.<br />
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Here I got skunked at some random waterfall we drove by. Sure was pretty though.<br />
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This spot was equally fruitless.<br />
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And here.<br />
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And here. If you look closely enough, you might be able to make out barbed wire. I may or may not have hopped it.<br />
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At this point, the arctic char, or lack thereof, was getting to me, if it wasn't already by the time I definitely didn't hop barbed wire. The next touristy destination was a tall waterfall. After a hike around it with my family, I became preoccupied with the tiny streams dotting the grass.<br />
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Alas, no char were spotted. </div>
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I did see some brown trout, however, so I tied up a quick, pocketable rig and set to work.<br />
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A small nymph was all it took to convince the fish, which were very aggressive when not spooked. In order to do this, I had to lie on the grass out of sight, and was rewarded with several beautiful browns, my first from their native lands.<br />
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The glorified puddle below and on the right held a surprisingly large number of (small) brown trout.<br />
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If you look in the background of this photo, you can see some people walking up on the hill behind me. I decided to go up as well, but was greeted by a carpet of slippery mud on a steep hill. I tried my best to stay on my feet (I managed to make it down without falling), although several people around me had a tough time. Once down, I carried on my quest for the elusive char.<br />
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The brown trout were nice, but they weren't <i>char</i>. The chase continued.<br />
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I decided to put together a setup that I could fish tiny bodies of water with; to do this I tied a prince nymph to some mono and tied it to the top of my smallest telescopic cane pole so I could take it practically anywhere by sticking it in my pocket. This tactic offered several advantages: it would severely reduce setup time to fish a spot, I could take it anywhere without it being a burden, and most importantly, I could fish somewhat inconspicuously.<br />
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No arctic char among the icebergs either, but dang, Iceland had offered me some brilliant views. Jökulsárlón, the lagoon we visited, is the largest glacial lake in southeast Iceland. We arrived just in time to see the sunset after a long drive that was well worth it. We managed to spot some grey seals (halichoerus grypus) swimming, which was a pretty cool experience. It had to be cool --- here the temperature was near freezing in the mid of August. <br />
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The trip was coming to its end, and we were heading back to Reykjavik to get to Europe's mainland.<br />
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At the last tourist destination before we left, we opted to take a short hike around a crater lake. Surely there couldn't be fish here, there wasn't any outlets or inlets; the lake was entirely groundwater. I knew better than to think such pessimistic thoughts, however, so I grabbed my little stick anyways.<br />
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All that view, and I was squinting at the water to see if I could spot any rings from rising fish. And spot some I did.<br />
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The big question was, trout or char? In the water, despite the clarity, I couldn't really tell, especially because I was looking off a cliff. Alas, I also couldn't tell when I got closer, because the fish were positively tiny and juvenile salmonids all look the same.<br />
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I tried to act natural, or as natural as anyone would be squatting next to the water extending what looked like a twig towards the edge. The fish were aggressive, and getting them to bite was a matter of putting it in their line of sight and making sure they bit the nymph and not the splitshot I used to weigh it down. I grabbed it as it came out of the water and looked at it.<br />
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Arctic char.<br />
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A tiny one, but it was a char nonetheless. For all the effort put into the chase, this was a really anticlimactic ending.<br />
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I put about five more minutes of effort into it, and was rewarded with a (slightly) larger specimen. I saw larger ones in the deeper water, but since my pole was 5 feet long and I was fairly sure that my activity was illegal (they didn't explicitly say I couldn't fish), I decided to book it after that one. I was ecstatic.<br />
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So the goose chase was over.<br />
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And with species #110 in the books, I bid Iceland farewell, although not before trying to catch some fish here.<br />
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Hello Mr. Krabs</div>
Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-13508053766701830892017-08-20T20:19:00.000-07:002018-10-15T22:26:00.458-07:00Iceland Part 1: Bacon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
A fitting end to the summer was a family trip to Europe, something that I had been looking forward to for quite some time. The plan was to begin the trip in Iceland, and visit Denmark and Sweden after, in that order, and I couldn't have been more excited. </div>
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This was only my second time visiting Europe, the first being a trip to Italy when I was considerably younger. On that trip however, no fishing was done, so I had yet to catch a fish from the continent of Europe. I had grandiose plans of getting as much fishing as I possibly could in a family trip, and was especially optimistic in terms of species hunting because I knew almost every species I would encounter would be new. Little did I know, the first leg of the trip I would find myself allied with an unexpected culinary item... more on that later. </div>
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Iceland was the first stop, and was also the country we would be spending the majority of our time in. I was glad this was the case, as I vastly prefer the rugged beauty of Iceland over the more urban environment in Copenhagen and Stockholm. Upon arrival, we got into our rental car and started the short journey towards Reykjavik, the capitol city. Along the way, we marveled at the sights of an alien landscape, and eventually stopped at a fault line where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet. Iceland truly is a strange and wondrous place: dark grey volcanic rock covered the terrain, looking like little meteorites. Flashes of green and pink dotted the ground where the small and hardy flora species clutched on to life. </div>
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In the picture I was standing on the bridge that connected the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. Pretty neat.</div>
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After a while, onward we went towards Reykjavik. We had booked a quaint little AirBnB in the Old City, a short walk away from the harbor. When we got settled in, I found myself free and wasted no time getting my gear in preparation to fish the saltwater around the numerous pilings and docks around the harbor. The harbor would be my only opportunity to fish the salt in Iceland, so I was eager to make the most of my time, as Iceland has a very limited selection of freshwater fish species. </div>
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The first issue was bait. It seems as if the only recreational anglers on the island were interested in solely salmonids and fly fishing, so bait was a no show. I paid a visit to the local grocery store however, hoping to find some raw seafood, but it was processed and expensive. Instead, I picked up a thick pack of cheap bacon. I had watched a video some time ago in which the guy catches a ton of fluke using bacon strips on jigs for fluke. If summer flounder in the northeast like bacon, I was sure that some variety of cold, salty Icelandic fish would. Besides, after weeks upon weeks of scouting locations and fish, I had a fairly good idea of what I would be targeting, and none were especially picky. </div>
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The next issue was finding a location to fish. An unfortunate turn of events resulted in my original spot getting blocked by construction, so I was left to wander the harbor in search of a place to fish. I'm not complaining though, because I got to see some pretty cool sights. </div>
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I passed by the famous landmark Harpa Concert Hall, home to thousands of live performances, including dance, orchestras, operas, and music festivals.<br />
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And I decided it was a good place to fish.<br />
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I didn't expect anything large, so I decided to start by probing around with a little 1/16 feather jig. I tipped the jig with a sizable piece of bacon, and opened the bail to let line fall out. I let the line go slack and the monofilament pied up on the water's surface. As the bait dropped in the water column, line would follow, and when the line stopped moving, I would know that the jig had met bottom.<br />
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Only, on the first drop, the line kept moving for impossibly long. I knew the water wasn't that deep, so I tightened up to see what was going on. When all the slack was gone, I felt a little wiggle, and only then did I realize a fish was attached!<br />
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The fight was short and sluggish, and when the fish materialized in the water, I saw it was a small Atlantic cod. I crossed my fingers and hoisted it up, and I had species #105.<br />
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It quickly became evident that there was an abundance of these cookiecutter cod in the area, because dropping a bait down into the dock pilings would result in a hookup almost every drop.<br />
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After my jig had gotten acquainted with quite a few cod, it was clear that I would have to change my strategy to catch something different. So I dropped down a very small hook with a tiny bit of bacon on a bottom rig, and set it to the side while continuing to fish with the jig. Every now and then, I would get taps on the small hook, only to lift the rod up and feel pressure for barely a moment before feeling nothing on the line. This occurred for a couple of times, before finally, the hook stuck and I reeled up what felt like dead weight. When the fish neared the surface, I saw why: the mouth was huge, and I realized that I had just been pulling the hook straight out of the fish's mouth the entire time.<br />
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Since it worked last time, I again crossed my fingers and hoisted my line up onto the pier and thus had species #106, the shorthorn sculpin.<br />
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This was a species I'd hoped I would encounter. Sculpins are an incredibly interesting and diverse group of fishes, not to mention aggressive. This was my second saltwater sculpin species: the first being the Pacific staghorn sculpin from Washington state back in 2014.<br />
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More sculpin ensued, and it quickly became clear that they were prolific on the harbor floor.<br />
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Although the sculpins' mottling and striped fins were eye-catching, I needed to turn my attention elsewhere if I was to have any hopes of catching more new species.<br />
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Through thorough investigation, I learned that there were a couple of flatfish species around the area. Unfortunately, every time I sent out a stationary bottom rig, the sculpin would reach it too fast, way before any other fish could have a chance at taking the bait.<br />
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To this I gave a good deal of thought, as I needed to come up with a different approach, one that presented a moving bait that would weed out some of the sculpins. The fish I would be targeting would be small, for sure, so any larger lures would be out of the question.<br />
