The Catfish Trials

     After the camping trip, my dad and I really wanted to go fishing again closer to our home. My Dad used to love catching catfish when he was younger so that was our major target. We tried a number of locations without so much as a sniff, although I did stumble upon a nice lure stuck in the weeds of the Grand River.

     Eventually we stumbled upon a spot that had catfish, small ones, but a chance to finally get some practise catching fish. We set up some pickerel rigs with night crawlers. My dad got into some fish very quickly with a couple catfish. I had quite a difficult time feeling the bites with the bottom rig. Having my bait stolen a few times, and a few snags. I landed my first lifelist fish (Photographed with indisputable evidence, as I had not photographed any previous fish, none of the previous ones counted)

#1 Freshwater Drum (Aplodinotus grunniens)- The only freshwater member of the croaker family. 

They grow much bigger than this.

     I caught a few more of these before finally encountering my first catfish. These photos are all from different trips. I took very few photos at this time. This was the only spot I fished until the catfish left late fall.

#2 Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) The largest member of the Catfish family found 

in Ontario. This one is in disguise

      

     In between tiny channel catfish and drum. My Dad caught and landed a massive catfish. It would be the only one from there ever, though we never fished it at night. Eventually the major catch shifted from miniature catfish to bullheads, and I got species #3.

#3 Brown Bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus)- Terrible photo for identification purposes

Yellow bullheads have pale lower barbels, and blacks are not mottled

     We also caught a few white perch. We thought that they were white bass at the time. The only photo is of one that my dad caught. Since photos need to be of a fish I caught, it does not count.

     After succeeding in catching a catfish, my next goal was to either catch a dogfish or a fish that I needed to hold with two hands. 

     My dad always talked about how the weirdest fish he ever caught was a dogfish. He told me about how they have a bright orange spot on their tail, that they are really slimy and have extremely sharp teeth. He had never seen one of them since. It didn't take too long to figure out that they were actually called bowfin. They would be my next major target.