We all like to fish, or we wouldn't be on a fishing forum... but I've noticed that there are different kinds of fisherpeople. Some are perfectly happy plunking some powerbait for 11 inch hatchey trout all day. Others are strictly bass guys. Some like catching as many fish as possible while others are just looking for that one big one etc. I suspect that most of us are a mix and enjoy several different strategies of fishing.
As for me, my thing is catching new species. Big or small, if it has fins and swims I want to catch it. I like the challenge of figuring out what species I want to catch, where they can be caught, and what techniques it will take to catch them. Don't get me wrong if I had a choice between catching say a trophy steelhead and something tiny I'd take the big steelhead. But give me a choice between maybe a small steelhead and a tiny new species and I'll take the new species every time.
I'm by no means saying my way is better than anybody else's (in fact I think I'm kind of weird [
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What sort of fisherperson are you?
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I like the fast boats and gadgets of bass fishing
Cranking for walleye
Sitting on a bucket jigging through an ice hole
Going for trout with the grand kids using worms and mellows
And when the water is up a little sturgeon fishing
Never got the salmon or steelhead addiction and Alaskan halibut don't fight near as well as a snake river sturgeon.
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I have an 18' inboard outboard for lakes and a 17' jetboat for rivers . I mostly fish for trout . I love open water fishing and icefishing about the same . I have almost every ice fishing gadget you can get . My favorite place to fish is Brownlee resivior . I don't get there very often because it is 400 miles from my home . What I like about Brownlee is you never know what you are going to catch . Smallmouth bass , crappie , bluegill , catfish , trout , perch . I bought a fly rod after I retired ,I thought I would learn how because I have so much time now. I have never taken it out of the package yet . I will some day .
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I like to catch any kind of fish that I can. I almost always fly fish and as I've gotten older it is almost exclusively in a kick boat on lakes and reservoirs. The goal that I set for myself every year is to get to at least five new waters during the year. It forces me into going places I've never been and sometimes fishing for species I've never caught. That is a good part of the fun and challenge of fishing, figuring out what it takes to catch them.
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When it's just me, I love nothing more than to hike in to some way-back-in-there alpine lake (enjoying the scenery along the way), pull out the telescoping light-weight backpacking pole, and fish for the lunkers in solitude.
But, when I have the kids with me, I seek the hot action (think fall Perch on Cascade). There's not too many more gratifying things in life than seeing the BIG
s on young 'uns faces as they're reeling in fish after fish after fish. Get 'em hooked young (pun intended), and they'll be my fishing buddies for life.
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I love seeing the variety of different species you catch. I think that is a great goal, and one that involves a lot of learning and research.
I like fish of all kinds! My early years were on my dad's commercial fishing boat off of the coast of Washington catching salmon, halibut, lingcod, red snappers, steelhead (can't sell those, so we ate a lot of them!) and many other fish. My brother and I fished the waters under the docks and in the streams and swamps off the coast there. It didn't matter what we caught, just as long as it was a fish. Good times.
Come to think of it, most of my bones were probably formed from the calcium from the bones of canned steelhead. So I come by my love of fish naturally. It's in my bones! [laugh][laugh]
Now I mostly fish streams in the mountains, but I also like fishing the lower lakes when I get a chance. Bass, panfish, trout, carp, walleye, catfish, chubs, whitefish, or even suckers are all welcome to grab my flies.
I know that it sounds weird that I would try to catch suckers, but it is a lot of fun and a challenge to see what they will take and how you have to present it.
I like the challenge of learning something new all the time. Each fish and stretch of water is an adventure. I love looking at Google Earth for small out of the way places that not many people have fished. I also love collecting information on new areas that I maybe visiting in the future. I even like reading fisheries technical reports. Not just for were the fish are, but for the pure science of it all working together.
Solving problems on access or how to bushwhack into an overgrown willow jungle are all challenges I love as much as the fish that hide out there. It's all fun, and I love being outside exploring it all. If I am weird... I am sure enjoying being weird and hoping for many more years to learn a whole lot more
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I love to fish! Started with my dad till I was in Jr High in North Dakota Catchin bullheads then when we moved to Iowa my choices broaden to some others but mostly bank fishin and night fishing for walleye while you were wading out from shore till the water nearly came over. Then I became a fly fisherman and that was how I fished until I moved to Idaho from South Dakota still fly fishing but started using a canoe and progressed to float tubes. Started to broaden the methods of taking fish to spinning so had multiple rods with me on the a pontoon much gear and a 50# thrust trolling motor. Mostly chasing the walleye but very intrigued by crappie and perch. Still loving bluegill on the fly road!