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I ended up borrowing a page out a the Northeastern fluke anglers handbook. The idea is to use a three way rig, with a heavy bucktail jig on the outward line, followed by a longer length of line with a teaser lure or smaller jig. The big lure would fall fast and kick up sand on the retrieve, attracting the attention of flatfish. The flatfish could either bite the bucktail, if they were feeling aggressive, or they could see the teaser coming a few feet back and take that instead.<br />
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Since the rig needed to be downsized, instead of a bucktail I used a small bank sinker, and instead of a teaser I put on a tiny hook and a small strip of bacon. I cast it out, making sure to bump the weight on the bottom on the retrieve.<br />
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Not three casts in, I felt a hard hit and was greeted by something that fought much harder than the sculpin and the cod. It was what I was looking for, a common dab and species #107.<br />
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The tactic proved killer for the dabs. Using it, I only caught dabs and caught zero sculpin or cod. Changing tactics can pay off when targeting even similar species in the same environment.<br />
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I would end the session with three new species, a solid start, but I knew there were more to be caught. The next morning, I went out early and tried a different location, and was greeted by the usual three fishes.<br />
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However, I observed small, codlike fishes swimming in a slight current caused by an outlet on a pier wall. I had seen similar fishes, but they were swimming in schools and moving too fast to target effectively. This situation, however, presented an opportunity where the fish would remain stationary. I suspected the fish were simply juvenile Atlantic cod, but I decided to give it a crack anyways. Putting a tiny piece of bacon on a size 16 hook under a tiny float, I lobbed out a cast into the current and was pleasantly surprised when the fish were quite aggressive. They did have the tendency to spit the bait, however, so it took a couple tries before I actually hooked one.<br />
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I brought the fish in, and immediately recognized that it was not a cod. Rather, it shone a turquoise color, which confused me. Later, I realized that this was a juvenile coalfish, and species #108.<br />
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Coalfish (Pollachius virens) is known as pollock in the States, but in Europe, the common name pollock refers to a separate species of the same genus.<br />
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The coalfish would end my saltwater fishing in Iceland, but thankfully freshwater provided me with some new targets, though limited.<br />
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Walking through a city park in the middle of Reykjavik, I saw some small fish scuttling about in the shallow, weedy water of a pond, and immediately recognized them as three-spined stickleback, which sounds a lot more difficult than it was, considering there are only 12 species of freshwater fish on the island, and one stickleback species.<br />
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Unfortunately I was without anything to catch them with, but since the place we were staying was less than a mile away, I ran back and grabbed the necessary supplies, then ran back to the pond. It was fairly urban, after all, and I was unsure of whether or not fishing was allowed, so I settled in a small corner sheltered from the wind with a little drainage pipe.<br />
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The stickleback were aggressive, and a little strand of bacon fat was all it took to convince them. Species #109 was in the books.<br />
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When they lock out their spines like this, you can prop them up like a tripod. </div>
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A catch of note: this is my smallest catch ever, edging out my previous smallest, an eastern mosquitofish from Florida.</div>
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The three-spined stickleback would conclude my endeavors in Reykjavik, but a wild goose chase lay ahead in the slightly more wild parts of Iceland. </div>
Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-59986746138794541922017-08-13T13:00:00.000-07:002018-10-13T11:34:25.329-07:00Pine Barrens pt. 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
After my trip to China, it was time to finish my project in the Barrens. This offered me the opportunity to have a crack at the mud sunfish once more, and I leapt at the opportunity. </div>
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I returned to the same lake once more, and was greeted by bluespotted and banded sunfish. I caught one which was particularly handsome; the spots were more green than blue, and they stood out sharply on the black body. </div>
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As the previous round had shown me, the mud sunfish have a comparatively much larger mouth than its <i>Enneacanthus </i>counterparts. The tanago hook was a bit small, so with this in mind I tied on a size 16 fly hook with a much larger piece of worm.<br />
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I had read that mud sunfish like the darkest crevices so I focused my attention on shadowy, weedy, woody shallows. Lo and behold, in one of the dark spots, I received a savage strike but no hookup. I repeatedly dropped my bait down, only to get bit and not hook anything. I suspected it was a small sunfish, so I dropped the worm down once more and let it sit a bit on the bottom. When I tightened my line something was on!<br />
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I was a little surprised to see a tiny mud sunfish on the end of my line! I had caught my target, this was species #104.<br />
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This handsome little specimen was dressed in black, but I wanted a slightly larger one, so I kept at the effort. </div>
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More fishing resulted in several more ambitious <i>Enneacanthus</i>. </div>
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It was nearing sundown again, and I still didn't have my more impressive mud sunfish specimen. I tried placing my bait farther from shore among some weeds, and out swam a much larger mud sunfish which engulfed my bait. I set the hook, and the fish came flying out of the water—only to drop back in, falling more than a foot to the water's surface. Heartbreaking.<br />
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I kept at it though, hoping the fish stayed in the area. Not 3 minutes later, the bugger decided he was hungry again and this time I carefully dragged him to shore along the surface after a short but spirited fight on my microfishing pole.<br />
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Not all that large, but it was exactly what I had been hoping for. A success. </div>
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Some more photos from my project (fish not caught on hook and line):</div>
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Boy I sure wish this was caught on hook and line</div>
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Same here</div>
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<br />Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-30766454257429891772017-07-31T10:00:00.000-07:002018-10-13T11:34:03.338-07:00Chasing New Species in ChinaFrom repeated exposure to heartbreaking moments, I've come to learn that one cannot, and should not, pass up opportunities to catch new species of fish, no matter the circumstances.<br />
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My last trip to China, in the early spring of 2016, was yet another reminder of such an experience. I was in Tulufan, Xinjiang in the Gobi Desert, walking around a system of trails along the thousands of miles of underground irrigation canals. In the dim light of a lamp, movement caught my eye. Swimming in the water were small fish, the largest of which was several inches long. In the darkness, I couldn't make an identification, but I am sure that if I had a tanago hook with a little piece of worm I would have had the opportunity to catch a fish that I will very likely never in my life see again.<br />
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2017 rolled around, and I found myself heading to China once more, this time to teach English in rural Hebei with a program partnering with Tsinghua University in Beijing. This trip was going to be different. I came prepared to seize opportunity; the chase was on.<br />
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Luckily for me, I was able to make many stops along the way to visit family and friends before and after my teaching position, the first of which was in the heart of Shanghai, the second most populous city in the world. Nearby my uncle, aunt and baby cousin's apartment was a small, shallow canal. Poking around for a little bit, I found some medium sized cyprinids which were extremely spooky and wanted nothing to do with me or anything I had to offer. In the shallows I had found some western mosquitofish, a species I had only caught recently.<br />
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As unassuming as this fish was, it was a fish, and caught in China at that! China was now my 4th country to have caught a fish in.<br />
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Soon I bid my goodbyes to Shanghai and family, and headed west on a high-speed train to Changsha, to visit my grandparents.<br />
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My grandfather and I enjoying noodles for less than 1USD. </div>
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The fishing in Changsha was mostly restricted to fishing man-made ponds for a variety of carp species. We used pellets for packbait, and the primary technique was securing several pellets with a rubber band to the hook under a float, and chum the water with pellets, which would sink slowly.<br />
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As would be expected given the constant fishing pressure in these ponds, the fish were reluctant to bite except for a few small common carp caught by my grandfather and his friend. Unfortunately for me, I had no such luck and was thoroughly convinced I would get skunked. However, as we were about to head back, I noticed a pod of small grass carp just meandering around the surface of one of the pond sections. I had noticed this behavior before, but the fish would generally scatter as soon as I got near enough to make a cast. If the off chance occurred that I placed my bait in the correct location, they would generally ignore it. Nonetheless, I gave it a shot and cast out my bait. I did, interestingly enough, miss my target slightly. My float and bait landed square in the middle of the pod, as opposed to off to the side a little, which I would have preferred to avoid spooking the fish. As expected, the fish scattered. In the murky water, I lost sight of them in seconds.<br />
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Just a few moments later, to my surprise, I watched the float shoot down.<br />
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I remember setting the hook hard. The fight that ensued was strong, especially given the size of the fish. It wasn't by any means a large grass carp, but it sure put up a decent struggle. A quick sweep of the net and I had my grass carp, the first new species of the trip, putting me at 98 species total.<br />
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Which became lunch. Americans seem to shy away from anything with bones, but once you learn to avoid them, the meat of the grass carp was white, flaky, and delicious. After several more days in Changsha, it was time to head to Beijing, China's capitol and where I would be spending several days with a family friend and several at Tsinghua University.</div>
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Not many fishing options in the city, so I paid a visit to the local aquaculture market, which was massive. I've included several snapshots of the more interesting things; several fish I wasn't allowed to take photos of but snuck in one or two anyways. A pretty cool experience seeing a variety of exotic species. </div>
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Melanistic alligator gar</div>
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A 40,000 Yuan arowana—to top it off it says "no negotiations"</div>
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A leucistic alligator gar—as I reached my phone out to take a picture, the vendor jumped out of his seat and exclaimed that pictures were not allowed. I took one anyways. </div>
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The best thing about living in a city like Beijing is by far the food. Food is good and cheap and always nearby.<br />
