Strange Fishing Challenge. Day One

Yes, time has been wearing a bit on us all.  With so many enjoyable pastimes having become problematic it is but skimpy compensation to find a few that are well suited to diminished times.  Fishing for instance.  A Social Distancing Activity if there ever was one.

Not that it is solitary.  I am in the middle of a five generation chain of anglers.  My grandpa Hanson was a serious fisherman.  It probably reflected his young adult life during the Great Depression.  I went fishing with him a lot when I was but a minnow.  Everything we caught got cleaned and fried up in butter.

My father was pretty tied up in his career,  but did spend his rare vacations up at the lake, and the three of us were often found trolling - the fishing kind of course, this was decades pre-internet! - for pike and such.

I managed to disengage enough from my own medical career to give my oldest son a good taste of fishing and he has gone on to become quite accomplished.  His son, now approaching five years old, will eclipse us both.

We got to talking a while back about how many different kinds of fish we had each caught.  A species tally if you will.  Not counting Alaska and Florida trips I have about 18.  My son somewhere in the low 40's.  The grandkid already has 20.

Right then and there I decided to set a challenge.  Could a mediocre but wily angler catch 20 different species of Wisconsin fish in seven days?  I also got to set my own rules.

- If you can catch it on hook and line it counts.

-The seven days need not be contiguous. 

- Obviously rules, regs and laws must be followed.  So, here we go....

Strange Fish Challenge Day One.

Location: Namekagon River, Sawyer County. I occasionally tag along on DNR fishing surveys and this was a chance to get a few oddball river species.  My catches in order, with first fish getting the photo.

Shorthead Red Horse

This is one of those peculiar river species I was hoping to "score".  Pretty red fins give them their name.  A good thing to catch, they indicate above average water quality.

Small Mouth Bass

One of the five or so main game fish species popular in the area.  These guys were the actual research target of the day so I was happy to contribute a few to the study.  Minus a clipped off spine they all went back in the drink.  When you are hanging around people who spend a lot of their time thinking like fish you just assume that the fish are trying to say something.  This guy was asking to go back in the river and apologizing for not being able to grant the customary three wishes.

Walleye

Arguably the most prized game fish in Wisconsin I was happy to get this one.  Not a common catch in a shallow river.  I had tossed the camera to the back of the canoe for this photo.  It looks like the fish is whispering something in my ear.  

Scorecard for Day One

Enjoyability of the day: 9/10, points off only for mild sunburn and a few aching joints from prolonged sitting in a canoe.

Species count 3.   Running tally same 3 after one day of seven.

How it went:  I was hoping for a few more strange river fish.  Several other species of red horse were around but I didn't get any.  Still, the walleye helps.  After Day One I decided it would take not five but seven days to make a decent run at 20 species.  I'm gonna catch up to that four year old yet!