Hi Bagman,
I caught this bowfin just about 15 ft from shore. I was fishing in my longboat still tied to the dock.
I was on Lac Champlain near Clarenville, just before sunrise on June 30.
These are the only pictures I got from that masterpiece. Sorry for the tongue out, it was kind of early.
Julien P, 01/24/08
Hi Bagman,
I go to our family cottage on the Severn River in Ontario. We see many different fish when boating, but we do 80 % of our fishing right off the dock. There are lots of weeds and zebra mussels there that seem to attract fish like catfish, pike, and just last year for the 1st time on the river, a bowfin. We actually thought it was a ling fish but discovered that although the 2 are very similiar our fish only had the long fin on the top, where a ling has a fin on the top and bottom. This fish has been the best fight we have ever had and we spent a year trying to catch it. It returned again this year, only to break fishing rods, take my leader, and on many occasions give me a big, big, fight and then just take the bait or spit it out. I have become obsessed with this fish and I have to say it has such a presence when it appears under the water that I can hardly catch my breath. One night, we had a full moon and the river was just lit up and here that fish was hanging around the dock. It looked like a shark just circling for its prey. My fish was 11 1/2 pounds and 29 inches long. This year we have seen 2 others, one half the size and one a bit smaller, around the spring probably when breeding. My brother is shown with one of the smaller bowfin.
Lisa G, 08/20/07
Hey Bagman,
I love your site and I'm a recent convert to this super fun fish. I caught this one in a little bedroom community outside the city of Winsor, Ontario named Lasalle. I saw this fish under a set of docks, pitched it a 4 inch Yum Dinger and landed her in about 5 minutes. She measured 26 inches and weighed betwwen 6 to 7 pounds based on the provided table. Please keep up the great work.
Jacob W, 07/16/07
Hi there, Don R again (I sent you several pics of bowfin 2 years ago). Today, I'm sending you a pic of my wife Pauline's first bowfin. She caught it on a straight hook and a worm while fishing for perch at our trailer at Hay Bay, Ontario, Canada. It put up a good fight and she is very proud of getting it. We released it unharmed right after this pic was snapped.
Take care and good finnin',
Don R, 06/09/06
Hello,
A very nice and useful site!
I was fishing last Friday in Ontario, just north of Orillia and I was hoping to catch a pike or b@$$ when I caught this big fish which my buddy, a rather experienced fisher, could not identify.
Luckily, there were some other fishing enthusiasts around in a boat and told us it was a dogfish. Since we had no idea what kind of fish it was and since we were told it was not edible, we let it go. I'm glad I found your site, at least I know (much) more about the fish I caught and I also regret a little I didn't keep it, as it seems it's not only edible, but even tasty... well, there is always a next time!
By the way, when years back I caught my first garpike and had NO IDEA what it was, it took me a considerable length of time to find out more about this fish... but it was in the ancient, pre-Internet era, of course!
Good luck this summer!
Jack, Mississauga, Ontario, 05/22/06
Eric
with a a nice 14 pounder, and a pic of an almost pitch
black female from Seely's Bay, Ontario.
CJ 07/18/05
Hey,
Just wanted to say hello and thank you for such a wonderful site. I
have been a Bowfin angler for about 25 years, since I caught my first
one when I was 9 yrs old. My family has traveled to a lake in
southeastern Ontario since long before I was born. The lake is part of
the Rideau Canal system. (A waterway that connects Ottawa with Lake
Ontario.) The nearest town to the part of the lake I mostly fish is a
town called Seeley's Bay. I highly recommend anyone that fishes for
bowfin to venture up here if they ever have the opportunity to. It is a
Bowfin heaven and produces record bowfin almost yearly. (I used to have
the Ontario record with a 14 lb 6 oz beauty that I caught a few years
back, but my brother has since beaten that with a 15 lb 1 oz.)
My fishing partner and I just got back from a weekend trip up there over Memorial Day. One of the Marina's up there has an annual
Bowfin Derby.
Again, fantastic job on the site!!!! I can't wait until
I get some free time to look through all of the pages.
Sincerely,
Chris J 06/03/05
My
first bowfin!! Caught it on a Jointed Perch
Rapala in Waubaushene, Ontario on Georgian Bay 6/23/05. I observed it
following a patch of what I thought were weeds about about 30 feet out
from shore. After landing it, I noticed the clump of "weeds" had
followed it inshore. It turns out it was actually a ball of larvae!
After a quick picture I returned him to his family...Absolutely
beautiful colors! Wish the picture was better, they are slippery little
suckers!!
Thanks!
BrianG 06/28/05
I live in Ontario, up here in Canada. On advice from a friend
for some good pike fishing I tried a river near Sarnia Ontario, which
is minutes from the U.S. border. The river I believe is called the
Ausable river. Anyways the pike fishing was good. Fishing with my
woman, I decided to put a piece of bait fish on a hook and drop it over
the side of the canoe while the woman continued to fish for pike. We
had our fill of fishing and so I started to retrieve my line with the
bait fish on and thought I was snagged. I was using 12lb fireline, and
continued to crank in the line. I'll tell you it was tough. Then the
line started going out, so I knew I had a fish. After about five
minutes of fighting we bring up this huge clump of weeds and in that
was this strange fish with a red-orange eye on its tail and long dorsal
fin. It had very bright green on its underside, we knew we caught
something unique. With camara in hand we took turns poising with it and
then weighed it -7lbs- and put it in the bottom of the canoe. When we
finally pulled the canoe out of the water we decided to let the fish
go, as we never saw anything like it and thought it was rare, and did
want want to have it die for the sake of showing some people.
After searching the Internet for a few days we found out the
fish was called a dog fish up here, more correctly though, a bowfin.
Being it was a 3 hour drive to this spot from where we live we didn't
return for about a month. Evening fishing this time, with a few pike
and bass and lots of catfish and one snaping turtle, [can you believe
it]... I caught another bowfin, and again on a piece of bait fish. It
was larger than the first one but not as impressive in color. It did
however give a much greater fight and was quite a thrill to finally
land it. Again, I thought I had a big pike on. Anyways thats my
experience with the bowfin, and fishing for 35 years its one of my more
memorable experiences.
Daniel B
Hi again Chuck. Guess what, we went out fishing again today
and I landed this small one. I had 2 others played in to shore and the
hook pull out of both. One of them was about the same size as this one
but the other was huge. A while later a fish of unknown species sawed
through my 12 lb test line like it was nothing. We don't just fish for
bowfins, we catch and keep yellow and white perch, rock bass, large
mouth bass and the occasional walleye and pike.
Take care and good finnin'.
Don 08/02/04
My
son-in-law, Sean Q. and I were doing some
fishing today at my favorite spot in Hay Bay and I got another nice
bowfin. It weighed 7 1/4 lbs. on my new fish scale.
DonR 08/01/04
Hi,
my name is Don R and the following pics are of the two
bowfins I caught on Sunday, July 25, 2004 in Hay Bay, Ontario, Canada.
I was using whole dead gobies around 4 inches long as bait. I used my
bait casting rig and had a bobber about 3 feet above the bait. The bait
was cast out into a weed bed 10 to 12 feet from shore and left alone
till a bowfin took it. They do put up a terrific fight and I released
both of them as soon as my wife took some pics. Since I don't have any
scales, I'm not sure how much they weighed. As a length reference, I'm
5' 9" tall.
