FishnDave: 2022 Flyfishing Summary

Sunday, December 18, 2022

2022 Flyfishing Summary

I feel 2022's fly fishing was pretty decent. The big rivers (Mississippi and Missouri) and tributaries were for the most part really low for the Summer and Fall. That was a big change from the really high water levels in some of the southern Missouri and northern Arkansas streams we wanted to fish in the Spring, but were unable to due to flooding.

I fished central Iowa ponds and NE Iowa streams with my buddy, Jay.

I fished southern MO, northern/central AR, and the St. Louis area with my buddy, Hamilton.

I fished a couple places with my brother, Steve, in the Spring as well!

I ended up catching 46 Species while flyfishing this year.

Of those, 5 were species I'd never caught before. They were:

-Ozark Sculpin

-Chain Pickerel

-Knobfin Sculpin

-Largescale Stoneroller

-Bowfin

Hamilton had big hand in helping me get pretty much all of those. Thanks HB!

I'm pretty excited about the Bowfin. They've been on my bucket list for a long time, wasn't sure I'd ever get one. Then finally got information on a couple places not too terribly far away where there are bowfin!

My first trip to one of those places did not yield any bowfin, but I saw plenty of them gulping air on the surface. They were there! The next 8 trips yielded 45 bowfin landed on flies! Along with my first one from Arkansas earlier in the year, that gave me 46 Bowfin in 2022. Such a cool fish...really fun to catch!

I've now caught 83 species on flies.

I only kept track of numbers-caught of a few species. I caught:

-40 Grass Carp (last year was 167)

-46 Bowfin

-207 Koi (last year was 100) (updated)

-133 Goldfish (last year was 87) (updated)

...and I believe I caught 12 Common Carp on flies this year.

Another highlight was fishing the Dally's Ozark Odyssey multi-species 2-day tournament. Two-person teams, and my partner was Hamilton. After the first day, we were in 1st place! We ended tied for 2nd place, but dropped to 3rd place based on the tiebreaker points. Very fun event. Hamilton had the strategy planned out very well! We each won a new Nautilus fly reel! And the swag bag was worth the price of the entry fee! 😍

Let's see....oh, I caught my Personal Best Shortnose Gar (26.5"), a new PB Longnose Gar (30.5"), a new PB Redspotted Sunfish (6" or 6.5"?), and my biggest Bowfin so far is 24.5".

Below I'll add some of my favorite fish I caught in 2022.