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Welcome to Bowfin Country

Category Archives: Bowfin

Fly Fishing for Bowfin

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by Henry Veggian in Fishing for Bowfin

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Bowfin, Bowfin fishing, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Fly Fishing for Bowfin

Here is a well illustrated and informative post from Isaac’s Fishing Corner, a fishing page I follow. In it Isaac describes fly fishing for Bowfin (note his use of larger flies and a strong leader, but also a lighter 5 weight fly rod). There is not much available about fly fishing for Bowfin in the fishing literature so this was a welcome sight from Bowfin Country.

I can clearly remember the first time I ever saw a Bowfin: I was fishing a little irrigation ditch that ran through some corn fields when this strange looking fish slowly surfaced and gulped some air before disappearing back into the muddy water. As soon as I saw that fish I knew a new obsession […]

via Fly Fishing For Bowfin — Isaac’s Fishing Corner

Bowfin in Outdoor Life magazine

20 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by Henry Veggian in Fishing for Bowfin

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amia calva, Bowfin, dogfish, Fishing, grinnel, living fossils, native species, primitive fishes, rough fish

The latest issue of Outdoor Life magazine (April 2017) contains a short feature about Bowfin fishing. The article is largely based on an interview with yours truly. For some reason, the editors chose to place it on a page entitled “Ugly Fish.” Look at the Bowfin I am holding in the photo – it’s a beauty. Nonetheless, it’s always good to grab some positive press for this under-rated and misunderstood native species, and I am particularly honored to be included in a magazine that I have read since I was a child. Thank you, Outdoor Life!

Bowfin in Field & Stream

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Henry Veggian in Fishing for Bowfin

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amia calva, Bowfin, Field & Stream, Fishing, Joe Cerrone, living fossils

Here is a link to an excellent recent article written by Joe Cermele, Fishing Editor at Field & Stream magazine. The quote below gets my vote as the early favorite for Bowfin (a.k.a. dogfish) quote of the year. Why? Because if native species like the Bowfin weren’t in our lakes the fishing for other species would not be as good as it is.

“The funny thing is that in a fishing culture so worried about invasive species and preserving native fish, the bowfin is often falsely touted as a bad guy. The truth is that they were around millions of years before every gamefish we love. They have remained largely unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs, and I only had to catch one to decide I’d take the fight of a dogfish over that of a bass any day. I’m not alone.”

Nice work, Joe!

Here is the link to the full article:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/under-dogfish-why-bowfins-should-be-on-your-hit-list

 

Bowfin Country Fishing Journal: Landing a Bowfin from a Kayak

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Henry Veggian in Bowfin, Kayak Fishing for Bowfin, Kayak Fishing Posts

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amia calva, Bowfin, jordan lake, Kayak Fishing Posts, Kayaks, Landing a big fish, living fossils, rough fish

Battling an angry, powerful fish from a kayak can be a nerve-rattling experience. Anglers must first contend with the thrill of the fight and the steps required to land the fish. Those steps include adjusting the drag setting on the reel, preventing the fish from running into and being wrapped on underwater structure, and any number of other movements (such as holding the rod in one hand while using a landing net with the other). In some cases, a large fish can haul a kayak into dangerous water.

Small, less bruising fishes such as Bluegill, Crappie or White Bass may not prove a great test of strength or kayak management but the motions required to land the fish remain the same. My topic here is how larger sport fishes – Alligator Gar, Muskellunge, Steelhead, giant Largemouth Bass or Bowfin – amplify the mechanics of landing a big, angry fish by requiring added strength as well as attention to detail. And all these movements are  amplified, sometimes to deafening volume, by a tangible risk of physical harm to the angler and the fish.

What will happen when I pull this large fish into the kayak, and its powerful jaws, teeth or tail are in my lap?

