#allspeciesodyssey
My buddy Hamilton and I fished tournament this for the first time last year.
In Cotter, AR, is a fly shop called Dally's Ozark Fly Fisher. They run an annual flyfishing contest called Dally's All-Species Odyssey. It's a 2 -day event with 2-person teams of fly anglers. There's a list of 34 species of fish that reside in Arkansas (there's more species than that in Arkansas, of course), and the goal is to catch as many species from the list as you can. Most species caught wins. Each species is assigned points based on the perceived rareness or difficulty to catch on fly. Points come into play as tie-breakers for teams that finish with the same number of species as another team. Team members must fish together, but don't need to stand next to each other. Size of the fish doesn't matter. Fish must be photographed with the team's special identifying item in the picture, and the picture submitted via an app. You can fish anywhere in Arkansas. You fish 12-ish (shotgun start from the fly shop) to 8pm on Day 1, and 6am to Noon on Day 2, and you have to be back at the fly shop before @ 12:30 pm.
Anyway... LAST YEAR, we finished tied for 2nd place, but lost the tie-breaker by the smallest possible amount of 5 pts. So we got 3rd Place last year with 12 species.
On to THIS year... Just like like last year, we ended Day 1 tied for 1st Place with 9 species.
And just to be clear...Hamilton did all the planning, researching, and pre-fishing for this tournament. Our success is a testament to his skill, knowledge, and hard work in putting together our game plan.
We caught Ozark Bass, Longear Sunfish, Green Sunfish, Smallmouth Bass, Bluegill, Redear Sunfish, Freshwater Drum, Yellow Bass, and Channel Catfish.
Below is just some of the fish caught:
Longear Sunfish:
We also caught 3 species that didn't count.... Creek Chub, Hornyhead Chub, and Striped Shiner.
After the 8pm cut-off for Day 1, we had a 4 hour drive to our hotel for the night! So, we only got about 4.5 hours of sleep that night. Grueling! But its our choice.
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Riding on our 4.5 hours of sleep, we were up and ready to get back to fishing by 6 am. We fished 3 different places, and then had to cut the day short (before the Noon cut-off for the tournament), so we could drive the 2.5 hours back to the fly shop. We made it with only 3 minutes to spare!
We had to reasonably reliable spots to get Grass Pickerel. Neither gave up the goods. We both had gar on, but neither of us managed to land them.
To add to the 9 species from the previous day, we managed to catch Rainbow Trout, Bowfin, Largemouth Bass, and Black Crappie. We caught some of the same species as the day before as well, like Bluegill and Green Sunfish. We also caught 4 species that didn't count....Redspotted Sunfish, Flier, Warmouth, and Creek Chub.
So, we ended up with 13 species that counted for the tournament, and 6 species that didn't count.
There were 18 Teams entered in the tournament. The winning team had 14 species.
We got 2nd Place with our 13 species.
The 3rd Place Team had 9 species. I think prizes went down to 5th place.
Very fun tournament, and very well run! It lives up to its name! It can be grueling! But its fun, and its flyfishing!
I caught 2 new-to-me species during the tournament, Flier and Ozark Bass!
Here's some pics:
Bowfin (caught by Hamilton. This fish was chasing a Flier I had hooked, and hit it several times. Hamilton had a Bowfin fly on, and dropped it in front of the fish a couple times. The Bowfin was fired up about the Flier, and ate the fly! Teamwork!):
Redspotted Sunfish:
Fliers (these are the first ones I've ever caught...and I caught at least 14 of them!):
And Warmouth:
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