Best or Most Unique Fish of 2017?
 

What was everyone's best or most surprising catch of 2017?

I think for me it was catching 16 - 17" Needlefish while fast trolling a tiny spoon in my kayak out in Eastern Bay.

While I've seen these fish around docks before I'd never caught one. And the ones I caught were the biggest I've ever seen, although it looks like they can get way bigger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needlefish


The coolest part of that day though was that the Needlefish gave me a good indicator of where to fish. Shortly after bumping into them I started catching 10 - 13" White Perch and almost legal Rockfish. I know that would be a bummer to most here but an 18 or 19" Rockfish on an ultralite in a kayak is pretty good fun.:)

I was surprised at the number of 3-4 lb Catfish around the bay bridge this year.

Some days we got 6-7 of them on cut Spot.

A 39” rockfish in Late July/early Aug on a 17Tony at Swan Point was probably as out of the norm as possible as I got this year. Actually a lot of nice 30”+ Fish were caught this summer. :)

Caught a lot of small weakfish and flounder north of the bridge. Hopefully a good comeback in future years.

Caught a 17" shad jigging at Man of War Shoal. The jig snagged him in the nose.

We haven't caught any cats at the bridge but I've heard several others say that have as well. What kind of Catfish?


Seems that over the past 7 or 8 years we've been catching a ton more catfish; even on lures like RatLtraps.

One of the Needlefish
 

Hard to multitask in the yak so I don't have any really good pics.


http://cbangler.com/attachment.php?a...1&d=1512575093

People catch small Flounder at the Lake C pier in CSC fairly often every year.

I would have to say the most unusual catch of the season this year was when Jay and I were jigging around the huge pods of bunker that were on Belvedere shoals in August trying for some stripers. After a few minutes of jigging I hear Jay yell I got a screamer and it turned out to be a 25” spanish mackerel!

Must've gotten drunk on bay water and got lost!

I love catching spanish macs; i rarely get far enough south to target them.....although that might change this coming year since I live a lot further south on K.I. now.