Continue reading →

Bowfin in KBF Magazine

04 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by Henry Veggian in Bowfin, Bowfin in Journalism

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Bowfin, Fishing, Kayak Fishing Posts, living fossils, rough fish, science

The latest issue of KBF magazine mentions the Bowfin in two separate articles and quotes yours truly in one of them. The one in which I am quoted is a feature story by angler Drew Haerer on the topic of fishing for primitive fishes. The article “The Forgotten” (p. 96-99) also features a photo I took of a friend and fellow angler while we fished for Bowfin at Core Creek, N.C., in 2012. You can read it free here:
https://issuu.com/chrispayne94/docs/spring_2016_kbfmag

Video

How to Lose a Bowfin

29 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Henry Veggian in Bowfin

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Bowfin, Fishing, living fossils, rough fish

It’s late February, a time for the Bowfin angler to remember the taste of defeat.Winter lulls the senses, and our memories of last year’s battles with fish dissipate – mercifully – with the cold. Yes, we recall the one that got away. It grows larger with each telling. But we forget how we lost it, and that defeat is often an angler’s fault.

Late winter Bowfin are experts in reminding us of our errors.

I will dedicate this blog post to a typical late winter event: the loss of a large fish from the end of the line. First, a few points about how to set a hook in a Bowfin’s bony mouth. Continue reading →

Proteus and the Bowfin

15 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Henry Veggian in Bowfin

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Bowfin, caviar, Environment, fish biology, Fishes, Fishing, living fossils, rough fish

January 2015

It was eight years ago this week, on a warm January day, that I landed the Bowfin in the photo below. I was recently arrived to the North Carolina Piedmont, and if you look closely, you will see that I’m wearing a hat from Lock 3 Bait & Tackle. It’s my favorite tackle shop on the lower Allegheny River, just down the road from where Rachel Carson was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, and a little reminder of how anglers cling to the superstitions of their old haunts. That hat didn’t last much longer after I landed that Bowfin. It wasn’t because I gave up on the Allegheny – I still fish it about once every year – but because this fish marks a break in my life: there is before the Bowfin Era, and after. Continue reading →

The Bowfin in Pennsylvania

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Henry Veggian in Bowfin

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Bowfin, Environment, Fishes, Fishing, Gar, Law, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Sturgeon, Three Rivers

The Bowfin in Pennsylvania

The Bowfin and I first crossed paths in Western Pennsylvania. As such, the Bowfin’s precarious status in that region has always been first in my mind and I follow news about it and the region’s fisheries with great interest. The word of it my interest got around some years ago when the Pittsburgh Tribune Review called me in 2009, shortly after a Bowfin was caught near Pittsburgh, and I was featured in an article published on the event. Whether fishing the Three Rivers, reading in the local scientific history (as in Rafinesque’s Fishes of the Ohio), or simply speaking with regional writers and anglers, Pennsylvania’s listing of the Bowfin as an uncommon “candidate species” holds my unwavering attention. Its status in the Commonwealth’s game regulations is as unusual as the fish itself, and so far as I know, the Bowfin enjoys no comparable status in any other one of the 30 U.S. states the fish inhabits.

The Pennsylvania State Legislature is considering passage of a bill that would severely limit the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission’s ability to list species as endangered or threatened. For example, the short-nosed sturgeon and spotted gar (the latter a common fish in the Allegheny River) are protected under current law. By ending the PFBC executive power to add or remove species from the endangered/threatened lists, the bill would have wide-ranging and perhaps devastating consequences with respect to how scientists manage the state’s fisheries. Stripped of certain scientific and legal protections, the state’s fishes and watersheds could further deteriorate in a state already besieged by the political and environmental consequences of hydrological fracturing for natural gas (a.k.a. “fracking”).

In addition to effectively placing the PFBC under the jurisdiction of a non-scientific entity, the bill also raises questions about  the management of threatened/endangered species. Now, since the Bowfin is not listed as endangered or threatened, but instead is a “candidate” species, it is unclear how the bill would determine the fate of the Bowfin and other candidate species. I will keep readers posted as I follow the story, and encourage everyone – and not only the citizens of the Commonwealth –  to let the legislators in Harrisburg hear their opinion of this proposed bill.

For more on the matter, please read the following link, which contains also links to the text of the bill.

http://blogs.post-gazette.com/sports/rod-gun-club/40397-endangered-threatened-species-bills

For more about the Bowfin as “candidate” species, click here:http://fishandboat.com/images/pages/qa/fish/bowfin.htm

For differences between Bowfin, Burbot and invasive Snakehead in Pennsylvania, see: http://www.fish.state.pa.us/water/fish/snakehead/snakehead.htm

Henry Veggian

Copyright 2014

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