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My time with the family friend came to an end, so I was off to the University. I spent the first night walking around, watching the sunset and scoping out potential fishing locations, as any normal human would do upon arriving to China's most prestigious institution.<br />
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I was delighted to find people fishing for carp in a pond across the road from where I was staying. I remember being relieved, because it meant I wouldn't have to figure out a way to illicitly fish. I decided I would return the next day.<br />
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The days at Tsinghua were busy, so I really only had a short window of time each day to catch fish. The first day, I had some time in the early afternoon. I saw schools of small fish in the water, but quickly realized they wouldn't even react to the artificial smelly stuff I had brought along.<br />
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I realized bait would be an issue. I rushed off to the supermarket on campus as fast as I could walk, which took a fair deal of time, given the huge campus. There I bought a small loaf of sliced bread, only to find upon my return that the bread was "slighted toasted" as advertised on the label. Alas, it would have to do. The toasted aspect made getting it on the hook troublesome, and like most bread, it tended to come off the hook whenever disturbed by, for example, a fish. Despite this, the quantity of fish in the water resulted in the inevitable catch of something.<br />
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That "something" turned out to be stone moroko, an invasive species in Europe but native to Asia. Species #99 was in the books.<br />
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The next fish came when I got tired of the morokos, and moved a little aside from the schools of fish that dotted the shallows. I threw a bit of bread by some reeds hanging over the water, and lo and behold a small, brown fish popped out to grab it. I then fumbled to put some bread on my hook, and the same fish came out again to eagerly grab the bait. Species #100. A milestone. Not the most impressive specimen for the three-digit milestone, but hey, I'll take it.<br />
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A female Round-tailed Paradisefish (<i>Macropodus ocellatus</i>). Not an impressive fish for the species, either, but no one's complaining.<br />
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I noticed bitterling species swimming in the same school with the morokos, but the morokos proved to be the more aggressive fish, not allowing the bitterlings to reach the bait. I moved aside from the school to chase some colorful bitterling in the shallows. I couldn't tell if they were spawning, but they were chasing each other around. It took a while of coaxing before one finally bit long enough to hook into. Another new species, this time a rosy bitterling (<i>Rhodeus ocellatus</i>), #101.<br />
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That was it for the first day. I headed out the next morning before sunrise, and luckily got another new species, <i>Acheilognathus</i> sp., #102.<br />
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I also tagged into a beautiful male rosy bitterling. Absolutely stunning.<br />
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Hey, it's the fish on the hook packet!<br />
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As the sun rose, I also got a prettier specimen of paradisefish, a male. The photo doesn't quite do the iridescent blue on the fins justice. Interestingly enough, the aquarium-bred counterparts of this species are a good deal more colorful, kind of like goldfish and their bronze wild counterparts.<br />
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The cafeteria food wasn't bad. </div>
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The last day at Tsinghua, it came to my attention that their was some sort of predatory goby in the pond (direct translation: old-headed fish). I devoted hours to try and find one, and find one I did. It first bit my split shot and then my bait, but I hooked it and it came off. It did not want to bite again, despite my best efforts. I didn't find another one, unfortunately.<br />
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My nemesis, camouflaged into the substrate. </div>
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I left the university with a grudge against gobies. It was off to rural farmland in Hebei, where I would be teaching. No fishing was done here, but it sure was pretty. And hot.<br />
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I made one more pit stop in Beijing on the way back before my flight. Here I stayed with the family friend again, and we stopped by a small lake to see if we could catch some carp species. It was not to be, but I did catch an interesting new species. Every now and then, I would see small, shiny fish come to the surface. I tried using a bit of bun from lunch, but it didn't seem to attract the fish at all. Then, as I lifted the bait out of the water, I saw a fish try to come up and grab it. That gave me an idea, and I tried skimming the bait on the top of the water, similar to the way I attract mosquitofish. This worked fairly well, and I proceeded to have fun for the next hour with vicious little topwater strikes micro-fishing.<br />
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A new species to boot, Hemiculterella wui. #103 if you're following along.<br />
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Seafood hibachi for dinner, with beef sashimi, regular sashimi, and caviar. </div>
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The next day it was a hot pot restaurant specializing in beef. They cut the meat up front by the window.<br />
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The flight back to Newark was long, but I had lots of fish photos to go over and identify. I ended the trip with 6 new species, a rather meager number but decent considering I had very little time to fish and didn't really know where I would be fishing or what I would be fishing for. One of these days I'll go back to get that darn goby. </div>
Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-32805301973229328212017-06-30T08:30:00.000-07:002018-10-13T11:33:40.973-07:00Enneacanthus in the Pine BarrensIn the summer of 2017, I was presented with the opportunity to conduct an independent research project in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey. I had won a project grant from my school with a proposal I drafted to study fish species distributions in Pine Barrens watersheds. I had read about the Barrens for years, and although its ecology fascinated me, I had never had the privilege of actually visiting, despite living in close proximity to it almost my entire life.<br />
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The Pine Barrens is a large expanse of coastal plain stretching across more than seven counties of southern New Jersey, isolated from the rest of the coastal plain habitat farther south. Its nomenclature refers to the area's sandy, acidic, and nutrient-poor soil. For this reason, the Pine Barrens has a unique ecology that supports an aquatic environment. Several species of fish have ranges in New Jersey primarily restricted to the unique ecosystem of the Barrens.<br />
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Of course, what this project in the Barrens allowed me to do was sneak in a little time for species hunting for those less common species. My primary interests were the sunfish of the <i>Enneacanthus</i> genus and <i>Acantharchus pomotis</i>. These smaller sunfish species, namely the bluespotted, banded, blackbanded, and mud sunfish, have captivated me for years with their beauty and proximity, similar to the Pine Barrens themselves. Also in the Barrens were several fish species which took less priority, as I expected them to be much harder to catch: these were the pirate perch, redfin pickerel, and eastern creek chubsucker. So the sunfish remained my primary targets.<br />
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Upon finding myself in the Barrens for the first time, it was everything I could have imagined and more. The landscape was in fact quite alien, in a beautiful way.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguPWacbsAz4bpogItQcmSRls0hrnBkjRz_tgfDiK6MHgRaDQ770HL0URAV7HBQbFPToUFxjBAvgY9CTHp2LdIwdBj2pbugPR879Rv2GlWUYS331qRDqJ0WaSK0pH8fnIHZpa7zw3N4pK4/s1600/IMG_20170625_130455.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguPWacbsAz4bpogItQcmSRls0hrnBkjRz_tgfDiK6MHgRaDQ770HL0URAV7HBQbFPToUFxjBAvgY9CTHp2LdIwdBj2pbugPR879Rv2GlWUYS331qRDqJ0WaSK0pH8fnIHZpa7zw3N4pK4/s640/IMG_20170625_130455.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyxFQf2ffim_QWUlfJkUyLi39_BC5Q773_9aTnXZ2ErIu-Pvdu0weRpionwWCoPDhArAfhsbw99EsvpPXf-g-XGxOYy0L8S6wqOAq8Fnxgb1nLHqIwZvk3Zj_FprDNgPMyZTLaAAbwlMo/s1600/IMG_20170625_143903.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyxFQf2ffim_QWUlfJkUyLi39_BC5Q773_9aTnXZ2ErIu-Pvdu0weRpionwWCoPDhArAfhsbw99EsvpPXf-g-XGxOYy0L8S6wqOAq8Fnxgb1nLHqIwZvk3Zj_FprDNgPMyZTLaAAbwlMo/s320/IMG_20170625_143903.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIoVffckSYdQ25IkrOV9mx5EIi4ok7fUjabz836KMPYESmMCypOl9oyLGJGzUCRXQ127ut1qQmerwSVYN0iV6ovLdMitUTd7oFweiACRkzoZkMp18p3mEnf6a009Raz-ka_GdXrkEqUI/s1600/IMG_2750.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIoVffckSYdQ25IkrOV9mx5EIi4ok7fUjabz836KMPYESmMCypOl9oyLGJGzUCRXQ127ut1qQmerwSVYN0iV6ovLdMitUTd7oFweiACRkzoZkMp18p3mEnf6a009Raz-ka_GdXrkEqUI/s320/IMG_2750.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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Sand roads crisscrossed the pine forests; in places it was tough to get the minivan across. I particularly found the tannin-stained blackwater fascinating. It was only a matter of time before I could drop some lines in pursuit of new species.<br />
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But first there was work to be done. With that aside, I settled on a single location I had surveyed earlier in which I knew all the four target sunfish were present. I only had about an hour of daylight after a long day of work, so I set myself upon the water fairly quickly.<br />
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The first fish came quickly. I was fishing a tanago hook with a nub of worm close to shore, and by that I mean no more than several inches from shore. I dropped my line by a slightly undercut bank, and lo and behold, a sunfish popped out. A couple jiggles of the bait were all it took for the fish to commit, and I had species #95, the banded sunfish (<i>Enneacanthus obesus</i>).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6hAvi4z3oR5utE7zKG_R7X-N9ralxQ_agWi3VpKXIMm_Do3WEM_Qk_P8bHoNI7WPdfzxvqumjwQ7dPjV9pPo1YKo44jo0xyZK8nOmxJ-DirHkT3cbd5GlKFT6I16vRLGPfgwY1Xg6Qc/s1600/IMG_20170625_171914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6hAvi4z3oR5utE7zKG_R7X-N9ralxQ_agWi3VpKXIMm_Do3WEM_Qk_P8bHoNI7WPdfzxvqumjwQ7dPjV9pPo1YKo44jo0xyZK8nOmxJ-DirHkT3cbd5GlKFT6I16vRLGPfgwY1Xg6Qc/s640/IMG_20170625_171914.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Originally, I had thought this fish to be a bluespotted sunfish, but upon returning after the trip, I looked through my photos and realized I had caught a banded sunfish. The key identifier here was the shapes of the light facial markings: bluespotted sunfish would have more prominent dots, whereas banded sunfish have more crescent and line shaped markings, as shown in the fish above. </div>
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I was then treated to a handsome bluespotted sunfish in actuality: <i>Enneacanthus gloriosus</i>, species #96.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3mXP247Njw3Bj6mhkKxo1LbASUhCS_5UDqPneazYC_yfdKgQ2zgyiosiyucbRuQSfjQBBv3o80tnikyVlf9p5D9o3ZpgC2zNvCoSrvjT6B_xxiKD7fJDrKaEH8felwnoiiS1dtyEgFps/s1600/IMG_20170625_172821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3mXP247Njw3Bj6mhkKxo1LbASUhCS_5UDqPneazYC_yfdKgQ2zgyiosiyucbRuQSfjQBBv3o80tnikyVlf9p5D9o3ZpgC2zNvCoSrvjT6B_xxiKD7fJDrKaEH8felwnoiiS1dtyEgFps/s640/IMG_20170625_172821.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I also caught plenty of more drab female bluespots, convinced that they were banded sunfish and I had caught both bluespotted and banded. They proved to be female bluespots, however, and I was upset I failed to catch the banded until the realization came that my first was a banded.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmu_QFijQocQHrN2ESumWUXnub88zt-NkAaZQtcdhyphenhyphenY_Eh1Rl4EEfvro9HwVtGhvlX8Y2wRE4SLZiGEhjv9qt_sW5t1_Zi7Sw6rq-uDdTzjx4MYe2B3VRTSu960rvE22mhJ-53EmPx1I/s1600/IMG_20170625_173035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmu_QFijQocQHrN2ESumWUXnub88zt-NkAaZQtcdhyphenhyphenY_Eh1Rl4EEfvro9HwVtGhvlX8Y2wRE4SLZiGEhjv9qt_sW5t1_Zi7Sw6rq-uDdTzjx4MYe2B3VRTSu960rvE22mhJ-53EmPx1I/s640/IMG_20170625_173035.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The blackbanded sunfish was the tricky one. The final <i>Enneacanthus</i> species, it was also the smallest, and I could see it darting in and out of the weeds in the shallow water near shore. Before fishing however, I had the opportunity to read <a href="http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.com/p/blackbanded-sunfish.html" target="_blank">this:</a> the story of another lifelist angler's experience with catching blackbanded sunfish. I can say that the total number of people who have caught this species can be counted on one hand, but this guy had a specific recommendation for the technique used to fish for these skittish, small sunfish.<br />
