Buffalo

[roadwarrior]

Man, if you are in to trash fish, it's on!  The buffalo are schooling and breeding. Your average

fish is over 20 lbs, but there are monsters throughout the Tennessee River system. I caught

my biggest, fishing for smallmouth,  on a GYCB Kreature. I estimate the fish at 40-50 lbs, but

too big for the net. The Tennessee State Record is 62 lbs.

 

[Bluebasser86]

My jigging spoons run into tons of them during the winter in the hot water outlet at the power plant lake. A 20+lb buffalo with a hook in it's tail in the current is almost more fight than I want to deal with most days. The real fun ones are when you get a jumper. 

[bulldog1935]

In the Pedernales headwaters one day, fly fishing for endemic bass (Texas brook trout), hooked a samsonite-size black buffalo - on a Tonka Queen cane rod w/ 1917 Hardy St. George.  

The fish porpoised continuously for 10 minutes, well into the backing, charged back in, still porpoising, and porpoised back out to the backing again before happily coming unhooked.  

It was a heck of a ride.  

Of course no photo of the fish, here's a photo of the rod w/ Texas brook trout.  

I've since sold both rod and reel, but did well in all, buying, fishing, and selling.  

 

And quite honestly, there's no such thing as a trash fish - try skipjack herring or even long-nose gar on a fly rod.  

[Bluebasser86]

17 hours ago, bulldog1935 said:

And quite honestly, there's no such thing as a trash fish - try skipjack herring or even long-nose gar on a fly rod.  

Skipjack look like a lot of fun, but there's very, very few around here. Gar on the other hand, I enjoy, especially when I can sight fish for them. Other than unhooking them, they're fun to catch, even though I rarely actually manage to land one. I caught a gargantuan longnose a few years back I think would have given our state record a run for it's money but I never got it weighed. I've never seen a gar with the girth of that fish.