A few Invasives

     After figuring out how to catch bowfin consistently at my usual spot, I wanted to catch them elsewhere. There was a place in St.Catherines that was supposed to be really good for them and catfish. We pulled up to a beautiful park that was packed with picnickers, and had a short but scenic walk down to the water. There was Lake Ontario on one side, then a short beach separating the lake from the creek we planned on fishing. It was weird to see such a massive body of water next to a tiny body of water, and they were not connected.

     I tried for bowfin with my spinner and proceeded to get nothing, until I snagged and wrecked one of the treble hooks on my spinner. Not having a replacement, I switched to night crawlers. We had been seeing lots of little fish jumping around, and it was not long before my little brother managed to catch a white fish I had never seen before. I cast out to get one and caught a dinky little brown bullhead.

 I thought this was a yellow bullhead at the time because it was yellow...

I also had no clue what I was doing

     A few bullheads later I pulled up one of those white fish. We caught tons of them this size by the end of the day. Lots of bullheads as well. I never did cast into the shallow, thick weeds to try for the bowfin.

 Species #8 White Perch (Morone americana)- An invasive species in Ontario

     There was nothing else to note that day. Our next trip was to a large hydro weir, almost a whole month later, to try for smallmouth bass. My dad caught one, and a few redhorse suckers. I was not as fortunate. The water was flowing extremely fast and I snagged virtually every cast. Eventually I caught this

 Species #9 Round Goby (Neogobius melanostomus)- This would be the first of many

They are invasive and likely the most common fish in the Niagara region

     I went a very long time without catching a fish that could pull any drag, although I had a trip planned with my cousin a few days later that would change that

Lure Crusher

     It was 2013 now, spring had come and past. I was busy with school and didn't get out until a week before bass season opened. I was determined to catch a "dogfish". Using bowfinanglers.com and roughfish.com, I figured out their habitat and some tactics for catching them. Having heard reports of misidentified snakeheads in a nearby canal I figured I should try it first. This was the beginning of my real lifelist adventure, and what ended up getting me hooked on fishing to begin with.

     I didn't have any bait at this time, and I was determined to catch fish on lures. At the time I thought that 2 things that make a real fisherman are being able to catch bass (I thought they were very illusive and hard to catch at the time), and catching fish on lures (which is definitely an important skill). I went down to the canal and cast out my brand new Blue Fox-Vibrax spinner. In hindsight, the canal is a terrible habitat for bowfin as it is deep, cool water with lots of oxygen. They are in there, but not caught very often.

     I started casting towards some structure under a train bridge. I quickly hooked up with 2 rock bass. I did not know that rock bass were considered panfish at the time, and being pre-bass season I did not want to be catching fish out of season. I did not have a camera of my own at this time, so no pictures of my first rock bass. The distinctive red eye is a dead giveaway that they were rock bass though.

     My next spot was a swamp down the street from my house. I brought up trying to fish that spot to my dad the year before, but he didn't want to be seen fishing in such a tiny, swampy body of water. We had only ever seen young kids fishing there, and only heard of people catching sunfish in there. On my own, I had no qualms about fishing there. I am very glad I did. The spot is absolutely beautiful. It has a thin fast flowing channel on one side of the road. It has thick overhanging trees on the left side, and thick bulrushes on the right. The other side is much wider, with white lillies taking up 90% of the right edge. A submerged tree with a single branch betraying its presence, is found on the extreme left. There are small trees all in a line completely submerged on the right edge, almost on shore but dead and the entire base submerged beneath the swampy abyss. There is a thin channel through the lillies that is much deeper than the surrounding water and holds some nice fish. This spot would quickly become my favourite spot. The fish were typically quite small, but the variety of fish and wildlife I ran into over the next 2 years make this the most memorable spot for me. I encountered redear turtles, weasels, water snakes (they really like my frog lure, and although never hooked, I have had 2 hold on until I needed to coax them off it on shore), there is a blue and a white heron, a group of black swans (which I later found escaped from a nearby farm), and a weird grey looking heron with red eyes, that scared the crap out of me when I ended up 2ft from it going through the brush. I have also seen muskrats, a beaver, and it is where I got my first tick.

