Fish of 2012

 

I had a great year of fishing in 2012 so I thought I'd share my most memorable fish of the year. Here they are:

Black drum caught on Horn Island while blind casting. Hours of fishing with one huge fish to show for it.

24 inch redfish sight-fished from the kayak on one of my first good days of redfishing.  It was a big one for me at the time, and the overall outing was simply amazing.

A week after my buddy landed a big red underneath the birds, I played copy cat and caught this 29 inch redfish under the birds in the Mississippi Sound from my kayak.

A fat, 29 inch redfish caught on a popper on the revelatory day when I discovered topwater redfishing.

Another good redfish caught the very next day on a gurgler tied the night before.

My one and only Yellowstone cutthroat trout. I was oh so close to landing my biggest trout ever later in the afternoon.

First fish to reach the backing!

As you can see, I developed a slight obsession for redfish over the past year, and this obsession pretty much blocked out all other kinds of fishing. This was the year I finally figured out how to catch them on a regular basis, and I can’t remember the last time I made plans to target a different species. I do think the obsession is dying down as lately I've been having some impure thoughts, that is, thoughts of other fish...

Another thing I notice when reviewing these pictures is a distinct lack of the Mich aspect of MICH-issippi. I did not even wet a line in Michigan in 2012. This makes me sad, and I hope it never happens again.

Goals for 2013? Catch a BIG redfish. I’ve caught lots of nice redfish, but no truly big ones. I’d also like to catch some new species besides redfish, maybe false albacore, pompano, jack crevalle, or tripletail. Nothing against redfish - I still love them - but after a year of redfishing, its time to try something different.