Hi all,

A few weeks back I was invited to check this place out by Nate Tessler. After some reading and enlightenment and finding this place to be very cool, I decided to join the forums here.

So some stuff about me:

I've been a fisherman for literally my entire life. I do most of my angling up in northern Wisconsin as the family owns a small house up there. As a result I am blessed with having hundreds of waters with many varieties of species to fish for. However, I live in northern Illinois (Chicago's suburbs) where I will be a senior at Loyola University majoring in Communication. Here in IL, I get out for some alright fishing on the area rivers as I find them to be the best, personally and aesthetically. Plus I like the diversity of the fisheries found within them - can fish and catch anything I could possibly wish for!

Besides fishing, I enjoy the "self-education" of Native Fish species as I have been checking out and reading some comprehensive books from the university library - mostly about freshwater fish migrations and the statewide fish dispersals and populations of Wisconsin and Illinois Native fishes.

Also for the past three or four years I have been raising native gamefish as pets in either my 45-gallon aquarium or in my dad's 75-gallon. During various periods throughout recent years I have had the pleasure of taking care of both Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass, Rock Bass, Black Crappie, Bluegill, Green Sunfish, Redear Sunfish, Orange-Spotted Sunfish, Yellow Perch, Northern Hog Suckers (very non-hardy), and Black Bullhead. My favorites have had to have been Rock Bass. However, currently I am rearing one Largemouth Bass (5"), two Black Crappies (5" apiece/ 1male, 1 female), and one Bullhead. If there are some fish I could take care of, I would really enjoy having darters, sculpins, creek chubs, and walleye...... Eventually, once I get some room and get my own place, I would like to have a large aquarium that would enable me to rear a variety of species.

Other than that, I find this website to be a great resource for a multi-species fishing freak and fish lover like myself, so hopefully I can make some good use from this online venue.

Thanks.

andrew

Welcome to the forum Andrew, yuor going to like it here.

Glad you made it over, Andrew. I was reading through your post and saw that you have taken intererest in Wisconsin's fish fauna. Here's what I have used as a definitive source for information on Wisconsin's waterways. Free Online Version of The Fishes of Wisconsin. I see also that you keep native fish in aquariums. There are quite a few people on this forum that live around your area that could show you some more of our native fishes that are much easier kept than the Largemouth Bass and others that you have now. Also, I know that if you check the "Regional" section of the forum, you'll find that there is a monthly/bi-monthly meeting of Nanfa members in the southeastern part of Wisconsin (near Racine I believe). You could meet some very knowledgeable people there. I know that quite a few of us started as fishermen who were trying to get a better understanding of their local watersheds and ended up finding about the whole ecology of things when getting involved with the non-game fish. Welcome to the forum.

Hello,

Always good to find others from the same general area. The meetings that Nate was talking about are all over south eastern Wisconsin ( last one was in Port Washington.)

I guess I just wanted to say welcome!

NV