Finally got sort of consistent for walleye with the fly rod. Then I reintroduced my self to ice fishing which has now become a real passion! Hoping on a possible trophy perch from Cascade or crappie or catfish through the ice. Then I purchased a small boat which grew into a bigger boat a 15' Gregor which is now all gadgeted up with many options for fishing with preferences in a varying order of crappie, perch, walleye, bass, catfish on a spinner, blue gill (still prefer the float tube here), trout (want to learn how to use my downrigger gear which has never gotten wet) and some day a sturgeon.
I am attempting to visit and fish as many of the fishable waters I can in the state of Idaho but the real progress in this endeavor probably won't be for another couple of years when LORD willing I can retire for a time.
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When I was growing up all I wanted to catch was a catfish.
I spent a lot of years flyfishing for trout and bass. I spent several years attempting to catch a walleye. Then a few years ago I had a guy take me and show me the ropes. After getting into float tube fishing Tube Dude helped me to figure out catfish.
I spent hours upon hours studying catfish in Idaho. Since good catfishing is 3 to 5 hours away I spent a lot of time on the internet scouting with Google earth.
I can catch cats now pretty well. I am still figuring out Flatheads.
Then I had a crazy idea to catch a sturgeon on a inflatable pontoon. That dream finally came true in 2011. I got one fish that year but it was the opening of a door. I spent the next winter trying to understand them more.
This year I achieved a goal of 52 sturgeon for the year. I topped that with not a record number of Catfish but I got 154 catfish. A pile of them were 30" or better. I also caught several sturgeon over 7 foot.
Trying to answer the question what kind of a fisherman am I, that is hard. I am a bottom fisher, Pontoon fisherman, and I like to study what I am after.
I have fished for Salmon and Halibut. I have caught a lot of different types of fish. But I have narrowed my fishing to two species. Sturgeon and Cats, and of the two I would say that cats are my favorite. My son and I have a game we play. WHo ever catches the most cats is called "catmando" the others are called "catmandon't".
I am catmando. [
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I'm a spoiled, washed-up fisherman. A sight fisherman. See the fish first. Decide and move to where I need to be, or make a presentation from where I stand. Present the fly/lure. See the take (the best part!) Set the hook. See the fish react to the hook. Get the fish in and get it back. I no longer enjoy blind casting for anything, anywhere.
Fly or lure choice is usually pretty simple. I'll change up here and there, but not much. Its simple guess work. Size of fish isn't important, but I do prefer challenging fish in a location that's hard to get to, and the larger fish in rivers seem to live and hold in such places. Fish that are wary and spooky. Fish that don't just jump on the hook or chase after the offering. I want to earn them.
But sometimes, they just go off and I get in the zone, and its just catching one after the other. That's ok too, once in a while to spice things up. I can always find one that's a challenge though. Never will catch them all, thankfully. Not even close.
I've done the bait fishing, blind nymph fishing, trolling, cast-and-pray, cast-to-structure, blind fishing with every kind of lure there is kind-of-fishing. Even went ice fishing 3 times. Lots of different species, some in prime locations of North America.
Give me surface, near-surface, clear water, shallow water, sight fishing. Bass, trout, salmon, tarpon, snook, pike, . . . I like most any fish that will regularly eat "up", and doesnt' have sucker lips (No carp, bonefish, white fish, catfish, walleye, etc.) If I can fish my fly or lure on top, presented to a fish I can see, call me Happy!
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I find as much joy in catching a mess of perch as fishing all day for that one big toad. The good Lord got it right creating all shapes and sizes of rivers and creeks, lakes, ponds, etc. and what a joy it is trying new places, and as long as I am on this planet I will try as many new places as possible. I live a very hectic life and there is nothing more peaceful than getting out and recharging the batteries. Don't get me wrong, I go out to put something on the stringer to bring home and plop in the pan, but if I do come up empty...and yes I strike out every once in awhile too I still feel a calm that I didn't feel before I left. I think everyone in life is good at least at one thing in their lives and mine as well as many of you is fishing.
Happy fishing everybody!
