What do you fish for?

[Huckleberry]

That question is meant to go two ways.

What kind of fish do you normally fish for? As well as; Do you keep your catch? In other words, do you fish for sport, or for food?

[Roundabouts]

When we did fish it's been a while now  Salmon Steelhead Sturgeon trout and always for food.  Sometimes would go out and get oysters clams crabs and shrimp.   Between the fishing and hunting always kept the freezer full. 

[A Pirate]

I always liked fishing/hunting for carp, something about fishing with a bow is just awesome. That was until someone called the cops and we where told there was no projectile shooting in there city and we had to leave. Shame killing carp is good for other fish and carp is tasty.

[cranston]

Give me my 8' kayak on still water over a few snags, a cigar and a couple cans of beer, a stringer and a collapsable fishing pole and I'm a happy man.  What do I fish for?  Peace of mind, solitude, and breaded bluegills in the pan.

[The Sage of Monticello]

I have been unsuccessful fishing for brown trout in the Laramie river here in Wyoming. I was able to catch Brook trout and White Lake fish last year and I ate every catch.

I will release if it is tiny and keep the rest. I fly fish and enjoy eating my catch. I have access to Rainbow, Brown, Brook Trout, Cutthroat, in my area.

[Cedar]

Trout, crab, clams. And if I am going to hurt them, I am gonna eat them. But if they are too small or wrong gender I do put them back.

Cedar - (who has owned her own pole since she was 2, first fish was a carp at 5 that was 1" taller than her and devastated we couldn't eat it and happy we could use it as crawdad bait).

[TexasGirl]

<-- *will cook anything someone else catches and cleans*

Officially not a fisherwoman!  TexasGirl has fished two times in her life.  Once offshore with cousins (caught two nice Red Snapper), and once helping run trot lines from a John boat while family camping.  In a survival situation, maybe I'd try by myself, otherwise it's on the bottom of the list.

Cedar, I admire your ability to jump into things head first and come out winning.

~TG

[LICountryBoy]

I fish for "sport" but usually keep the keepers for family. I am not a big fish eater.

Around here we have flounder, fluke, Striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, Tau tog (blackfish), porgy, Mackerel, black sea bass and sea robin.  That's what we can catch from the mouth of the harbor or inside the harbor.
A bunch of people fish for eel as well. It all depends on what is running and in season.

There are also some ponds which are a little bit of a trip to get to which have brown trout, rainbow trout and brook trout. Pumpkinseed, bass and bluegill.

[Cedar]

Cedar, I admire your ability to jump into things head first and come out winning.

Well, the carp story was kinda funny and not very exciting as fishing stories go. I had my Snoopy pole and was fishing at Haystack Reservoir or some such place in eastern Oregon. I told my dad I had a fish on my line and he grabbed the tip of the pole and gave a couple tugs and said "No hon, no fish there".. I reel it a bit and say "Dad, I have a fish!" and he tugs on my line and feels nothing.. So 20 minutes later of reeling in and messing around as a kid will do. I start screaming "DAD! DAD! I have a fish!!" and even our friend came over to look since I am pretty sure I scared off all the fish for half the state with my screaming by then. Dad could now see the fish as it was half on the gravel and half in the water. It did not really move until he went to pick it up. Then it started thrashing. It had just kinda been playing "possum' until then I guess as I am sure it could have been able to haul me into the water as I know I would not have let go of my pole *LOL* I remember dad measuring the fish with a tape measure and then measuring me. I was so proud. It was the best fish in the whole world.

I bawled my eyes out as we could not have it for dinner and I did not understand why we couldn't eat it. But dad and his friend Bob said we could use it in the crawdad trap. Not sure why we didn't turn it loose. But we caught a lot of HUGE crawdads that day and had them for dinner so I was very happy.

Cedar

[Huckleberry]

Mmm.... Crawdad.  I'm glad you guys used the carp to at least catch something delicious.  I've never had Carp, just assumed it wouldn't be very tasty.  Around here, if they're in smaller lakes, they're off-limits and have to be returned promptly to the water as they're used to keep the algea and whatnot under control.

I'm generally in the same boat (haha) as most of you, if it's big enough to keep, I'm keeping it.  Have to watch the rivers though, most of 'em are too polluted to be real confident about eating the fish. We eat quite a bit of fish, and what's better than free fish?  We're mostly Bass (Largemouth, Smallmouth, and the occasional Kentucky), catfish, and bluegill around here.  We have tons of other fish around here, but for bank fishing, that's about the best we can do.  I'm working on a little aluminum Jon boat that I bought pretty cheap last fall, but it leaks.  Like most of you, I'm "cheap", and don't want to spend a dime that I don't have to... so a little elbow grease and some JB Weld and I should be in business on that one pretty soon.