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To sum it up, it was basically moving the split shot much farther up the line, so the bait would have a more natural presentation of free-falling in the water, rather than the jiggle motion which the other species would react to. Being snubbed by the blackbanded sunfish, I decided to give this technique a go. On the first try, I watched as a blackbanded sunfish slowly approached the bait as it slowly dropped, and nonchalantly sucked it in.<br />
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I set the hook, and the fish promptly came out of the water and into my hand. A success! Species #97, <i>Enneacanthus chaetodon</i>. I had caught all three <i>Enneacanthus</i> species in less than an hour!, which I was fairly excited about.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8ygOhv-uk6WsgxP9Jk1e38tSiZQsbRf68nFbLsMZ0AeSXuON-CIHcbQXqtuNngbak7DFmtxHjc1lFVw0szkvViTB4aJMP7eh_cpIT916Xa5RBUBGXQKjpuI5L9q9YetZzS3iaDBd93Ok/s1600/IMG_20170625_174812.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8ygOhv-uk6WsgxP9Jk1e38tSiZQsbRf68nFbLsMZ0AeSXuON-CIHcbQXqtuNngbak7DFmtxHjc1lFVw0szkvViTB4aJMP7eh_cpIT916Xa5RBUBGXQKjpuI5L9q9YetZzS3iaDBd93Ok/s640/IMG_20170625_174812.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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One target had not been caught: the mud sunfish. It was not to be, however; I ended up hooking one, but it came off the tanago hook as daylight faded. Curiously enough, I also hooked a very large chain pickerel, around 18-20 inches, on the tanago hook. It snuck into shallow water, almost motionless, and very gently ate the bait. It snapped the line, as was to be expected with the hair-thin filament snelled onto the hook.<br />
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The <i>Enneacanthus</i> had been conquered, but one more sunfish remained.<br />
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I would be back in subsequent months, as my project needed to be done over time, so I did not feel that missing the mud sunfish was too significant of a loss, especially given the short time frame allotted.<br />
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Here are some various pictures from my project (fish not caught by hook and line).<br />
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<br />Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-82935024162645948682017-06-19T19:40:00.000-07:002018-10-13T11:33:11.325-07:00Western MosquitofishA short outing to Carnegie Lake proved uneventful, except for the capture of a new species: the western mosquitofish (<i>Gambusia affinis</i>), species #94.<br />
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<img height="480" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/NOfoVw7POjYnRfF4ryflyo7Ha4OtpUrOuy_uCcGedcYWs4ih6OrtqtDls5pq3k7nmewdCV6_81aQ59QXjFYmsrVN842yJUsNt6FuuajsvhL0Sue37-KyX6S1pqqIPYIZ6xCf68sIOBBru20kkAxfkOOnXBmxkPDMcLskmz1-MQ-wz71r6Ab1p1w7HrScHueCqcd-qQVVbSbIhsSOsaHKNaaew-tIMEBrWIAHnMx573drijhHG4pUivhUukSTffSuu0BmHeqkI5JJ3L4CGTtkPF4_uG60Lj8t2dybNrQFJW0xqc4jcnIqP9uk_2eoISbR6_JzU1vZ1-35Ysnt0tuqXAXL82phCsD8eqLhWxUDz56A_FSowaxJk077hzt126hnEliQSMao6lmwh6YtBA_IX2ZKpDrHq3AIeR3xaGiuPTqU5LTKG7ygVplpY2clOvAC7gWPfwShufmtDNdR4JJ2Fj4sHaB555RmgAAF5Z36-wJSNtlurBbFgi1EHHlG-fVdkaEO7qqGGHwKDR0Ptel-1CUtd4G-jkJ5-9KK9W_j1EvVQM4ZC6qFPsln5UmOUsHJ0c9NKmxUladFhInQK0et_ljGBmtSu115LwlvE5M=w1214-h912-no" width="640" /><br />
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Also caught were droves of white perch, a previously elusive species. Funny how that works sometimes.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-85157323190276594622017-06-18T11:10:00.000-07:002018-10-13T11:32:54.646-07:00Summer 2017 RoughFish.com Spring Species ContestThe Spring Species Contest is an annual competition held by <a href="http://roughfish.com/">roughfish.com</a> for whomever can catch the most species of standard-sized (no micros) freshwater fish species in the month of June.<br />
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This was my third year participating, and while I ended up with a much poorer performance than last year, I did end up catching some very cool fish.<br />
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June 1st was a day to knock off the easy targets. A quick walk to the golf course pond produced a largemouth bass and a bluegill, my first two species of the contest.<br />
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Wasting little time, after those two were caught I headed down to the stream to catch some other sunfish species, as well as a creek chub. </div>
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Fishing with little jigs of various sizes, I was able to pretty easily catch a creek chub, followed by a redbreast sunfish, and then a rock bass. I find that the rock bass could be targeted specifically by utilizing larger lures that the redbreasts and bluegills couldn't fit into their comparatively smaller mouths, so by upping my lure size by quite a bit, I was able to catch the rock bass I was looking for. </div>
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For some ungodly reason what eluded me on that specific outing were the green sunfish and the pumpkinseeds; otherwise prolific and aggressive species. No worries, I was sure that I would come across them later. </div>
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That night I made my way to another local pond, with the objective of catching a channel catfish for the contest. Arming myself with cut bait, I ended up connecting with a bunch of nice-sized channel catfish. </div>
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Unfortunately, self-timer shots aren't always the best option....</div>
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I decided to fish later into the night, and that was when I caught what perhaps was my most memorable fish of the contest. </div>
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As the sun dipped behind the trees, activity picked up; with my lines bouncing all over the place, likely from smaller fish nudging the bait but unable to get hooked. </div>
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Intent on the small knocks, I failed to notice that the line on one of my rods had gone completely slack. How long it had been in that state, I'm still not sure. I picked up the rod, and slowly reeled my line. I felt a little bit of weight on the end, and set the circle hook by slowly sweeping the rod to the side. </div>
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Immediately I knew that the fish was a higher caliber than the others I had caught thus far. A short fight later, however, I had it near the bank. It was still dark, and my headlight was dim, so I couldn't effectively make out its size. What I could tell, however, was that the hook was barely handing on on a tiny flap of skin. As soon as this fact became evident, the fish proceeded to death roll right next to shore and I watched with horror as the hook popped out.</div>
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Luckily, reflex kicked in and I dunked my arm into the water and scooped the fish out onto the bank before it hand a chance to regain its senses and make a break for it. Once the fish was on the bank, I realized its size. I had caught my new pb channel, a fish that crushed my previous one. </div>
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Another stroke of luck—when I landed the fish, my dad had arrived and was able to take a proper photo. The day ended on a high note; with that fish still fresh in my mind I packed my things and headed home. There were several other species that needed to be caught in the following month. </div>
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As aforementioned, the green sunfish and pumpkinseeds were supposedly two surefire species that I had failed to catch on my first outing. That was a fact that needed to be remedied. A trip back to the creek had me wondering how I ever struggled to catch them in the first place. I also caught a beautifully marked stream bass. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyzsn-skA45I2t5arpJ_0sS-n7VqmJh2ND_r9x2WUUP0lY79xFFH1eUWC1G7CB3UhUjt_3lLjQfAuMZlHsCG5alKUuN8q9HoYzncGyFjNrWuCD-atl6CnOnAhzCmGeBfSlHrMPadNhDJo/s1600/IMG_20170602_122606.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyzsn-skA45I2t5arpJ_0sS-n7VqmJh2ND_r9x2WUUP0lY79xFFH1eUWC1G7CB3UhUjt_3lLjQfAuMZlHsCG5alKUuN8q9HoYzncGyFjNrWuCD-atl6CnOnAhzCmGeBfSlHrMPadNhDJo/s640/IMG_20170602_122606.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixT1ynoacJQmj5JshkW88nT2AygJdxTdDuHzk7HJ8nhy4TOw8XJ0LNVhnEEIC78lcE2drganA512JI7l-CsJCt5CBqH3ys35p2ejkuZ5pJ1o22tqYTGMnnGdjpX1n9BmL2ns1U1R4WjXo/s1600/IMG_20170605_101417.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixT1ynoacJQmj5JshkW88nT2AygJdxTdDuHzk7HJ8nhy4TOw8XJ0LNVhnEEIC78lcE2drganA512JI7l-CsJCt5CBqH3ys35p2ejkuZ5pJ1o22tqYTGMnnGdjpX1n9BmL2ns1U1R4WjXo/s640/IMG_20170605_101417.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4zu-U3wX65826TRz0HHcIUWXAZ8mqfZnOjiM01FuZpS4GuRWhmeU0akquVnQCG0vENVw1fK3iFCXt-lwBSmpitWQkFAWio4zeqwY8NoaX3MDcunbbBDFxlr9ZX77IGCr2G28_G9JJleI/s1600/IMG_20170602_122245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4zu-U3wX65826TRz0HHcIUWXAZ8mqfZnOjiM01FuZpS4GuRWhmeU0akquVnQCG0vENVw1fK3iFCXt-lwBSmpitWQkFAWio4zeqwY8NoaX3MDcunbbBDFxlr9ZX77IGCr2G28_G9JJleI/s640/IMG_20170602_122245.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Another local creek I knew had the potential to yield american eel, yellow bullhead, and stocker rainbow trout. Unfortunately, when I arrived the creek was blown out and more rain was to come. To my great surprise, then, on the first drift with a bit of worm under a float I watched the float shoot down in a small eddy. I tightened up, and was connected to the first and only rainbow trout of the outing. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HYM_es2l9Cp8SWUoYTlcuV5czBeLjehyJuDym763e-co1n7JhUjHdSNJnWheINKeeSpdN30nX0GmCbfTucW3AcoIcs7O5fpatIkVtfnpJddlsH5A0y0CiHxIoEd5UoUPiZ42ZRHtsX4/s1600/IMG_20170605_191835.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HYM_es2l9Cp8SWUoYTlcuV5czBeLjehyJuDym763e-co1n7JhUjHdSNJnWheINKeeSpdN30nX0GmCbfTucW3AcoIcs7O5fpatIkVtfnpJddlsH5A0y0CiHxIoEd5UoUPiZ42ZRHtsX4/s640/IMG_20170605_191835.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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A worm on the bottom quickly yielded a small yellow bullhead. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJvy5ldSKmvoXhnHkccge0l23xlYMfgA3fv0jPT250_NuU1fhK-rJdNACkfglkgu0fiRAWlA_n0zmht_qhNLhzPeHY0KBXdevv-fw3ya0BhfahAbytawTubwJp7V8rpupybIHGX_bCYeY/s1600/IMG_20170602_194555.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJvy5ldSKmvoXhnHkccge0l23xlYMfgA3fv0jPT250_NuU1fhK-rJdNACkfglkgu0fiRAWlA_n0zmht_qhNLhzPeHY0KBXdevv-fw3ya0BhfahAbytawTubwJp7V8rpupybIHGX_bCYeY/s640/IMG_20170602_194555.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The action died after those two fish were caught in short order, and the rain started to pour. I decided to call it a trip before I got soaked, without my american eel. Nonetheless, the outing was still successful, with two more species added to my contest total. </div>
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A little while later in June I made to trip out to a nearby lake, which had the potential to yield multiple species I still needed for the contest, including white perch, which would be a lifer and had eluded me thus far, to my great surprise. I had fished in locations where I knew for a fact that they were plentiful, and had even seen them caught right next to me, and yet I still failed to capture one. </div>
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Upon arriving to the lake, I sent out bottom-rigged nightcrawlers on two rods and fished another rod with a small jig.</div>