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I'm the type of fisher that doesn't mind fishing for what ever, I love adding to the list for species and places been. Idaho is my home and favorite place I've fished so far.. I've caught the most and biggest fish I've ever caught in Idaho, although the biggest bullhead catfish came from a holding pond in Langdon North Dakota , and my first and only yellow cat from south Dakota as well as my first rockbass from Nebraska, I love chasing bass for numbers because they seem very eager to take about anything much like bluegil, I do allot of "spin" fishing which by that I mean using a spinning rod and reel. I learned on that and have spent many years doing only that, I only recently picked up the fly rod 5years ago and have done quite a bit of what I have hoped to accomplish, always wanted to catch carp on the fly figured them out and it became a favorite fast, then I decided I want to catch "big" browns on a mouse And I just recently this late august achieved just that.. I like to do it all, wade fishing for trout is one of my favorites but chasing bass and carp around on my tube is just as fun.. I've also done quite allot of ice fishing started going with my dad when I was just a little kid around 6 or 7 years old.. More recently have I started to enjoy ice fishing.. I guess to sum it all up I'm the like to do it all type of Fisher person.
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I've been trying to decide what kind of fisherman I am. I'm very visual and I enjoy trying to figure out exactly what is going on under the water and how the fish are reacting. So I love sight fishing and seeing a fish follow or I once watched a bass stalk my grasshopper popper where he followed then stopped and just watched me twitch it until leaping at it suddenly. I love underwater youtube videos to see how they are reacting so I can imagine that as I am fishing. And almost every body of water I pass I try to visualize where the fish are and imagine where I would like to cast in.
I like trying something different. We we fishing a pond once where they were hitting everything, so I went through my different colored Jakes, castmaster, spinners, rapalas to see which had the best luck for future reference. Even caught a 10" trout on a 6" rapala because they would nip at the hook on the tail. So I will usually try a variety, easy stuff like worms to make sure fish are there, and then try coaxing them to hit other things. Find the lure that works the best and hand it to my wife and then try to get them to hit my most bizarre lure just to see if they will.
Lastly I enjoy the variety, spent most of my teenage years fishing creeks around Tetonia, some lakes, the Snake in a few places. So almost all trout, a few whitefish and a perch. Now I have branched out into bass, bluegill, crappie, more perch, a few catfish, trying for a carp on purpose (from nice clean water) to see how they taste if prepared right, a kokanee. Some I keep, some I decide I'm too lazy to clean so I let them go or don't feel too bad that they spit the hook.
I actually fished a lake in New York the other day. I am here for work and my buddy brought down his poles. I hooked what I would guess was an 18-20" lake trout (my first) on this tiny pole. I left the drag loose so I could wear him down without breaking the line and when I almost had him in the hook came out. So, awesome that I coaxed him to bite, would have been fun to get him out of the water and a pic, but easiest way to release one so I didn't mind.
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Look up Tenkarabum's site on microfishing. There is a whole other world of fishing out there.
I love fishing for new species. I ice fish because it keeps me active in the winter and I can take my family.
If I had to define myself I would probably say I am a fly fisherman. At the same time I pride myself on being able to fish with any tackle in many different locations around the country.
I truly enjoy it all. If I knew I only could go fishing one more time. I would choose a light rod on a small stream in the high country. For me that is where peace is found.
Windriver
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[quote windriver] At the same time I pride myself on being able to fish with any tackle in many different locations around the country.[/quote]
^That about sums it up for me too. Fly fishing is my favorite, with ice fishing a very close second, but I try to be proficient at all of it, and it's all fun.
As for microfishing... Tenkarabum is about the only place worth going for gear in the U.S. I bought a Kiyotake 24 rod and a bunch of hooks from them. The Tanago half moons are my favorite. I don't think there is a fish too small. Baiting those hooks is another matter entirely though... [shocked]
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What kind of fish is that in your picture? Do they live in Idaho? Awesome looking little bugger! ....legs
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Did you buy the little magnifying jar so you can examine the little fish and determine species? If so you are way into it. I have the Kiyotaki 24. It works great for my kids tenkara fishing on really small streams.
Windriver
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I started fishing as a child. Streams and trolling from a boat, mostly. Then started bank yanking lakes. Moved to fly fishing, then to still water fly fishing, then back to rivers again. Now I'm really into ice fishing. It is my FAV. I imagine that will change at some point. Truth is, I like it all. But icing big fish on tiny rods and reels is my favorite.
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That is the fearsome three-spined stickleback. One of my favorites! I don't think are found anywhere in Idaho though.
Windriver: No jar. I just take lots of pictures. ID is usually not too hard in the pacific northwest. Part of my job is to be able to ID tiny fish... Anywhere east of the Rockies and it gets harder though. There's way more species over there and many of them are pretty much identical.
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