This post might be slightly premature as I may go fishing once or twice more this year, depending on weather and how busy I am, but I thought it might be fun to go over my year in fishing. This year was hit or miss in terms of fishing. Unlike the past two years I didn't catch any new species as far as I am aware and I had several rough trips where I barely caught anything. But it was also a very good year in other ways.
If 2021 and 2022 were years of big catfish for me, this year was the year of smallmouth bass. I caught tons of them this year and broke my personal best so many times that I am not exactly sure how many I caught. I caught 4-6 of them in the 12 to 16 inch range, which all shattered my previous personal best, which was actually pretty embarrassing, though I hadn't even caught a smallmouth bass before last year.
This year was pretty different. Why? Well for one thing I went to places where smallmouths are common. I did most of my fishing in rivers as opposed to lakes and that made them a lot easier to find. Surprisingly pretty much all of the Smallmouths I caught were on live bait, either worms or minnows and not lures. Indeed, the minnows allowed me to catch a decent sized smallmouth from a highly pressured area that I had only caught tiny ones before. I didn't get a measurement on it because I was getting mugged by a pelican at the time.
As for other fish, I did catch a decent walleye in spring, though it really doesn't count since I kinda snagged it. I hooked it by the gill plate so it didn't really count, though it was fun to catch and was around 24 inches. I also caught a decent pike around 25 inches and I caught the first sauger I have caught since childhood. It wasn't a huge one or anything but it was fun to catch.
What I didn't catch for the most part was catfish. I didn't even see a flathead this year and I only caught a couple of channel cats, with the only decent one being about 6lbs, caught on a surprisingly tiny chunk of nightcrawler. The big cats that I was catching the last couple of years just weren't around, largely due to the fact that there was a big die-off at my most common fishing spot. Still, I had a pole out for catfish almost every time I went fishing and hardly caught any.
Fishing was also pretty bad during much of the year. I had a really good spring but after that things got rough. I think it had a lot to do with the weather. We had essentially zero rain all summer, most of Wisconsin is in drought conditions. That meant the water level was extremely low pretty much everywhere I fished. That really limited access to fish and made things a lot more difficult.
Probably the biggest obstacle was the fact that I was essentially working overtime almost every weekend since May. I just didn't get the chances to go fishing as much as I want and a lot of time when I did get to go it wasn't under the best conditions. Indeed, that's why I am writing this post now instead of November when I usually stop fishing, I honestly don't know if I will get to go since I am working two out of the next three weekends.
As for next year, I am hoping that I both have more chances to go fishing and that the water levels recover compared to 2023. I also have some spots to check out that didn't really work out this year because of the lower water levels and I am excited to see them under more normal conditions, if things actually do improve. I also want to try using minnows at some of the places I have gone fishing at. They worked really good at the one place I tried them and there are a lot more places I can go with them.
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