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Gently jigging by brush cover near the shoreline produced the first of many tiny black crappie: small, but another species to add to my contest total. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFTjbMxI9eCN0Z4kEaVJiYa7qBe67QIrAupqseJQ_jW8P2oYXoUprHpTYww0ahgna0jXv-_mH86v2LVy9GMmrYHycny3DANPrsR5bXImCmFyOZpQl4CnjT-mRu4FfhaGMl1tgu4IVXiA/s1600/IMG_20170607_195912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFTjbMxI9eCN0Z4kEaVJiYa7qBe67QIrAupqseJQ_jW8P2oYXoUprHpTYww0ahgna0jXv-_mH86v2LVy9GMmrYHycny3DANPrsR5bXImCmFyOZpQl4CnjT-mRu4FfhaGMl1tgu4IVXiA/s640/IMG_20170607_195912.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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One of the worm rods got a hit, and I reeled in an american eel, which had previously avoided me at the other creek. Another species!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiEgCVq8zY24EKWPFEShORY2FFV1OaHnqbbXKN6hWMWJuyeGryjuyMZLWZbWgJASMReBexdK_lP7bOransAQLBxEicDcs0XkKsKiuGX4fqFMZN0_fct-Rs7Op_1o9z_7HGxZm2etWOKKs/s1600/IMG_20170607_200612.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiEgCVq8zY24EKWPFEShORY2FFV1OaHnqbbXKN6hWMWJuyeGryjuyMZLWZbWgJASMReBexdK_lP7bOransAQLBxEicDcs0XkKsKiuGX4fqFMZN0_fct-Rs7Op_1o9z_7HGxZm2etWOKKs/s640/IMG_20170607_200612.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Immediately after the eel, I noticed one of my other rods was twitching. I set the hook into a beautiful little white catfish, only my third ever catch of the species and my second from New Jersey.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH99_ie5oXMQczntKmEDdjfPeZCS1uR9VGsH4HW2PNzkD8FeZTUKxg4tVaxHIDgJcEgFcRavRgmrmflTE_cTshrGUFoKpz7KsdMThKoZoOSnLQ0vIwaOClvbf8AM2tqFFS7o2AcyrBdDg/s1600/IMG_20170607_201518.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH99_ie5oXMQczntKmEDdjfPeZCS1uR9VGsH4HW2PNzkD8FeZTUKxg4tVaxHIDgJcEgFcRavRgmrmflTE_cTshrGUFoKpz7KsdMThKoZoOSnLQ0vIwaOClvbf8AM2tqFFS7o2AcyrBdDg/s640/IMG_20170607_201518.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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As the day descended into night, I caught plenty more black crappie and a couple yellow bullheads. Still, however, the white perch eluded me.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQA7QUT2KwIofKprs16yzcZTIInUg5moyL1aSSV6HW34zqe0Wx0rw8dvIwWzGbXigJBeQ0CYuG8I43IWo2GTkA97gEzvn0NGfOVNM0aMGtZw3amHKrjLAeY_PEJ7B8S2oaZc8_xmQYGRg/s1600/IMG_20170607_202759.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQA7QUT2KwIofKprs16yzcZTIInUg5moyL1aSSV6HW34zqe0Wx0rw8dvIwWzGbXigJBeQ0CYuG8I43IWo2GTkA97gEzvn0NGfOVNM0aMGtZw3amHKrjLAeY_PEJ7B8S2oaZc8_xmQYGRg/s640/IMG_20170607_202759.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kkaUj4ZmuO0i_5v89IFwS8ox_b_BGGIU4RF2HM9jfb_NNapK8YkqXAh3DAvGAr3mzk1lyhgCjWCaCRSYwxLDEp9gT6k5ZTCe5ZS4vzoJptZ_aaWCBrc2fAL4mIizrXCrd369Tvxzssg/s1600/IMG_20170607_203123.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kkaUj4ZmuO0i_5v89IFwS8ox_b_BGGIU4RF2HM9jfb_NNapK8YkqXAh3DAvGAr3mzk1lyhgCjWCaCRSYwxLDEp9gT6k5ZTCe5ZS4vzoJptZ_aaWCBrc2fAL4mIizrXCrd369Tvxzssg/s640/IMG_20170607_203123.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Sometimes, you need a break from the contest grind. I made the decision to spend a couple hours on the golf course chasing big sunfish with lures, and had a blast. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSsnP1bSWnHGE5kWuNWgYQuaZLwsLt5GaZT7OFLAnW-NH1d7mT3NrdFkZybeGBOtKqZDEou8ti_RaUr1mbRTQzOklplt3Im5iFNyDQPoJbl7Jj9gtoySXovJQkmI1GNKVfJT_EMoY7gSg/s1600/IMG_20170608_115048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSsnP1bSWnHGE5kWuNWgYQuaZLwsLt5GaZT7OFLAnW-NH1d7mT3NrdFkZybeGBOtKqZDEou8ti_RaUr1mbRTQzOklplt3Im5iFNyDQPoJbl7Jj9gtoySXovJQkmI1GNKVfJT_EMoY7gSg/s640/IMG_20170608_115048.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I don't know if this pumpkinseed is my biggest ever, but it has to be close—that thing was huge</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqehkKXqX8HxrhWJ4cr8_egyttpSFYLv3jfO0pOSBzdT3p-QXB3H-hlpsPaEpDAhz-zpgGnbtUIoj5MjnNEAcpmejelHMRSgjnIXDT63kjVMRyS-cVLSvQVWqevDk1JahycW_3xFmypOA/s1600/IMG_20170608_121318.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqehkKXqX8HxrhWJ4cr8_egyttpSFYLv3jfO0pOSBzdT3p-QXB3H-hlpsPaEpDAhz-zpgGnbtUIoj5MjnNEAcpmejelHMRSgjnIXDT63kjVMRyS-cVLSvQVWqevDk1JahycW_3xFmypOA/s640/IMG_20170608_121318.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Big bull bluegill</div>
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Several days later, I decided to make one last go at the white perch. Returning to my spot at the lake, I focused my efforts on jigging, this time using a smaller feather jig tipped with a little piece of Gulp!. </div>
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As expected, the black crappies were out in full force. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2oaBMAf8ZY9hClMoRwdy_zfoYahp8LFah4co_WTJcjEktA19POPl7uRUCqNu_U1NvlkMyWOtEA9p87-X0JhBnqy5d_OaVVqD0xBfXg3c4_DMTDowSurvr-7IjSphkbxgoFOftEH1LtY/s1600/IMG_20170615_195617.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2oaBMAf8ZY9hClMoRwdy_zfoYahp8LFah4co_WTJcjEktA19POPl7uRUCqNu_U1NvlkMyWOtEA9p87-X0JhBnqy5d_OaVVqD0xBfXg3c4_DMTDowSurvr-7IjSphkbxgoFOftEH1LtY/s640/IMG_20170615_195617.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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But as the sun got continuously lower, I noticed a grey flash behind my jig, far from the actual cover and more near the center of the bridge/dock I was fishing off of, in deeper water. I recast, and something hit it hard.<br />
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A short but spirited fight (definitely much tougher than the crappie) led to my first white perch! That's species #79.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDMn1mNeix-AVgjD_vBQEFOSQV5iGn5y7olgAbRyvWa3NMhvNpFn6Yvmu8MNr_Df4s6X2oqOc94UuCHUG-sOMNgml9oMAVpMdCLQ_Np_PLHkSIyj6y24q5CS-rSJlltux2ReW7emprCg/s1600/IMG_20170615_200117.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDMn1mNeix-AVgjD_vBQEFOSQV5iGn5y7olgAbRyvWa3NMhvNpFn6Yvmu8MNr_Df4s6X2oqOc94UuCHUG-sOMNgml9oMAVpMdCLQ_Np_PLHkSIyj6y24q5CS-rSJlltux2ReW7emprCg/s640/IMG_20170615_200117.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Plenty more followed subsequently.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQApNe_6zOBxiVawPCUAA67hRT6Z1G7yllHpuCH2UWlYNPfqBguw3Hc5RCCyq_ybCcgzc_YfrvLQXwQo0SzFwsGSlwhDb1HIb7mnFw4Bb7d3x2v2tZfccKbmO0XpWfGiam5ZxO3pdgaq4/s1600/IMG_20170615_202225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQApNe_6zOBxiVawPCUAA67hRT6Z1G7yllHpuCH2UWlYNPfqBguw3Hc5RCCyq_ybCcgzc_YfrvLQXwQo0SzFwsGSlwhDb1HIb7mnFw4Bb7d3x2v2tZfccKbmO0XpWfGiam5ZxO3pdgaq4/s640/IMG_20170615_202225.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I think I cracked the white perch code at this specific lake—as dusk approached, they would rise towards the surface by the dock, but would go back down or to wherever they came from by dark. White perch are known to be a schooling fish. By nightfall, the black crappies returned.<br />
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With the white perch conquered, I set my sights on other venues to pursue perhaps even more elusive species. I traveled to a swampy tributary of the Delaware, in the hopes of catching a snakehead or a bowfin. </div>
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Why don't I cut to the chase: my aspirations for this outing were largely unmet; a couple hours chucking chatterbaits, weedless frogs, and other lures yielded none of the mentioned species. However, the day was not wasted...</div>
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Upon my arrival to a weedy, shady backwater, I noticed tons of killifish-like fish swimming in the shallows. Having suspicions that these were mummichogs, which I still needed for my lifelist, I whipped out the tanago hooks (always gotta be prepared) and promptly caught one. </div>
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Species #92: the mummichog.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfL5Nkh3KzvYSj0kmT50msanw52Ymhv-jk69gyUdICJdi1-fJ9jF9LdxFKfDM95MBbP3JdER1KGlS1fcHPYNRMNjjNL2t92vdZs0Qlvl5ciFkmf7KwCqOmeaWOgPVCs3OVWTtbWlOjUHs/s1600/IMG_20170618_130653.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfL5Nkh3KzvYSj0kmT50msanw52Ymhv-jk69gyUdICJdi1-fJ9jF9LdxFKfDM95MBbP3JdER1KGlS1fcHPYNRMNjjNL2t92vdZs0Qlvl5ciFkmf7KwCqOmeaWOgPVCs3OVWTtbWlOjUHs/s640/IMG_20170618_130653.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Further fishing with micro gear led to this catch of a lit-up spawning male, dressed in sharp yellow and with blue edges on the fins.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQim7PXqy7DbLc8078kvh27MjJt7UDiFfp8M3bhL0fFqOIWWgndYmsr79GIbF7gPK-7gbza9co-C3DiwEzqUzCwq4Om_LS2ioSKS7-HQ2yaoZoe1mSmQuJweDsu3GZzpRpPxAu9rOVyI/s1600/IMG_20170618_130951.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQim7PXqy7DbLc8078kvh27MjJt7UDiFfp8M3bhL0fFqOIWWgndYmsr79GIbF7gPK-7gbza9co-C3DiwEzqUzCwq4Om_LS2ioSKS7-HQ2yaoZoe1mSmQuJweDsu3GZzpRpPxAu9rOVyI/s640/IMG_20170618_130951.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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With the larger predators evidently not cooperating, I set my sights on other, more plentiful species. Pumpkinseeds and green sunfish were readily available and eagerly pounced on the opportunity to bite a little piece of worm.<br />
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However, I poked around a piece of log with a small redworm, trying to see if I could entice any smaller, more interesting species.<br />
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That's when I saw a small, dark fish pop out from under the wood cover to suck in the worm, then promptly swim back to safety. I pulled tight, and lifted the fish out of the water—and froze.<br />
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It was a warmouth.<br />
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This sunfish species is incredibly uncommon in New Jersey, and I had no clue whatsoever that it would be present here. I knew of its relatively rare presence in a pond nearby, so looking back I shouldn't have been so shocked. Nonetheless, it caught me by complete surprise.<br />
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There's species #93: the warmouth.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8z4ns6u0kWIAMxW4VneQx4uRFu0V7VUzPpKnquPWTEHlGvPXCLAi_OOqzUbXOeI9E0ClSxdu_aThp4mE5Xy3eH1T1hz4en6oKIwBpR0v-S3dBlHTqdP51wBJatpB6Dsm1GPz_MG9AfdM/s1600/IMG_2448.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8z4ns6u0kWIAMxW4VneQx4uRFu0V7VUzPpKnquPWTEHlGvPXCLAi_OOqzUbXOeI9E0ClSxdu_aThp4mE5Xy3eH1T1hz4en6oKIwBpR0v-S3dBlHTqdP51wBJatpB6Dsm1GPz_MG9AfdM/s640/IMG_2448.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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This particular individual has a head almost half the size of its body. </div>
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I also ended up catching a few turtles of interest.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZcD8lvYbyNbRlWY7tUDdyd2MvVNMFUpZ2EsrB3bKw4OKPH4FaQhDdjMbTpX_6i-uVqqh5LKhIpm-NdL_ztuhjOCrVXrPGmou98SK84_DTCZlmdw2nCdRWjjF_xq5XjqTSdUmFHgarp8/s1600/IMG_20170618_144624.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZcD8lvYbyNbRlWY7tUDdyd2MvVNMFUpZ2EsrB3bKw4OKPH4FaQhDdjMbTpX_6i-uVqqh5LKhIpm-NdL_ztuhjOCrVXrPGmou98SK84_DTCZlmdw2nCdRWjjF_xq5XjqTSdUmFHgarp8/s640/IMG_20170618_144624.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Common snapping turtle</div>
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Eastern Painted Turtle</div>
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Northern Red-bellied Cooter</div>
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Thus ended my adventures in pursuit of species for the contest. It was a fun month, and I ended with three new species from local waters! Check out <a href="http://roughfish.com/">roughfish.com</a> to participate in the contest and forum!</div>
Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-41113101425000408642017-05-31T06:26:00.000-07:002018-10-13T11:32:07.244-07:00 School's Out<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The summer of 2017 was an interesting one to say the least. I caught fish in seven countries, 26 of them being new species. Although it was busy, the summer rewarded me bountifully. Thus began an international adventure I will not soon forget.</div>
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The refreshing release from my sophomore year of high school couldn't have come soon enough. After my last final, I decided to do something I hadn't done before: fish the school pond. </div>
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Our school pond was not exactly the most aesthetic of waterbodies—with a visibility of around 3 inches, it also kinda smelled. Nonetheless, there were fish here, and I was determined to catch them. My friend Sam and I, after our finals, went over to the pond to get some fly fishing practice in. </div>
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Before we started fishing, however, I spotted movement in the grass and quickly snatched up a large, angry northern watersnake. Watersnakes aren't exactly the friendliest of snake species, in quite a stark contrast with the pacifist garters I had caught earlier in the year on the campus. Although their teeth are small, watersnakes (this one especially) seem to come from the darkest depths of hell and will stop at nothing until they've bitten you, your mother, and your dog. I admit it got me a couple times before I could secure a grip on it behind its head. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYEaukTJA0FriytbO_gon3_J_aIC4t3KvPqclQB9p4tNCD7_VhQoWKp6Gkkhd8LyRlXfckghGH4DY12mXA_aVr3VIRyBxAba1KjZfK8qAd-TBJjGaJhUKXb7tIvd5qnXXy387NbEGq6wk/s1600/IMG_20170531_170719.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYEaukTJA0FriytbO_gon3_J_aIC4t3KvPqclQB9p4tNCD7_VhQoWKp6Gkkhd8LyRlXfckghGH4DY12mXA_aVr3VIRyBxAba1KjZfK8qAd-TBJjGaJhUKXb7tIvd5qnXXy387NbEGq6wk/s640/IMG_20170531_170719.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Upon casting our first flies into the water, we immediately found droves of small, but ravenous green sunfish, pumpkinseeds, and bluegills. I did catch one of note: a pumpkinseed x bluegill hybrid that was the first specimen of such that i have photographed.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLQh7yxrcVykT5qoiUvfC5XhK7m0Rao1zZ_G_4jhVPFswKESszo7M6loubuxGx6Cty5aLSAFzwf5zthz56vBPiNRyYzLdlf868IVTgLIMAxOtRhOvmdrM2YhH3jwcjCSDAntxlGZmaoXY/s1600/IMG_20170531_180038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLQh7yxrcVykT5qoiUvfC5XhK7m0Rao1zZ_G_4jhVPFswKESszo7M6loubuxGx6Cty5aLSAFzwf5zthz56vBPiNRyYzLdlf868IVTgLIMAxOtRhOvmdrM2YhH3jwcjCSDAntxlGZmaoXY/s640/IMG_20170531_180038.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The sunfish got tiring quickly, so we set out some cut sunfish for bullhead bait and some corn for carp. The corn never produced, although we did see some koi swim by. How to catch them will be a mystery for another day. On the other hand, we did find a plethora of solid-sized brown bullheads, which did prove to be good fun on light tackle. And by plethora I mean it, we had bites on cut bait almost every cast.<br />
