12 months, 12 species on the fly
I’ve been participating in something called the “One fish per month challenge” on the Southeast Fly Fishing Forum for a few years now. It’s a fairly simple challenge that just requires you catch a fish with a fly rod each month of the year. It’s not too hard to keep up with as long as the weather and the fish cooperate. After all I can usually find/make time to fly fish at least once a month. Last year it evolved into trying for a different species each month of the year. I made it to December, then couldn’t catch something different, what a bummer. This year I was able to accomplish my goal though, so below is 12 months of 12 different species on the fly. Not too many exotics this year, shoot, everything except the coldwater trout were caught in Louisiana, but that’s a testament to the diversity we have here. Now that this is accomplished, I’ll have to mix it up next year, maybe a different fresh and salt species each month. Or how about a different species every day of one month – that would be tough. I’m open to suggestions….
January – Channel Catfish
February – Black Drum
March – Largemouth Bass
April – Spotted Gar
May – Brown Trout
June – Longear Sunfish
July – Spotted Seatrout
August – Sheepshead
September – Greenback Cutthroat Trout
October – Sand Seatrout
November – Red Drum
December – Green Sunfish
Mountains to Marsh 
Awesome job. Sounds like a goal I might try to accomplish this next year.
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Sounds like fun. I’ll have to try it. I think I can accomplish that with all the different species of sunfish (longear, green sunfish, redrear, bluegill) and bass (spotted and black) that I catch. Add to that a sand trout, speckled trout, redfish, and drum, and I almost have it!
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Yep, it’s not too hard in our neck of the woods, but you still have to catch 2 or 3 fish that you rarely target or catch to make it a whole year.
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Hey, I checked one of my blog posts from this summer. My best day on the fly rod as far a variety goes:
“I spent Friday and Saturday mornings at Grand Isle with a buddy of mine who teaches with me. We fished strictly from kayaks. He used live shrimp and outfished me (at least by keeper-sized fish), while I stayed with my fly rod. I caught 7 different species on my flyrod Saturday morning, including a “Patriotic” slam (redfish, white trout, and bluefish) on my fly rod. In addition to those, I caught ladyfish, croaker, speckled trout, and pompano on my fly rod. Most of my fish were undersized, but you can’t imagine how much fun I had fooling all those on flies I tied myself!” I missed a mangrove that jumped off right at the kayak or I would have caught 8 that morning. I wish I would have taken pictures of all of those!
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Sounds like a pretty awesome day there Doc. That would be a good goal for next year, most species in a day. If I can pull myself away from those redfish flats, I’ll have to give the surf a try next summer.
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