Hamilton, Ontario

I was targeting longnose gar my rig practically had LONGNOSE GAR ONLY written all over it, and this sheepshead said, Yeah, I’ll take that.

It hit my cast and retrieve carolina rig with a tiny 2-inch baitfish style soft plastic, the BaitFuel Nano Crappie.

New species unlocked: Logperch

One of the only fish I know that can move backward with almost the same precision as it can move forward. Because of that, they’re incredibly hard to net they can just reverse themselves and escape. This one even went back into the water backwards while I was releasing it. This eel absolutely inhaled my Carolina rig while I was casting into deep water and covering a lot of ground. I was using a tiny baitfish style 2-inch soft plastic shed baitfule nano crappie, and because this eel was so large and surprisingly strong, it put up such a good fight that I honestly thought I had a medium sized channel catfish on the other end. What makes this catch interesting is knowing where this eel came from. American eels are born in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean and travel thousands of kilometres before eventually making their way into the Great Lakes, including Lake Ontario. Their life cycle and migration are absolutely fascinating. This little guy has quite literally traveled thousands of kilometres through an incredible journey and somehow ended up hitting my rig. Honestly, I don't really enjoy catching eels. If I had a choice, I’d 100% avoid catching them, but unfortunately, when you're casting and covering water, you have very little control over what decides to hit your bait. This one just happened to find my rig.

I caught them yesterday and lost a HUGE longnose gar. I pulled it up from about 20 feet of water like it was a bluegill barely any resistance at all. I thought it was a tiny one. Then, when it got about 10 feet away from me and fully extended, I realized this thing was easily 4-5 feet long. 😳 It dove straight back into the deep, and this time it took off like I was attached to a truck. I managed to pull it back, but the hook came off. 🤬 The crazy part is, it literally parked about 5 feet away from me for maybe 10 seconds, looking for bait like a madman, left and right, then disappeared. About 30 minutes later, it hit my bait again and almost ripped the rod out of the holder. I thought, This time I’m finally going to hook it. Nope. It came off the hook almost immediately. 😂 And this kept happening over and over for a while. Speaking of fish that are hard to hook, land, and actually have a good landing ratio, this fish is absolutely the hardest. Longnose gar are terrible for my mental health. 😂🤬

Looks like channel cats are back.