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Nothing too significant for this rushed beginning to the summer, but more was to come. Besides, I had found my new favorite brown bullhead spot. </div>
Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-7141262928800348642017-05-21T19:36:00.000-07:002018-10-13T11:31:26.107-07:00Bliss<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Sometimes you need to just kick back and relax, take it slow. Remember your roots. Hit up on some big bull 'gills with shoulders. Enjoy a warm spring day. </div>
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It's quite refreshing, to be honest. To be able to get out for a couple hours and free yourself from the real world, wrapped in the simple bliss of luxury, away from new species, away from the alluring call of strange and mysterious fish in the distance. The willows are swaying in the breeze, the cicadas are emerging, and a bluegill the size of a plate is running those zig-zag lines like they always do.</div>
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It's always nice to be back.</div>
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Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-82345010422919361312017-03-23T19:18:00.000-07:002018-10-13T11:31:01.195-07:00Ecuador!!!!What can I say?<br />
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Probably one of the most, if not the most exciting experience of my life happened in the spring break of 2017. But let me cut to the chase: Primarily, it was a botanical research expedition, but some fishing was to be had. Unfortunately, the fish were few and far between, and so were the fishing opportunities. I did get 2 species, though:<br />
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The first species was small, but an exhilarating catch nonetheless: the second photo above was my reaction to the little silvery guy in the bucket.<br />
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While fruitlessly tossing worms and lures into the muddy, swollen banks of the Nangaritza, I noticed small dimples rising near the flooded underbrush. Not knowing the cause of these dimples, I sent out a piece of worm under a small float, and was promptly received by multiple enthusiastic strikes. Knowing these fish were too small, I armed myself with a small #20 hook. Unfortunately, they were letting go of the hook before I had the chance to set it. I took away the float, but was unable to get the distance I needed to reach them. Then I tried awkwardly flailing the line around until it got where I needed it to go.<br />
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The take was instantaneous, strong for a fish of such minuscule size. I was unbelievably thrilled. Not only was the flopping, silver fish in my hand a new species, it also was my first fish from the South American continent, adding Ecuador as the third country I had caught a fish in!<br />
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<i>Bryconamericus oroensis: </i>Only recently described</div>
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After that one fish, all of them disappeared to whatever third dimension they came from. The Nangaritza bear me no more fruit. </div>
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A little while later into our trip, we explored a waterfall area (and discovered some plant species new to science), and I of course had to pull out the old stick and string. Upon seeing small fish in the pools below the falls, I was ecstatic, like a kid on Christmas morning. </div>
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Worms produced the first couple of fish in short order: <i>Piabucina elongata</i>!!!! Beautiful high-altitude pocket water fish, with an unparalleled aggression. Their powerful jaws would click in warning if my fingers got too close. They reminded me of wolffish, and i do believe they are related. </div>
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To the best of my knowledge, I do not believe that photos of <i>Piabucina elongata</i> have been published before — making this catch all the more exciting!<br />
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<i>P. elongata</i> would conclude my fishy endeavors on this expedition. It's a place that still is truly wild, with many undiscovered treasures (mostly plants :D ) in all its breathtaking majesty. The people, the biodiversity, and the pure atmosphere of the place made this trip one of my most memorable by far. Ecuador was a tough mistress, but it did give up some of its gems and I cannot wait to return.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-27092910783492357232017-02-25T14:26:00.000-08:002018-10-13T11:29:56.671-07:00Early Spring Warm Lulls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It was a warm February day, and the golf course was calling. Nothing eventful, but it was a great feeling to have a rod in my hand after a long dry spell, and the bass were cooperative. </div>
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My neighbors happened to be there as well, and I helped the older sister catch her first bass!<br />
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Well fed fish, although small.</div>
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It feels great to be back.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-25482732475452555872017-01-05T14:20:00.000-08:002018-10-13T11:29:13.596-07:00Puerto Rico Pit Stop: Day 9 -Fishing with Ray<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Day 9 of our trip to Puerto Rico was a day I'll never forget. Riding in a local skiff between emerald bays and the mangrove islands that dot Puerto Rico's southwest coast is an unspeakably amazing experience. And I have one person to thank for it: Ray, the kind New Yorker/local we had met a couple of days earlier. I took him up on his offer to go fishing in his skiff, and so on Sunday morning, my sister, my mother, and I left with a cooler full of ballyhoo and high spirits. </div>
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Here we saw a 5 ft sea turtle swim past the skiff.</div>
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As we narrowed into the back bays, we set out lines to troll. I opted for the more traditional method of angling here: a simple handline with a teaser skirt and several hooks tethered to each other. On the hooks were delicately placed strips of ballyhoo. </div>
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After a little bit of time without any action, my sister was the first to connect. Much to my surprise, she pulled in a blue runner which had savagely attacked a lure almost half its size. Knowing that they were schooling fish, we trolled the area a bit more but came up fruitless. </div>
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I never ended up catching one of these. </div>
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While crossing open water to another bay, my bait was fairly near the surface when something hit it, and promptly came off. It then hit another few times until it was hooked, and when brought in, I was astonished to see an inshore lizardfish on the end of my line. In hindsight, this explains its aggressive nature but what a lizardfish was doing so near the surface in deep water is beyond me. Nonetheless, I was ecstatic to catch such an eccentric species, #87 if you're following along.</div>
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Its pattern perfectly camouflages with the sandy bottom: a true marvel of evolution.</div>
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These buggers have the teeth to match their aggression...</div>
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While drifting over the flats, I felt a small bump on my line and pulled it in to check my bait. much to my surprise (again) there was a small, skinny silver fish on the end of my line. As I brought it closer, I realized that it was a barracuda, our intended target! I held my breath as it was hoisted up and there it was, probably the least impressive great barracuda ever seen. A fish is a fish though, and I had species #88, all eight inches of it.<br />
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It then proceeded to become the most photographed tiny barracuda ever.<br />
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Though petite, a small barracuda still packs formidable chompers.</div>
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After the first fish, the barracuda action lit up. We all (even my mother) brought in our share of cudas. None were all too large, but there were several nicer ones in the mix (nicer being relative, of course).<br />
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An brief moment of excitement came when my sister hooked a small barracuda. Suddenly, as she was pulling it in, the line stopped and started peeling off. She held on to the spool while staring to panic, and off in the distance behind the boat, I saw the tail of a roughly 15 lb barracuda break the surface. As soon as it started, it was over. My sister reeled in what remained of the small cuda.<br />
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After hours of fun, we returned, giving all the fish to Ray. I decided to try the dock one final time, and despite hooking into a few tarpon (and losing them), I nonchalantly caught species #89, the longfin damselfish.<br />
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Thus ended our Puerto Rican adventure. A tale of highs and lows, but I left with 17 new species and priceless, unforgettable memories. </div>
Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-57422894877502067292017-01-04T20:08:00.000-08:002018-10-13T11:28:48.814-07:00Puerto Rico Pit Stop: Days 3-8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
And so the adventure continues. Day 3 and 4 were spent in El Yunque National Forest and Isla Culebra respectively, which was a ton of fun. El Yunque was beautiful, and I had hopes to catch some of Puerto Rico's native freshwater species, like bigmouth sleepers or mountain mullet. However, the park didn't allow fishing, and we ran out of time before I could check out some spots just outside of the park. </div>
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Day 4 was spent on Culebra, an island famous for its beaches and snorkeling east of the main island. Despite waiting in lines for hours for the ferry, we arrived in good time. We went to a less crowded beach, without much white sand but arguably some of the best snorkeling in the world. Going straight out into the eelgrass beds, we saw a variety of porgies, mojarras, and jacks. The highlights, however, were the rays. My sister and I spotted many southern stingrays, and found one monstrous spotted eagle ray that zipped by us. To the right of the grass, not 20 feet from the shore, was an astonishingly well preserved coral reef. The sheer number of fish was intoxicating. Huge parrotfish, schools of 40+ grunts, colorful damselfish, bright wrasses, and lobsters were among those seen. I followed a massive 2 ft scrawled filefish for about 10 minutes before it got tired of me and swam off. Houndfish cruised along the surface. I had to resist my urges to fish since we were in a marine reserve. An amazing experience nonetheless.<br />
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After returning from Culebra, we immediately hit the road, driving across the mountains to La Parguera, a town on the southwestern coast. Driving across the mountains proved to be a daunting task, with our gps not realizing some roads were closed, etc. The whole thing took about twice as long as intended. Thanks to the incredibly kind people who lived there, we made it out. </div>
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The next morning, I was up at sunrise despite not much sleep to see what I could catch off the hotel dock. I didn't have any bait, so I tied on a small jig with a Gulp! minnow, cast it parallel to the dock, and immediately hooked a small yellowtail snapper, species #78, for those following. </div>
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Pretty little feller</div>
