Your Best Trophy Catch... Besides Bass ?

[Fish Chris]

I know some of you are pretty much multi-species anglers, which is cool. So am I

But even for those of you that only fish for bass, your still going to stick a nice bonus fish, of a different species now and then, right ?

Well anyway, not to put down some nice Stripers and Sturgeon I've caught in the last few years....

But without hardly a second thought, I'm still kind of blown away by those monster Red Ear Sunfish I was sticking last Summer ! I've wanted to get into some giant sunnies for years, and it finally happened.

I'm SOOO hoping to get into them again Fantastic eating too.... {sensible, selective harvest, of course}

Come on 4lb + !

3.2 lbs, 14 3/4"

3.1 lbs

Come on babies ! Bite me again this year !

Peace,

Fish

[Gangley]

WOW, great sunnies Chris!

[deaknh03]

Chris, sweet fish! and it looks like your workout regimen has been paying dividends, nice job man.

[loodkop]

I'm an artlure angler which means that I try to catch as many species as possible on lures in competition day. This often means that there is no time to really chase trophies. This makes a trophy all the more special to me. I agree that size alone doesn't make a trophy. I treasure a number of big Zambezi river bream I have caught more than my national and provincial record fish of other species. Those are lovely fish.

[Ratherbfishing]

If I could find/catch bluegill like those depicted, I'd probably give up bass fishing altogether.

Probably my "trophy" catch is hooking a 30" muskie on 6 lb line. 30" isn't big by any means but it was caught in the river current and it pulled hard. I thought I had on a world record smallmouth (what I was fishing for) so I was simultaneously disappointed and elated when I saw it was a muskie.

[J Francho]

Those are sweet red ears, man!

I fish what we got, and since the only open water in winter is trout water, that's what I fish.....

[Dwight Hottle]

Beauties so far. Here a few of my favorites.

[Goose52]

WOW - great fish above!

I only fish my little neighborhood lakes and don't get to big water at all. I target bass, but have collateral catches of bluegill, redear, warmouth, white crappie, channel cat, yellow perch, and stocker rainbows. The only "big game" I have are grass carp. Some folks don't like 'em, but I'll never turn down the opportunity to fight and land a 40-50 pound class fish!

[roadwarrior]

I don't think that's a carp. I believe it is a buffalo fish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ictiobus

[Goose52]

I don't think that's a carp. I believe it is a buffalo fish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ictiobus

Hey RW, they do look similar huh.

Anyway, my photos are of triploid (sterile) grass carp (aka white amur), specifically stocked for aquatic weed control. Very controversial in my little lakes - while they are great fun to fight, they eat the cover used by the forage fish and by the bass...with negative effects on all the other species in the lakes.

[Fish Chris]

Wow ! Great replies guys Thank you.

JF, that German Brown is absolutely awesome !!! I am SO envious of that catch there buddy

Dwight, you really are the man ! What I wouldn't give to catch any of those awesome sportfish your holding there ! Especially the first two

Goose, those White Amurs are (from what I've heard) some of the hardest pulling fish you will ever find ! Fast ! Strong ! I saw HUGE ones in some of the lakes I fished in LA and AR, but never could get one to bite anything Keep after those big strong suckers

Keep em' coming guys. Doesn't have to be huge, just a good one, but not a bass

Fish

[slonezp]

1lb 15oz

20+

[Daniel My Brother]

Fun thread. Here are my favs

Silver Carp. Dime a dozen, but loads of fun

It be a garrrrr!

Oh, and by the way...GREAT Sunnies!

[Bluebasser86]

Some of my favorite "other" fish.

Wipers or hybrids.

Catfish

Buffalo

Probably my favorite individual fish is this 20+ lb catfish I caught on 4lb test crappie fishing. It ate a 2" power minnow on a 1/32oz jighead under a bobber and took me 55 minutes to land by myself. It was funny because I was giving my wife a play by play of the whole fight over the phone. I had it on speaker phone sitting on my pedastal seat the whole time. You can see my phone on top of my tackle box in the picture. The gentleman that was nice enough to take my picture also did an excellent job.

[tomustang]

10lb+, 30"+ chain pickerel. I kick myself every day for letting it go without a photo OR calling the fish commission.

[SirSnookalot]

The most awesome fish I caught was a 100# amberjack, world record is about 150#. I've caught larger fish but none that have fought harder, sorry to say a computer crash lost this photo and some other great fish from an outing in P.V. Mexico. I was on a charter with 2 other fisherman, I get a strike using a fairly hefty offshore conventional rig, battled this fish for quite a while till I run out of energy and barely got it off the bottom, hand the rod to another guy, 6'4, 240# of rippling muscle, he fought it until he ran into the head and puked his guts out for the rest of the trip, a third man handled the fish for awhile then I got the rod back and finally land it. We would never have landed this fish without the captain chasing it down with the boat.

In recent history fishing in my " backyard" in Florida, I've had some notable catches, but nothing rivaling the amberjack.

About a 35# amberjack

Sailfish

Jack Crevelle

Reef Shark

[Helluva_Engineer]

25-30 lb mahi which was a slightly better fight than the two 35+ sailfish from that day, but I just booked a trip to costa rica for new years so hopefully my trophy will be broken soon.

[Catt]

Awesome guys

I've got start carrying a camera!

[00 mod]

My pride and joy of trophy catch would be my first ever landed blue marlin. Have fished 4 days for one of these and hooked up to 3, but this is the only one I have ever landed! The day before my wedding, guys trip!

Eradicating the invasive species!

3 of these in one day will wear you out! Especially when you dont fish BIG water as frequently as you would like!

Bad picture but my first ever Brown....this lead to an addiction that I will NEVER kick! No Francho sized Browns YET, but I aint giving up!

And since that is a horrible picture, but it is my first, here is a great picture of one!

Jeff

[J Francho]

Browns are so underrated. They are largemouth of the trout world.

Big Al's first brown:

That's just not right!

[SDoolittle]

[J Francho]

Nice mudshark!

[00 mod]

"Browns are so underrated. They are largemouth of the trout world."

You are not right.....around here those are WORLD CLASS trophies. Any one of those is a catch of a lifetime!!

Jeff

[J Francho]

I wish I had a picture of my personal best brown. There I'd be, standing on the pier, in a shirt and tie holding up a 22 lb. brown trout while on my lunch break.

[Fish Chris]

Right on !

Those are some awesome salt water catches too !

And JF, those Browns are SOO cool BTW, I know of a guy who used to be like a world class Brown chaser. Later he started chasing trophy Largemouth's, and he became super successful at this too.

Now he says, trophy bass are "sooo easy" compared to big Browns. Guess I'll have to take his word for it. My biggest Brown was probably about 3 lbs

Peace,

Fish