Keep the fishing stories coming, it's warming up and time to get a line wet.

[Howard Wallace]

Wild-caught fish is a large part of our diet.  My wife and I enjoy the catching as much as the eating.  Major species we use to fill the freezer are halibut, salmon, ling cod and rockfish.   We also frequently catch and eat dogfish, flounder, and sculpin.  Occassionally a few trout.

A very nice gentleman spent a few days with us a couple of years back teaching us how to tie flys and flyfish.  My wife stalked and caught a large rainbow trout, and was emotionally traumatized when she found out she was expected to release it rather than eat it.  Learning the skill was interesting, but neither of us want to give our fishy friends grief just for the sport of it.

[The Sage of Monticello]

Nice Howard. I would love to eat wild caught fish as a staple of my family's diet. I am just not that great a fishermen to do so, LOL.

I'm practicing with great enjoyment and I have only been fishing for 3 years now. I have a lot to learn.

[rustyknife]

I fish for food. Trout, salmon,sturgeon, bluegill, perch, bass, lingcod, sea bass, Irish lords,Jetty perch, catfish, dungeness crab, shrimp, crawfish, fresh and salt water clams, oysters if i can find them and blue mussels. It's been much harder to get salt water stuff since we moved to eastern Oregon. I try to make up the loss in dirt time here. Haven't been on a tuna trip in quite awhile. Sure miss fresh tuna on the BBQ with bacon wraps. (sigh)

[16onRockandRoll]

I'm not into fishing as much as I am into hunting, but I love it as a way to get away from it all and relax. I really get into it when its good though. I fished for bass and trout a lot as a kid, some walleye, and catfish whenever I could get it. I want to start doing more this summer. My wifes younger brother mentioned he wanted to go backpacking, so we are planning a trip in the next few weeks. I told him to get his license so we can try supplementing our food from the streams. Thats when he told me he had never caught a fish (he's 24). We are going to be changing that soon.  I fish for all the normal fish that are around (really want to do some offshore someday), and usually for food. I like most fish I've had. Catfish is awesome, saltwater fish has been good to me, bass is good, and trout is hit or miss (the little bones drive me crazy). Although I love brook trout cooked over a campfire, or fried with a little cornmeal coating.
 

[Black Helmet]

Mostly fish for crappie, occasionally take a few trips to camp and fish for trout. Thinkin' about fishing sunfish and bluegill to eat

Rarely put any back unless of course they're not legal length

[Hootie]

My fishing time is more for sport and great reason to spend time with my dad mostly fresh water bass, salmon, crappie, walleye, etc..

we mostly 'catch and release' but we do like a fresh pan cooked fish for lunch. plus it is good practice of filleting.

[phils70]

Bass, sunfish, cats and redfish.  Looking for recipe for longnose
gar.

[Hootie]

Looking for recipe for longnose
gar.

how do you fish for Longnose Gar? Jigging, trolling, night crawlers?

[abago]

Mainly Crappie. We try to stock the freezer with them.

[SteveandTracyinKY]

I can't believe that as long as I have been on this forum I just now discovered a fishing board....

We fish A LOT. We fish for bass, bluegill, crappie and catfish mainly. At times, we will target trout, other panfish, and turtles. It really depends on where we are as to if we keep our catch. We fish in a lake that just so happens to be the drain off of a large chemical weapon stockpile. We do not keep the fish from there, but its close, and allows us to enjoy fishing during time constraints that would not allow us to travel elsewhere.

Just this past weekend we hit a small lake in public land and brought home enough catfish for a great meal that night.

We have recently decided to go CRAZY on putting catfish and crappie in the freezer this year. I will be starting a thread dedicated on this after this post.

[Vulcan]

When I am able to fish its usually for trout (rainbow and brown). Before we go out we will stick some bacon in an old crab trap and drop it in random spots resulting in a beavy of crawdads.

[tstensberg]

I was born and raised a musky fisherman... I've kept only one musky my entire life and that was the very first legal musky I caught.  I haven't kept any since.  I fish for about everything under the sun as well... but that is where my true passion lies.

[atleif]

Here in North Florida I catch/keep  sea trout, snook , redfish, flounder, whiting, snapper, grouper, spanish mackeral , pompano, black drum. I know stingray/sharks are edible but i don't care for them to much.

[d3nni5]

I fish for trout and smallies mainly.   During stocking season, you can go all around the mountains in WV and find freshly stocked streams.   Pretty much year around you can find brookies in the smaller cold streams.    I fall back to smallies in the summer.   I primarily use spinning reels with light test line.   

