My 2019 fishing season

As 2019 nears its end, time to recap another epic season. Many great fish caught, records beaten, lessons learned, etc. As I've been posting monthly reports over the past few months, I'm not going to bother recapping the entire season in pics. For this one, I'll link up to some of the blog posts relating to the pertinent themes.

As most of you know, my dear father passed away in mid February. As such, I was bound to fishing close to Montreal due to kaddish obligations. Though my original fishing plans were to explore some waterways and regions further from Montreal, I figured I'd make the best of the situation, and do more frequent but shorter outings closer to home.

The big surprise for me was the amazing quality of largemouth bass fishing I ended up enjoying until the end of the season in March, and then again from mid November until my last outing for bass this morning.

Ice fishing blog posts are at:
http://freshwater-phil.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-ice-fishing-season.html
http://freshwater-phil.blogspot.com/2019/11/fishing-freezing-water-and-first-ice.html
http://freshwater-phil.blogspot.com/2019/12/late-fall-early-winter-ice-fishing.html

The next big theme of the season for me was fishing with topwater lures. While everybody loves a good topwater hit, I pretty much stayed exclusive to topwater lures for the majority of my casting throughout the season. Having caught my first bass on a topwater lure under the guidance of my dad z'l as a child, this season, those topwater hits were more meaningful for me than in the past. Mainly bass, with some nice pike, topped off with a good sized musky on a topraider from my float tube.
As much of my topwater fishing was on my float tube, you can read more at:
http://freshwater-phil.blogspot.com/2019/10/montreal-float-tube-fishing-season-2.html

The icing on the cake was "converting" 3 of my sons from using live worms for bass to throwing topwater lures on our annual bass trip to Mijocama. See:
http://freshwater-phil.blogspot.com/2019/06/mijocama-bass-fishing-trip-20198.html

Moving along to bigger fish species, my carp season was relatively dismal in comparison to previous seasons due to a variety of factors. I still managed to land some very nice ones, check my carp picture gallery at: http://www.freshwaterphil.com/carp-fishing-pictures.cfm

As far as trophy fish, I managed to break my personal best for sturgeon twife on the same outing late in October, while out fishing with Mark. See my October post at:
http://freshwater-phil.blogspot.com/2019/10/fishing-cooling-water-in-fall-october.html

And last but not least, en epic 3 day saltwater adventure for big hammerhead sharks in Florida in April with my friends Mike and Yohann while visiting my daughter and son in law. Won't be forgetting that trip any time soon. See:
http://freshwater-phil.blogspot.com/2019/04/big-game-shark-fishing-fort-lauderdale.html

Aside from all the great catches, perhaps the most meaningful was smashing my previous total for amount of days fished. While many of the outings we under a couple hours and local, I managed to get out on 150 days in 2019, beating my previous record by a longshot. Another one that is going to be very tough to beat.

As opposed to previous seasons, I did much of my fishing alone in 2019. It gave me much time to reflect on and reminisce about the good times I spent fishing with my late father, in total peace and solitude, no matter if I was was in a densely populated urban area, or off the beaten path floating around in warm water on my float tube.

In closing, I'd again like to thank everyone I fished with for either hiring, inviting, and/or putting up with me. My amazing wife for being cool with my insane fishing habit. And of course, to Good Lord for giving me the chances and opportunities to keep pursuing my passion.

Hope you all had a great 2019, wishing y'all  even better for 2020