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There were school of some short of small herring around the dock, that, try as I might, simply could not get to hook. Then, I noticed a small fish that looked slightly different that was more than eager to bite the tanago hook with a flick of bait. The hardhead silverside, species #79 came rather easily, then was immediately put on a hook. </div>
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I tossed it out on my ultralight (poor decision in hindsight) under a small float, and the struggling fish immediately caught the attention of several roaming houndfish. Unlike the needlefish, the houndfish pounced on the bait immediately savaging racing off at blinding speeds after grabbing the silverside. I waited, then closed the bail and set the hook. I can attest than houndfish can pull hard. It gave a short but spirited fight, often times leaping completely out of the water. I fun fish to catch by any means. I held my breath as I lifted it up onto the dock. There, flopping wildly, was species #80!<br />
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Sharp teeth on those little buggers. It's crazy how parallel evolution works; they look so similar to gar, with long, bony jaws, backset fins, and sharp teeth, but have completely different hunting behaviors.<br />
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Species were coming in at a nice pace now, and I sent out some needlefish pieces out on a bigger rod. I began to observe more, and noticed a large tarpon would pass the dock every once in a while. A grey angelfish passed as well, and I threw everything I had at it to no avail. I spent much of my time targeting some small barracuda, but they really didn't want to play around either. I had several screaming runs from what I assume were tarpon, but never hooked up. I was severely undergunned for most of the tarpon anyway.<br />
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Meanwhile, my mom was walking around town when she met an older gentleman named Ray. According to him, he was from Puerto Rico but lived most of his life in New York City. He was now retired. He offered to take me to a dock to show me how to catch tarpon. It seemed kind of sketchy at first, but I considered the circumstances and took him up on the offer. We went to a dock not 10 minutes down the road from the hotel. There, I bought some frozen squid and ballyhoo for bait. The tarpon were not cooperating, much to Ray's dismay, so I turned my attention to the shallows where there were plenty of new species to be found.<br />
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Dropping down a size 16 hook with squid, tiny little grunts swarmed the bait. The first fish that came up was a tomtate grunt, species #81!<br />
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Dropping down another piece of squid, a yellowfin mojarra picked it up, and nonchalantly became species #82. A beautiful specimen at that.<br />
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This particular mojarra became bait for one of the many tarpon swimming around the dock under the dock. A little while later, I looked over and my float had disappeared. I grabbed the rod resting under the dock and set the hook, praying it was a smaller tarpon. The fish gods were on my side, and I saw a roughly 20 lb tarpon flash at the end of my line. Unfortunately, that luck was short lived. I fought the fish for a solid 10 seconds before, in a dazzling display of water and aerobics, the tarpon shook the hook mid jump. I was fairly dismayed, knowing that was probably the last chance I could hook a smaller tarpon, as the majority of the fish were in the hundred pound range. I turned my attention back to the small fish.<br />
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One species that I was constantly pestered by was the checkered puffer. I had already caught this species, and they were everywhere. Nonetheless, it was fun to watch them puff up.<br />
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Fisherman brought their hauls in to the dock as well, full of grouper, snapper, and spiny lobster.<br />
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Down went the bait, up came a tiny french grunt, species #83.<br />
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The next species is most definitely new, but its identity is a little muddled. I only caught one of these, and my best bet as of now is a jenny mojarra. Either way, it is species #84.<br />
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There were a couple purple-backed, yellow-bellied damselfish swimming around. I finally got one to bite, and pulled up a beaugregory damselfish. Species #85's photo turned out fairly cruddy, but I'm not losing sleep over it...right?<br />
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In slightly deeper water, I dropped down some squid on a tiny hook and was met with plenty of aggressive horse-eye jacks. Now, I know this species gets a little big larger than this specimen(just a little), but I'll settle for this one. Species #86!<br />
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More grunts, mojarras, snappers, etc. followed. I tried to get some small snapper species to bite but they were not cooperating very well. The biggest heartbreak of the day came when a green moray somehow was swimming in the shallows. I stupidly tossed out my small hook with some cut bait on it in fear of it swimming away before I could tie on a wire leader and a stronger hook. It grabbed it, and I got it basically on shore at the boat launch when its sharp teeth sliced through the 8 lb mono. It's not very often that a moray swims out into the open like that, so I was pretty bummed, to say the least.<br />
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I spent the rest of the day feeding and occasionally hooking tarpon. They would wrap me around the dock, and then the sudden slack would cause the hook to pop. Nonetheless, it was fun seeing the fish violently vacuum in a ballyhoo chunk. One time, I hooked a tarpon, and an old fisherman, amused at the spectacle, guided me around the dock, half shouting, half laughing in rapidfire Spanish. I ended up playing that fish out for about 8 minutes, finally getting it close to the dock. With a final surge of energy however, it screamed off and my line popped. That was the closest I would get to a tarpon. Once, fishing for grunts with a #16 hook and a tiny piece of squid, a tarpon came out of nowhere and nonchalantly sucked my bait in. I had no choice but to clamp down on the spool and snap the line. With 4 lb test, the fish was bound to spool me.<br />
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On the bright side, Ray invited me and my family on his boat to go fishing that Sunday. We invited him to dinner to get to know him better and as appreciation for his help. He said he hadn't gone fishing in ages and was really looking forward to it.<br />
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The next day, we woke up early for a scuba diving trip. It was just me and my sister, since my parents weren't too comfortable with the idea of diving. Long story short, it might have been the highlight of the trip! It was incredibly fun. We dove down to 40+ feet, and saw endless marine life, including several angelfish, mantis shrimp, sea cucumbers, lobsters, very large snappers, and so much more. It was with an instructor around some deeper reefs. I'm actually thinking of getting certified! In the afternoon, we went to Gilligan's Island, which was a lot of fun but unfortunately allowed no fishing. We saw tons of barracudas (including a big one) and jacks in the open, and venturing into the mangrove channels, we saw plenty of grunts, goatfish, and snappers. I picked up a live conch in the midst of a pinfish school and placed it somewhere safe, as these are delicious.<br />
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After Gilligan's, I returned to the dock, but didn't catch anything new.<br />
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The next day we woke up bright and early, I being excited to see what I could catch in more open water.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-40169903253564452802017-01-03T11:35:00.000-08:002017-02-06T20:41:47.909-08:00Puerto Rico Pit Stop: Day 1-2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Over our winter break, our family made the decision to head over to Puerto Rico. Relatively close, yet offering so much, I was ecstatic about the fishing opportunities. The first two days were spent in Old San Juan, where much of our time was spent going around old forts and churches. The Castillo San Felipe del Morro was magnificent! </div>
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Walking the the castillo on the first day was only about a mile, so we opted to walk along the southern end of Old San Juan. Along the pathway, I was delighted to spot sergeant major damselfish and atlantic needlefish right by shore! Unfortunately, fishing wasn't allowed. The only spot where it was was by a small pier adjacent to the fort. After touring around, I wasted no time insetting up my gear on the pier. I had brought squid and shrimp from a supermarket, since no bait shops were around. </div>
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The pier was small, with the water on its deepest end only about 5-6 feet deep. The water was murky as well, with poor visibility. Nonetheless, I was able to see many colorful sergeant majors dancing around some pipes under the pier. Excited, I dropped down some squid and shrimp. The squid was processed, and the fish hardly even looked at it. On the other hand, the shrimp was met with immediate results. After figuring out the fish's preference, I was receiving strikes often. The first fish I pulled up, however, wasn't a lifer, to my disappointment. </div>
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A female hairy blenny: My first Puerto Rico fish. </div>
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After releasing the blenny, I dropped my shrimp on a fly fishing hook down by the pipes. It caught the attention of a small but bright sergeant major, which grabbed the bait but promptly spit it out. Not to worry, because as soon as it spit it out a much larger dark fish raced out from under the pier to snatch the bait up! A doggish fight from a bluegill-sized species reminded me just how much stronger saltwater fish were than their freshwater counterparts.<br />
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I carefully lifted the interestingly dark specimen up, and there I had it: Species #73, the Sergeant Major Damselfish!<br />
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I continued to fish, figuring out the aggressive sergeant majors pretty quickly. I moved near shore, and found a pair of needlefish, much to my excitement. Despite using a variety of tactics and baits, I simply could not get the needlefish to strike. I had one hit on some shrimp skimmed across the surface, a light tap that had the needlefish scurrying away. I tried lures and sabikis, but those were only met with halfhearted follows.<br />
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The sun was getting higher and higher in the afternoon, and the dizzying bright hot day was starting to get to me. It was then that I noticed several small, deep-bodied fish racing in and out of the surf. Unsure of their identity, but thinking that they might be blue runners, I cast out a freelined shrimp under a small float, and watched the float get tossed around by the waves near the beach, waiting for fish. As soon as the fish raced in, the float immediately shot down, but hooksets were futile, leaving me with a stripped hook. I downsized to a size sixteen hook, and repeated this process until, finally, i connected to a small fish. In the water, it flashed its side and I was even more confused than before. It shone bright silver, and I thought, Lookdown? Pompano? I brought it up and then knew it was a pompano of sorts, but whether it was a florida pompano or a permit still confused me. I, not being familiar with many saltwater fish species, did a quick consultation and figured that I had in hand a juvenile permit, species #74!<br />
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The long dorsal and anal fins gave it away, as did the sharply humped back rather than a gently sloped one. Interestingly enough, the permit is highly regarded as a wary and coveted sport fish. The permit I caught were not wary at all, attacking my bait savagely even with 15 lb braid. Perhaps it had to do with their being juveniles. I caught several more permit until the small school went away, and then I went back to the end of the pier.<br />
