Friday, January 13, 2012

Fish of 2011

2011 was a great year full of completely new fishing experiences for me.  Before moving to Mississippi, my list of fly caught fish consisted of smallmouth bass, rainbow trout, brook trout, brown trout, catfish, suckers, and various kinds of panfish (brim for you southern folk).  In the past year I added flounder, speckled trout, white trout, hardhead catfish, redfish, ladyfish, sheepshead, Florida pompano, Spanish mackerel, ground mullet, and a few more random little guys.  All of those fish were on the fly.  The funny thing is I often felt like I wasn't catching much, but looking back, I caught a bunch of different kinds of fish.  I think that's an exciting part of living on the coast - you never know what kind of fish you're going to catch.

I've picked out pictures of what I think are my best fish of the year.  Some of them have been posted here before but some of them haven't.  Its not a particularly impressive collection, but I was quite pleased to catch them.

 This is a sheepshead caught while fishing on Ship Island in the spring of last year.  I had been chasing visible sheepshead from the beach all day, and I finally hooked up with this one while blind casting.


I caught this Florida pompano on Petit Bois Island in the summer.  It is the only pompano I've ever caught, so I don't really know how big it is compared to other ones, but it is a beautiful fish and it put up a great fight.  I'd love to catch more of these this year.


This is a two foot long speckled trout that I caught on Ship Island during a morning where the trough between the beach and the first sandbar was just full of specks.  I love this picture because of how its belly bulges around where I'm holding it.

The common factor in these pictures?  The islands...  Good things happen when I go to the barrier islands.  I can't wait for the ferry to start running again in the spring.  Or better yet, I can't wait to get my own boat!

I plan on doing a little fishing this weekend, so look for a post sometime next week.

5 comments:

  1. Looks like you had quite the year!

    When I read the title, I thought it was "Fish of the year (2012)". I thought to myself "Dang...it's only Jan 13th" haha.

    Hopefully you can add more to that growing list.

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  2. Hahaha I guess I am a little late on the "year in review" type posts.

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  3. There, I changed the title so as not to confuse anybody else...

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  4. Dang- I finally caught up with your blog. Some nice fish you got there. According to my research your pompano is typical- they don't get huge, but being obviously related to permit, I'd think they put up a great fight. That's one heck of a nice speck you got. Glad I finally found you- I'll try to make you homesick for Michigan as much as I can.

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  5. Fontinalis, thanks for the feedback! I've been following your blog for a while, and you make me homesick quite often!

    About the kayak fishing trip, the one you commented on was a while ago and wasn't very successful, but I'll be doing more so hopefully you'll be able to read some kayak fishing posts in the future.

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