     My first cast got struck by a Largemouth Bass. It flew out of the water in a marvelous acrobatic display desperately trying to shake off the steel intruder in its mouth. I quickly understood why so many people loved catching them, it was an incredible experience! I cast out again and caught a chunky bluegill. a few casts later I caught another Largemouth. Since they were still out of season I could not fish this spot anymore.

     I told my dad about it and he wanted to check it out as well. We waited until bass season opened before returning. My dad, my brother and I pulled up to the swamp. I saw a few ripples by the tree and thought they were bowfin surfacing for air. I started casting with my spinner towards the submerged tree and my lure got completely destroyed. A few shorts runs of the drag a long shape surfaced, it was a bowfin! It didn't like the look of me and bolted right under me, through the pipe where the water flows under the road to the other side. The determination of this small fish was incredible! I finally tired it out and got it to shore, I would not give up, even in my hands. It bit through my line (20lb braid) while I was trying to get the lure out. Thankfully I still had a good grip on it. I was so excited to have found what I was looking for, but then my dad had some terrible news... "where is the camera?" He said to put it on the stringer so I wouldn't lose any fingers when he looked for it in the car. I put it on the stringer and my brother found the camera. We snapped a quick picture and put the bowfin back. I hope the stringer didn't hurt it too much (there was no noticeable damage, but it is bad practice). I vowed never to do anything similar again.

 

 #5 Bowfin (Amia Calva)- A beautiful young male (the fish) The thing on my

 finger was because I decided to deep fry it two days before

     I had to retie my line. I got the spinner back on, cast again and got hit again. I thought it might be another bowfin,, but there was too much twisting around. It was a brown bullhead (I initially thought it was black due to the barbels). Notice the nice teeth marks that look just like a bowfin bit on it? Strange to catch a brown bullhead in the middle of the day on a lure.

 

 

Definitely a Brown Bullhead. It must have done something mean to a bowfin to get such a

nasty bite on it's anal fin. 

      I hooked up with 3 more bowfin that day. I lost 1 on shore with my favourite spinner still in its mouth, their teeth cut through line far too easily. I lost another as soon as I got my spinner out of it's mouth. The 3rd and final one flopped out of my hands into the water during the photo op. 

     My dad was the photographer, and he was very hard to convince to take photos of small fish. This bass, despite it's total lack of girth, or fight, as my first legal one. I had to ask very nicely, and my dad reluctantly took the shot.

 #6 Largemouth Bass (Micropterus solmoides)- Also cauught on a spinner I caught tons of these

This is where I realized bass were easy to catch, but large ones were not

     My dad caught a lot of little bass, and then his rod folded over and there was a ton of splashing. He landed a bass larger than any I had ever seen. He told me to grab its lip, I did, felt the prick of the hook and dropped the bass. It was free. My dad was not happy with my fish landing skills, I lost him a beautiful fish. I don't think I will live this down until he catches another one as large. This same situation would loose me a monster smallmouth bass not too long from now. 

     I switched to worms and quickly caught a little pumpkinseed. I had the camera since my dad caught a bowfin and a few decent sized bass. So I snapped a picture of it for reference.

 

#7 Pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus)- One of the easiest fish in the world to catch

They hunt in large schools and are super aggressive 

     Unfortunately, I fished this spot mostly on my own, camera-less and only got one other photo of a bowfin. I was also terrible at holding them, and couldn't lift up any that were thicker than my grip. So a lot of ugly net photos ensued. 

 

 

 The only other photo I got from 2013. Female Bowfin

 This was a common occurrence. had 2 of them bite through my hooks on shore. At first I 

thought I broke it with the pliers. I was wrong. Do not use discount hooks on Bowfin

Bowfin are known for their dentition. Those teeth are much sharper than they look