In 2015 I caught a 4-pound Shorthead Redhorse (Moxosoma macrolepidotum) that would have been a new Illinois state record if I had stopped fishing, found a store with a certified scale, and got it weighed. I missed the record by just 1/100 of a pound. The state record, 3.74 pounds, was set in 2008 by Andrew Chione, whose brother John had set the Silver Redhorse (M. anisurum) record the day before. I wrote about them… Continue reading
Spring is the best season. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. Anyone who claims fall is better is secretly paid to say it. Among the surest and most exciting signs of spring are the annual spawning runs of various fish in local waterways. The arrival of White Bass (Morone chrysops) in large numbers makes for exciting fishing. Though futile from a reproductive standpoint, the runs of Coho Salmon and Steelhead (Rainbow Trout) up Lake Michigan… Continue reading
I have asked myself many times what I would do if I happened to catch a record-sized fish. I suspect most of us who fish obsessively have thought about this. There are really only two choices. You either kill it, take it to a certified scale, fill out paperwork and get the record, or you photograph the hell out of it, measure it every way you can think of, then release it and bask in… Continue reading
As if the newspaper article about my deviant fishing tastes and the alligator gar I caught wasn’t enough, today a radio show is being broadcast on the same subjects. I was actually allowed to sit in a recording studio and talk for half an hour about my thoughts on fish, fishing, and more. After a week of imagining all the stupid things I might have said and strange sounds I might have made, I’m relieved… Continue reading
Sunshine and a cooperative little shorthead. Is there a word or term for that zone of both rays and barely-formed scales, or for the stage of scale formation where they are more hints than scales? If not, there ought to be. Suggestions? This little channel catfish (8 or 9 inches at most) also had a healthy glow when x-rayed by the sun. Continue reading
(Click on the photos to see them larger.) Since this shorthead redhorse decided to lay in the shallows getting its breath back after being caught and released, I knelt down to get some photos. I was still set up for macro (extension tube), so I couldn’t get the whole fish and it was just luck that any of the shots had areas that were in focus. Sand moving by in the current and landing on… Continue reading
I have held blue suckers. A bunch of them. (There are more photos below. Read on or scroll down.) It turns out that if you start a site devoted to catostomids, and you’re very polite to the right people, you might find yourself spending a sunny May day on board a boat in the Wisconsin River with a net in your hands and hundreds of suckers (of many species) and sturgeon (of two species)… Continue reading
This story is a few years old (the following is based on Dale Bowman’s report in the Chicago Sun-Times on May 14, 2008, linked below), but it’s a beauty: Brothers Andrew and John Chione were fishing the Fox River west of Chicago in 2008 for carp, catfish and anything else that would bite. On April 24th,13-year-old John caught a 25.5 inch, 6.71 pound silver redhorse, got it weighed on a certified scale and had the… Continue reading
