How Many Species This Year?

by Les Albjerg
(Caldwell, Idaho)

One of my friends at work is Travis. He loves catching different species. I challenged him to a contest last year on Thanksgiving weekend to a Species Challenge. If I won he would have to buy a Tenkara Rod. If he won, I would have to buy a new spinning outfit. He only spin fishes. We went out yesterday together. Wow did I get harassed when Travis came over and saw the Vega Spoon in the mouth of the 14 inch trout caught on the TenkaraBum 40!

I won the contest! He brought the Tenkara Rod he bought, a cheap Chinese rod with a nice paint job! I should have stipulated that he had to buy it from TenkaraBum. The only good thing I can say, is it cast better than my first rod. We spent 20 minutes doing a lesson. Then I watched him fish his rod for about 10 minutes. He did O.K. Putting a 4.5 level line on his rod really helped. I then handed him the TenkaraBum 40 with the Vega .4g spoon. He turned around with a surprised look on his face, and said "I can't believe how smooth this rod is!" On his second cast he was into a fish. When he handed it back to me, I said to him, "You usually get what you pay for." His spinning outfits are all high end. I gave him a TenkaraBum card, and also told him about Finesse-Fishing.com.

SPECIES CAUGHT IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS

Sunfish
1. Bluegill
2. Pumpkinseed
3. Longear
4. Green
Trout
5. Rainbow
6. Redband Rainbow
7. Kamloops Rainbow
8. Brook
9. Yellowstone Cutthroat
10. Lahontan Cutthroat
11. Bonneville Cutthroat
12. Brown
Others
13. Largemouth Bass
14. Smallmouth Bass
15. Black Crappie
16. Mountain Whitefish
17. Carp
18. Bullhead
19. Channel Catfish
20. Spotted Shiner
21. Northern Pike Minnow

I beat Travis by 11 fish. I fell short of some of my goals for this year. I really wanted to go after the Golden Trout and Grayling this year. I haven't caught a Bull trout this year either. I didn't land a steelhead even though I had 4 on. There are some interesting sculpin in Idaho that beg for some micro fishing action. One of my craziest goals for 2018 is to catch a Sturgeon with my Kyogi! I have some places narrowed down where I have a good change of at least hooking into one! Anyone else out there have a species goal?

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten” - Benjamin Franklin

"Be sure in casting, that your fly fall first into the water, for if the line fall first, it scares or frightens the fish..." -
Col. Robert Venables 1662

As age slows my pace, I will become more like the heron.