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I caught a magnificent specimen of a sergeant major...<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lVloyzqQlZM/WGMePEV5P-I/AAAAAAAAGIA/WnoB97lrimoqKyTtSr0ZSQjPpPE6Ym4EACPcB/s1600/IMG_1223.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lVloyzqQlZM/WGMePEV5P-I/AAAAAAAAGIA/WnoB97lrimoqKyTtSr0ZSQjPpPE6Ym4EACPcB/s640/IMG_1223.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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And then, while letting my shrimp sit on the sandy bottom, I felt a tap and reeled in a small fish which most definitely was not a damselfish. In fact, I had no clue of its identity other than the fact that it was a mojarra of sorts. Later, I identified it as a spotfin mojarra, species #75, uneventfully caught but still an exciting catch nonetheless. That would wrap it up for day one.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BGYbZ-NWLYI/WGMePJsS2LI/AAAAAAAAGHo/qAjtI8H6BSMxzhRlnqSsnPHPpguDzYQGwCPcB/s1600/IMG_1224.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BGYbZ-NWLYI/WGMePJsS2LI/AAAAAAAAGHo/qAjtI8H6BSMxzhRlnqSsnPHPpguDzYQGwCPcB/s640/IMG_1224.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Day 2 began early in the morning with me heading out to the same pier. It was disappointing, to say the least. The winds were pretty strong, and they actually blew one of my tackle boxes into the water, with me going for a quick swim in the delightfully warm water to retrieve them. At one point a huge school of sardines came in, being chased by an unseen predator. Using a sabiki, I was largely ignored by sardines who were too busy swimming for their lives. One sardine, however, decided to bite, but as I lifted him up onto the pier, the fell off the hook and slipped away in a crack between the wooden planks on the pier. A shame, indeed. I also saw a scrawled cowfish that wanted nothing to do with me whatsoever. The highlight of that outing was probably a colored up male hairy blenny, complete with red eyes and horns.<br />
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In the afternoon, we opted to head to Escambron Beach. There were rocks and small tide pools on the eastern end, so I quickly raced over there. Despite winds howling across the rocks, I managed to set up tanago hook and cane pole without much hassle, finding lots of aggressive gobies in the shallows. Just like that, I had species #76, the frillfin goby!<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBIHzjF2VRA/WGh4S2z-j9I/AAAAAAAAGH4/lXgOe-_7ax4xCwJCjqfwjtKWCVQ0GAcPQCPcB/s1600/IMG_1293.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBIHzjF2VRA/WGh4S2z-j9I/AAAAAAAAGH4/lXgOe-_7ax4xCwJCjqfwjtKWCVQ0GAcPQCPcB/s200/IMG_1293.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LC33zFenKbQ/WGfC6WItQ2I/AAAAAAAAGB4/iRZaTm3IQUsA28_wPEIvaT0z9mNfo8tVwCPcB/s1600/IMG_1292.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LC33zFenKbQ/WGfC6WItQ2I/AAAAAAAAGB4/iRZaTm3IQUsA28_wPEIvaT0z9mNfo8tVwCPcB/s200/IMG_1292.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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Fishing in some deeper pools, I saw several brown damselfish, to my excitement, but first I had to weed through several of probably the smallest sergeant major ever caught on hook and line. </div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KQ60ZH2ozZ0/WGfC6bHe9nI/AAAAAAAAGB4/XhjBlnUyYm40nGzdl6hwXeNbacUnm3ZPgCPcB/s1600/IMG_1291.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KQ60ZH2ozZ0/WGfC6bHe9nI/AAAAAAAAGB4/XhjBlnUyYm40nGzdl6hwXeNbacUnm3ZPgCPcB/s640/IMG_1291.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Fz9BTsAA0WA/WGfC6ZczNaI/AAAAAAAAGB4/1RcuVugB2-kVJ0m8FmY69ZXbVLFSF9OKACPcB/s1600/IMG_1290.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Fz9BTsAA0WA/WGfC6ZczNaI/AAAAAAAAGB4/1RcuVugB2-kVJ0m8FmY69ZXbVLFSF9OKACPcB/s640/IMG_1290.JPG" width="640" /></a>Once I got past those however, I caught the brown damselfish wit relative ease. Now came the hard part. To the best of my ability, I identified all the following as dusky damselfish. Now, brownish damselfish are notoriously hard to identify, so please correct me if I'm wrong. Whatever it is, I am sure that it is a new species, so that makes it #77!</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T1DMLxrqlCo/WGh4S77MwsI/AAAAAAAAGEo/HyGfQl73gcoBzaX2RqgFAvft6WhEzfCMACPcB/s1600/IMG_1297.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T1DMLxrqlCo/WGh4S77MwsI/AAAAAAAAGEo/HyGfQl73gcoBzaX2RqgFAvft6WhEzfCMACPcB/s200/IMG_1297.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AqClJPTSWFQ/WGfC6YHQzcI/AAAAAAAAGB4/eXXK9opBWgwYXYj7nX6XjMHQxRgtDnrzgCPcB/s1600/IMG_1288.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AqClJPTSWFQ/WGfC6YHQzcI/AAAAAAAAGB4/eXXK9opBWgwYXYj7nX6XjMHQxRgtDnrzgCPcB/s200/IMG_1288.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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I also caught a cardinalfish of sorts, and hooked several wrasse, one of which slipped out of my hand and into the drink. If my luck wasn't bad enough, my phone got saltwater in it in a sudden turn of events (all of which was my fault), costing me the cardinalfish and several brownish damselfish which may have been new species. I'll spare you the details, but I wasn't too happy with myself.<br />
<br />Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-35780635634902551212016-12-04T10:59:00.000-08:002016-12-04T10:59:33.905-08:00Armchair Lifer: Florida Bass<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
An amchair lifer: A surprise new species when viewing older pictures and new data. </div>
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I've taken a look at my Florida 2015 trip, and what I know was that I caught a large bass which I classified as a Florida largemouth bass<i>: Micropterus salmoides floridanus</i>. However, there has been plenty of scientific consensus that this strain is indeed a separate species, <i>Micropterus floridanus</i>. So there you have it, a new species, the Florida Bass, which brings my total to 72!</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YXYZWP-J0Yc/VOPr9ppF3-I/AAAAAAAABK0/Z5ok6-VQqxMtzhaa5GTQjWkMJTOang3FgCPcB/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YXYZWP-J0Yc/VOPr9ppF3-I/AAAAAAAABK0/Z5ok6-VQqxMtzhaa5GTQjWkMJTOang3FgCPcB/s640/image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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A summary of known Black Bass species: </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4tuf1ngctTUO-Kr6dEGcDBJ9GIfEP11ZE9J2IsECmUDwH9aHV69X-ngqL3-KT9kYhalnFLoK6JmALQqMHUfviLJK5K2OoYve6iBVFIZwygppprT_CodyiVaoD7_8lSYH2v2mLjRAcY5Y/s1600/7D7DAD4C-F272-4D6C-A41A-BD00D5161972-3068-0000048334D59C50_tmp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4tuf1ngctTUO-Kr6dEGcDBJ9GIfEP11ZE9J2IsECmUDwH9aHV69X-ngqL3-KT9kYhalnFLoK6JmALQqMHUfviLJK5K2OoYve6iBVFIZwygppprT_CodyiVaoD7_8lSYH2v2mLjRAcY5Y/s640/7D7DAD4C-F272-4D6C-A41A-BD00D5161972-3068-0000048334D59C50_tmp.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113891645486696105.post-3422119168589519962016-11-24T11:16:00.001-08:002016-11-24T11:16:33.304-08:00Whiskers on a Brisk, Late Fall Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The sharpness of the late fall air cut into my face, reddening my ears. Each breath exhaled brought forth a satisfying cloud of vapor. </div>
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Late November this year has been quite interesting. We just recieved a huge cold front, and air temps went from 70 to 40 in a day. And yet, despite the weather, the underlying urge to be out there on the water was pervading my mind. And so it was that I took the opportunity to explore a new spot quite close to home that offered an enticing piece of river. </div>
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The goal was to fish for whatever would bite, catfish and pickerel were what I would have expected, if anything was to bite at all. Nonetheless, it felt good knowing I was going to be outside, enjoying myself in these fish-deprived times. The spot I chose needed a bit of a hike to get to, and access was a bit iffy, so I packed up my rods and gear bag and began walking over. </div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HZs5AbjURok/WDYXEhrjrOI/AAAAAAAAFhY/K7ja9qBEd8kQ_oiuvTXmmCOyZOoUfTECACPcB/s1600/IMG_0268.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HZs5AbjURok/WDYXEhrjrOI/AAAAAAAAFhY/K7ja9qBEd8kQ_oiuvTXmmCOyZOoUfTECACPcB/s640/IMG_0268.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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Some construction obstructed the way</div>
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When I got to my spot after a couple slips down the hill, I could see that it was all worth it. Two big pools were connected by an enticingly fast, thin run, with good eddies and slackwater on both sides of the run. The stained water was quite inviting, so I wasted no time sending out a chunk of old pig fat and ham, letting it drift until I felt it setttle in the current break. </div>
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Simply gorgeous</div>
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I didn't have time to set up my second rod before I hears the bells on my first rod. Unbelievable, I thought. It must have been a stick. Some sense of hope forced me to go over and pick up the rod, however, and when I felt tension, leaned into the circle hook and reeled in a small fish. Eel? Bullhead? I wasn't too surprised when I brough up a small yellow bullhead. Their sense of smell is unpeccable, and the oily, smelly pork must have appealed to its palate.<br />
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What I was surprised about, however, was the color of this particular specimen. The golden-yellow soft belly seemed to glow in this gloomiest of days.<br />
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Crazy coloration...</div>
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Mugshot</div>
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Not a long while later, I received another hit, and pulled up a larger specimen of yellow bullhead. Although this one presented another spectacular palette of colors, it didn't quite hold up against the first one.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IxhzumzankQ/WDYXElDxaMI/AAAAAAAAFhY/bcvYVZFDF-UvwtcjrVgNMVAQpYREHojpgCPcB/s1600/IMG_0276.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IxhzumzankQ/WDYXElDxaMI/AAAAAAAAFhY/bcvYVZFDF-UvwtcjrVgNMVAQpYREHojpgCPcB/s640/IMG_0276.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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I picked off another similarly-sized bullhead shortly after. Oddly enough, I received a lot of bites that couldn't connect, and a lot of hookups that became unbuttoned. That may be credited to my use of 1/0 circles, which I chose in the case of a larger fish, and to prevent gut-hooking of bullheads, eels, etc.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U7NhpQrnYPk/WDYXEvTsyGI/AAAAAAAAFhY/D8ADkUyTJyYBO8mBHvf-TCY6ibwU9XpTQCPcB/s1600/IMG_0278.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U7NhpQrnYPk/WDYXEvTsyGI/AAAAAAAAFhY/D8ADkUyTJyYBO8mBHvf-TCY6ibwU9XpTQCPcB/s640/IMG_0278.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kcwxRYu6ptY/WDYXElxsqdI/AAAAAAAAFhY/WGgSvdxVd4Ei-DWbIJWvZPekgUi8ak9iQCPcB/s1600/IMG_0279.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kcwxRYu6ptY/WDYXElxsqdI/AAAAAAAAFhY/WGgSvdxVd4Ei-DWbIJWvZPekgUi8ak9iQCPcB/s640/IMG_0279.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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As I halfheartedly cast a stickbait for pickerel, I saw my rod get a solid thump out of the corner of my eye. I dropped my ultralight and ran over to my rod, which now sustained a consistent bend. Picking it up out of the rodholder, I leaned into what clearly was a better-quality fish.<br />
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As I reeled in the fish, which was putting up a decent scuffle, thoughts ran through my mind questioning the identity of this specimen. Big eel? Channel catfish? I saw a stocky, grey body and a large head, and a thought entered my mind that it may be a white catfish. As it neared, my suspicions were confirmed.<br />
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I brought up a considerably larger white catfish than I had caught back in West Palm Beach. It was only my second white catfish ever, and my first on from NJ. A satisfying catch, indeed.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0EwgBySYb-I/WDYXEopHxzI/AAAAAAAAFhY/9v4s79-BflALjTMlRa5NVKhGtKWBo-6GgCPcB/s1600/IMG_0284.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0EwgBySYb-I/WDYXEopHxzI/AAAAAAAAFhY/9v4s79-BflALjTMlRa5NVKhGtKWBo-6GgCPcB/s640/IMG_0284.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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What was quite shocking was the proportion of the fishes head to its body. It's head and moth were both massive, something I noticed to be often characteristic of the white catfish I've seen. I've always though white catfish were interesting little buggers - color of a blue, but with a body that looks as if someone forced a bullhead and a channel to procreate. To add, they're not prolific like bullheads, and in my experience, fairly uncommon, but you can expect a few in every body of water.<br />
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After I watched the grayish fish kick away, I talked catfish and pickerel, as well as other miscellaneous things with a fellow angler who happened to be passing by. I didn't get any other connections, but it was refreshing indeed to breath fresh air, and even better to find a new, promising, secluded spot. Hopefully I can return soon.Brandon Lihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307178139106433310noreply@blogger.com0