Europe: Denmark and Sweden

I was off to mainland Europe after Iceland; this would offer a fresh opportunity to catch new species in new countries.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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, Perca fluviatilis. With the yellow perch of the North America, P. flavenscens, I have caught 2/3 of the Perca genus; to complete it requires a trip to Kazakhstan.

After leaving the museum, I decided to fish around the little island a bit and caught some more European perch.



There were some cool boats around the dock; as interesting as they were, I was keen on finding fish in those waters.

The first day yielded just the perch, but there was plenty more to come.

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.

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.

The ide, species #113. A strong fighter and an aggressive fish, by European cyprinid standards, anyway.

The same tactic yielded a roach next, species #114, probably the most abundant fish in the canal.

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.

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.

Going to the same spot every morning, I was consistently greeted by more roach and ide.

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.

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.

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.

Live bleak and juvenile roach proved to be tempting for the perch as well.

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.

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 Gulp! 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.

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.

All the fine natural baits I tried, and they opted to bite this pink smelly bit of rubber.

Summer 2017 RoughFish.com Spring Species Contest

The Spring Species Contest is an annual competition held by roughfish.com for whomever can catch the most species of standard-sized (no micros) freshwater fish species in the month of June.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Unfortunately, self-timer shots aren't always the best option....

I decided to fish later into the night, and that was when I caught what perhaps was my most memorable fish of the contest. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

A worm on the bottom quickly yielded a small yellow bullhead. 

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. 

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. 

Upon arriving to the lake, I sent out bottom-rigged nightcrawlers on two rods and fished another rod with a small jig.

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. 

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!

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.

As the day descended into night, I caught plenty more black crappie and a couple yellow bullheads. Still, however, the white perch eluded me.

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. 

I don't know if this pumpkinseed is my biggest ever, but it has to be close—that thing was huge

Big bull bluegill

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!. 

As expected, the black crappies were out in full force. 

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.

A short but spirited fight (definitely much tougher than the crappie) led to my first white perch! That's species #79.

Plenty more followed subsequently.

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.

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. 

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...

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. 

Species #92: the mummichog.

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.

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.

However, I poked around a piece of log with a small redworm, trying to see if I could entice any smaller, more interesting species.

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.

It was a warmouth.

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.

There's species #93: the warmouth.

This particular individual has a head almost half the size of its body. 

I also ended up catching a few turtles of interest.

Common snapping turtle

 Eastern Painted Turtle

Northern Red-bellied Cooter

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 roughfish.com to participate in the contest and forum!