Next year one of my 13skills.com challenge is to rediscover fly fishing.

Answering the two questions posed on the first post...

I mainly catch and release, but have no problem with keeping my limit if the mood strikes me.
I mainly fish to get away from my computer job and enjoy being outside.

[Jeremy Downing]

I've been wanting to take up fishing.  It seems right up my alley.  Calming, water, beer..  I'd like to eat what I catch, but I seem to recall an episode of TSP where Jack said something to the effect that its probably not good to eat fish you catch almost anywhere in the country due to contaminated water from coal mining.  I may be wrong in the particulars, but basically that's what I took away if memory serves.  Do you have this concern? 

[SteveandTracyinKY]

I've been wanting to take up fishing.  It seems right up my alley.  Calming, water, beer..  I'd like to eat what I catch, but I seem to recall an episode of TSP where Jack said something to the effect that its probably not good to eat fish you catch almost anywhere in the country due to contaminated water from coal mining.  I may be wrong in the particulars, but basically that's what I took away if memory serves.  Do you have this concern? 

I disagree with this almost entirely. If you fish somewhere that just looks dirty and sketchy obviously do not eat the fish. Mercury is a concern, but if you look you state will most likely have info on how much fish is safe to eat for a certain period of time. I live in Ky (a coal state) and within 100 miles of the largest mines in the state, and we have crystal clear water and most lakes in the area have the recommendation of no more that 2 meals per week of local fish. I have WAY more concern about the farm raised Chinese fish which is becoming VERY popular, especially with larger chains. China is a major coal producer, and they do not have the regulations on the coal industry we have to protect our waters. Even worse if they know the fish is being exported.

Now granted, if you live directly below an active coal mine the streams are terrible. However the same goes for pretty much all natural resource harvesting activities. I have friends that live around natural gas wells and curse them constantly because of all the "dirt" associated with it.

Bottom line if the water is safe it just that, safe. If it is able to support micro organisms and other fragile species then I feel the fish is fine. We fish and both catch and release and keep. We eat fresh fish about twice a month.

[Jeremy Downing]

Cool, thanks.  I live in Lexington, so nifty. 

[d3nni5]

I've been wanting to take up fishing.  It seems right up my alley.  Calming, water, beer..  I'd like to eat what I catch, but I seem to recall an episode of TSP where Jack said something to the effect that its probably not good to eat fish you catch almost anywhere in the country due to contaminated water from coal mining.  I may be wrong in the particulars, but basically that's what I took away if memory serves.  Do you have this concern?

I also disagree with this "coal mining" statement.   Here in WV, much like KY, we have A LOT of mines.   Now, I go after trout mostly...falling back to small mouth bass in the summer.    Both of these species, particularly trout, are very sensitive to the water they live in.   Even more so for the native species of brook trout.  If the water were contaminated, they just wouldnt be there to catch.

Having said that, there are of course waters to avoid.   Each year our state prints a rules and regulations guide, adjusting creel limits, fees, timing etc.   They also have a guide suggesting portion limits by species, particularly with preganent or nursing women.   Check out pages 20-23.

http://www.wvdnr.gov/fishing/Regs12/WVDNRFishingRegulations2012.pdf

[16onRockandRoll]

There is more of a problem with fish than how "clean" the water is. There is a bio-accumulation issue. Each organism absorbs a miniscule amount of contaminant, then the little things get eaten by bigger things, then those get eaten by bigger ones and so on. By the time you get to the larger fish species (large carnivorous ocean fish are the worst for this) they contain the contaminants of thousands of small organisms packed into one. Mercury is one of the worst for this. That said, I have no problem eating fish. If there is a strict warning for a certain body of water, I'll avoid it, otherwise, I just try not to eat a ton of fish, I just mix it in occassionally. I think it was Jeremy Piven that stopped eating meat for his health like 20 years ago on the red meat is bad bandwagon, and finally collapsed with mercury poisoning a couple years ago from eating fish every day. Took him a while to detox. I guess his doctors said his levels were WAY higher than they had ever seen.

[FromScratchWoman]

We are blessed with many varieties of fish catch and eat every single one

Trout~ Brook, Redband, Rainbow, Brown, Cutthroat
Salmon~ Spring Chinook, Jacks, Coho, Fall chinook, Steelhead, Kokanee
Bass~ Largemouth,  Smallmouth
Others~ Bluegill,  Black crappie, Channel catfish , Yellow perch, Brown bullhead

Those are what we will eat there are A LOT more we wont but our hens do, we keep and use all we catch that is of legal size and in season..