Apocalypse and Eels: 2020 and 2021 Roughfish Contest Buttons

2020: Fishing vs. the Apocalypse Though 2020 will be remembered for the negatives, the annual Roughfish.com species contest was a bright spot. Despite being reformatted as a series of weekly challenges—to discourage travel and encourage exploration of waters close to home—and stretched 10 weeks instead of the usual month, it still gave us all an opportunity to get out of the house and focus on experiencing the natural world in positive ways. Knowing that the… Continue reading

Be the Buffalo! (It’s Halloween: lighten up.)

Are you, like me, not an enthusiastic participant in Halloween? Do family members and friends ask what your costume will be, then  shake their heads sadly when you answer? I’ve got just what you need. Download this super high-tech Smallmouth Buffalo mask, print it out, and spend half an hour with scissors, markers, glue and whatever else you need. Given their low expectations, you’re going to amaze everyone you know. Downloads: , , or (all are… Continue reading

Flying Gar Feeding Frenzy

500 miles. 24 hours. Infinite fish. On a Mission On the last day of the 2017 NANFA convention in Missouri, I drove several hours to fish some waters in the southeast corner of the state, led by Tyler Goodale, one of the fishiest people in MO. In the other car were a couple other NANFA members on a mission to capture (with dipnet and seine) some darter and sunfish species. My mission was to cast… Continue reading

2016 Roughfish.com June Species Contest

June is my favorite month, and has been ever since I discovered roughfish.com and the annual Spring Species Contest. This will be my 9th species contest. I won’t win (probably) but I’ll catch a lot of fish. If all goes well, I’ll beat all my previous totals by catching more than 30 species between 12:01AM June 1st and 11:59:59PM June 30th. For the third time, I was allowed to design the button (and shirt) for… Continue reading

Gar Peril! Iowa, 1912

A man with a fish stuck in his eye.

Browsing old newspapers for interesting fish stories, I uncovered a very brief item of massive importance and interest. That this has remained hidden so long may be evidence of a cover-up (though there is, as yet, no way to know how high this goes). There are, in this single sentence, more stories than young Edward himself might have wanted us to find. (See note below about this image of the paper.) If you have ever… Continue reading

Halloween Fish Geekery

A few years ago, I created (in photoshop, not pumpkin flesh) a Norther Hog Sucker jack-o-lantern. I’ve felt like a bad person ever since, knowing that a real fish geek would have carved a real fish pumpkin. No longer! This year I bought a pumpkin with the right shape, I kept it inside so squirrels wouldn’t damage it, and I studied gar anatomy. Last night, I hooked up the electrodes to the lightning rods atop… Continue reading

Shortnose Gar Bonanza! (includes underwater video)

  The Spot There’s this spot. It’s on a river. Tough to get to: a long hike in wet grass, a rocky downhill, slipping in mud and stumbling and rolling on loose stones. Poison ivy everywhere. Trail barely visible unless you know where to look. Then you get to the river, where you slip and trip some more, and lots more poison ivy. Most of that is not exaggerated much. You won’t like it, even… Continue reading

1917’s Sweet Smell of Spring in Minnesota: 2 Million Pounds of Dead Buffalo & Carp

DEAD FISH, BUFFALO LAKE, MARTIN COUNTY, SPRING OF 1917. Estimated 175,000 pounds smothered in this lake alone last winter. Game Warden Altenberg of Fairmount made a careful survey of the lakes of Martin county and found loss of fish in twenty lakes, the following, Martin, Charlotte, Cedar, Buffalo, Fish, North Silver, Iowa, Tuttle, Susan and East Chain, suffering most heavily. Mr. Altenbergy estimated the total loss from smothering of fish in Martin county last winter,… Continue reading

Gar Accomplished: all 5 US species

Contact with gar fires me up in a way no other group of fish does, and I know I’m not alone in appreciating these fish. The reaction they ignite in me is located somewhere deeper than the feelings touched off by more recently arrived fishes like trout, bass, or even suckers. It’s been said before by others who have found themselves addicted to these fish: they’re dinosaurs, dragons, pure predators, living fossils. For me it… Continue reading

Bowfin for June Species Contest

I got to draw the button (and t-shirt) again this year for the roughfish.com June species contest. Last year I did a pumpkinseed. This year I made a bowfin. (Last weekend I was fishing with Garman and asked what kind of fish he thought I should draw. He said a bowfin would be cool. I ran with it.) To enter the contest, get an account at roughfish.com, buy the button and/or t-shirt, wait til 12:01AM on… Continue reading

Illinois Gar Summit I, Feb. 2014

Illinois Gar Summit I, 2014: Bill Meyer, Olaf Nelson. Solomon David and a cenury-old (plus) Alligator Gar in the deepest recesses of the Field Museum in Chicago.

After months of hopeful but vague discussion about getting together to talk gar (and other cool fish), three of the most gar obsessed citizens of Illinois finally managed to meet at the end of February. Solomon David, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Shedd Aquarium (and see primitivefishes.com), hosted Bill Meyer (founder of garfishing.com and the Gar Angler’s Sporting Society [GASS]) and me for a full day of fish nerding. We enjoyed a tour behind the… Continue reading

Redhorse Army, show your allegiance!

There is a new redhorse design for sale in the zazzle store, created in response to a few people who told me that they like the pyramid of redhorse lips, but don’t want to have to explain it all the time. This time the word REDHORSE is prominently featured (along with an unblinking redhorse eye). I don’t know how much it will help, since I’m asked all the time what “redhorse” means. Wear the insignia… Continue reading

Catching gator gar, making history

In 1966, at the very southern tip of Illinois, a 7 foot, 150 pound alligator gar was caught on hook and line. There are no records of any being caught (by any method) in the state after that. 1966. Three  years before I was born. No one had been to  the moon yet. Computers that couldn’t even send offers of cheap Canadian pharmaceuticals or display low-resolution pornography were the size of Econoline vans and required… Continue reading

The 2013 roughfish.com June Species Contest is upon us!

Let the wild rumpus begin! To enter, go to http://www.roughfish.com and sign up. There is even a kids’ division. You have to have the button to participate. It has to be in the photos of the fish you catch. The winner is the one who catches the most species of fish (freshwater, must be species that get over a pound) in the month of June. It won’t be me, and I’m fine with that. Last… Continue reading