What is Your Favorite Species and What Got You Set on It?

[Jigfishn10]

I've been blessed to live on the coast and can fish both salt and freshwater. I caught most everything MA has to offer in terms of freshwater fish. We have no musky, so that would be a bucket list species.

 

Saltwater I've been blessed to catch: Striped bass, bluefish, goosefish (sold as monkfish in restaurants), dogfish, cod, pollack, mackerel, whiting, cunner (that was fun and surprising), haddock, Sea Raven, yellowfin tuna, blackfin tuna, false albacore, bonito, skipjack. Bucket list would be a marlin, bluefin tuna, mako shark.

 

As @Craig P mentioned in his post regarding fluke and black seabass, I will targeting them this year. I think I am 1 or 2 towns further north of their range in ME, but have heard reports that they have been migrating further north last season. I may have to settle on the fluke's cousin, the winter flounder and have already done some recon on them.

 

Favorite species? False Albies are a lot of fun! A bluefish blitz can't be beat either.

[Zcoker]

I’d have to say blacktip sharks for saltwater, one of my favorites. I got into shark fishing years ago and soon joined forces with NOAA Apex Predator Program. Over the years, I developed techniques along with the right gear to catch sharks on topwater poppers, all on foot off our local beaches. Sorta turning the tagging process into a wild thrill ride! The gear has to be light enough to work a popper yet strong enough to handle extremely large and heavy fish. Nothing like it in the world, seeing a 150lb 6 plus foot shark dive bomb the lure close up and then shoot for the moon over and over back flipping the entire length of the ocean, pulling 400 yards of heavy drag. Psycho blacktip in action. One wild ride!

I’ve always called largemouth bass “the sharks of freshwater” with some of them big everglades mamas giving me the same sorta thrill nailing a top water plug! 

 

[Jigfishn10]

Impressive @Zcoker!

 

We get dogfish in the bay, that’s about it for shark 

 

Thankfully  

[MIbassyaker]

I grew up bank fishing a river with live bait for anything that would bite, which was usually catfish, bullheads, drum, and the occasional walleye or pike.  Al Lindner and Bill Dance were catching bass on my TV, and they made it seem awfully exciting and glamorous, but we had never heard of bass in our river, so we didn't try targeting them.

 

And then I caught one.  As my bobber floated past a log in the river, something grabbed my nightcrawler and took off, pulling hard. And then it jumped and jumped again, and it was not nearly as big as i thought it must have been, about 12-13 inches.  I recognized it as a smallmouth bass only from having seen them in magazines and TV.

 

I decided that, while I liked catching almost any fish, I really wanted to catch more of those.  

 

(Although it would be many years of distractions and life changes before I got dedicated and serious about it.)

 

 

[the reel ess]

LMB is my favorite and watching Bill Dance is what made me want to catch them.

 

I'm not the kind of guy who can be good at a lot of species, so I settled on bass. They were the most exciting fish I could catch in my region besides stripers, which can be very hit and miss and don't exist in every body of water as bass do.

[TnRiver46]

I stayed a night in escanaba this summer, kind of felt like an abandoned town. Mildly sketchy 😂 

 

Black bass are my favorite, with a slight edge to SMB since they are the most common in my area. 
 

I don’t know what got me hooked on them, I’ve been a hopeless addict since my first memory