There are no wrong species, there are other species.

This turd (bullseye snakehead) faught like hell, caught on a okeechobee blue trickworm. I'd guesstimate his weight around 6-8 pounds.

Not too often in my area when fishing for bass but when we target walleye in the river the silver bass become a pain when they are running.

Can't keep them off the jigs.

I forgot to add in the forum starter that I have caught a Northern. It was a small 20-incher on an equally small Bomber spinnerbait. 

I rarely target species besides bass, but I want to catch both a big carp and a big cat, which are present in the ponds I fish. I see giant (20 lb) carp all the time finning and stirring up mud in one of the ponds. There is about 10-20 of them, including a koi which is bright orange and you can see it from across the pond. That would be fun to catch! I'm told they are great fighters. 

I don't eat any of the fish I catch; my parents aren't too big on cleaning fish. (I'm thirteen) Bummer. I would if they'd let me, though. 

 

Oatmeal works best for carp around here as I use to fish for them. Take some regular oatmeal and mix a little sugar/koolaid/vanilla in. Get a handfull of oatmeal, put your hand in the water then just squeeze and release water until it gets hard. Make a little ball out of the hardened oatmeal and you are set. Treble hooks in size 6 with no weight is what I normally use. The oatmeal ball will weigh enough that you can cast it without any additional weight.

 

My record carp is 32lbs and on average most of them are 12-20lbs around here.

 

Allen

I target bass and actually have very few (statistically) collateral catches. For instance, I'm a bit over 1,500 fish caught this year and only about 40 were NOT largemouth bass.  If I hadn't used my ultralight spinning rod a few times, it would have only been about 20-25 collateral catches.

 

Largest collateral catch? 48 pound grass carp:

 

I catch Pike about 40% of the time when fishing for bass.  I cant complain.  they are fun fish to catch as well.

For me there is no wrong catch, if I had a good battle even a fish smaller than my intended target is welcome.

I recall a time that I was throwing a Musky spinner bait on heavy gear all day while my father was just fishing for smallies with 10lb test and a Creme worm. He ends up hooking a 10lb muskie in the side of the mouth in open water and got it in. Right Fish, Wrong Fisherman.

to me there is no "wrong species". I typically target one species on a trip, but if i reel in something else, I'm not mad, at least i caught something! I typically use small plastics, so anything is fair game.

I have caught yellow perch, white perch, crappie,

bluegill/sunfish varieties, american eel, pickerel,

warmouth, mud turtles, snapping turtles, and one

14 lb striper when bass fishing.

 

Oh, and one pigeon, LOL. I cast my worm and it flew

right into it, or grabbed it, I'm not sure. Fortunately

it flew into a tree, got free and took off. I got my worm

back none the worse for wear.

 

Always fun catching the unexpected...well, unless

it is a hideously slimy american eel, and you want

to retrieve your hook w/o touching it (and are w/o

grippers).

I agree with "no wrong fish" as a staple, but sometimes its not a fish...

 

I was about 12, fishing a canal leading to Okeechobee with a borrowed ultra light for panfish under a bobber.  I discovered realing line in, infront of a 4' gator could cause a strike.  So I hooked into him, but had no chance of doing anything with him.  He promptly dove and I was broke off in some reeds.  It was fun, and we all were shocked that it happened.  

 

I've been lucky with birds.  I've had a few pick up lures, but none have gotten hooked up yet.  Even had a crazy sea gull trying to steal my rapala for about 15 mins down at Fort Fisher NC.  He managed to pick it up twice, and fly with it once but luckily he dropped it.  I had a bad cast put a big bucktail on the menu for a pelican once down in the keys too.  He never managed to get ahold of it but it wasn't for lack of trying, lol. 

One of my bigger wrong kind catches from Falcon a few years ago. Flipped a jig into a bush and got the thump of a lifetime. For scale, I'm about 6-3 and 330

Had an American Kestrel dive bomb my practice casting weight when i was practicing in my back yard.

One of my bigger wrong kind catches from Falcon a few years ago. Flipped a jig into a bush and got the thump of a lifetime. For scale, I'm about 6-3 and 330

That is an incredible fish.  You could eat for a winter on that... I've fished for cats on Amistad.. never Falcon...  nothing wrong about that fish....

Last year I unintentionally caught this 20+ Grass carp on a crankbait.

 

 

It ended up they were feeding on the Cicadas. I end up I started fishing for them with a popper and caught a bunch including a 41#. Dang thing took my boca grip too

 

Crazy aggressive bite that sounded like a bowling ball dropped in the water

Reading this thread brougt back some crazy memories. I grew up on the Susquehanna River, and while it's a great smallmouth fishery, it's also a great place to pick up trophy musky. We'd wade throwing grubs, tubes twister tails and poppers on light tackle and there were days where we'd pick up 20-40 smallmouth, a handful of rock bass, and whatever weird that day would have in store. Sometimes it was a handful of delicious walleye, other times it'd be hooking into 20+ lb carp (in current with light gear, these were probably some of the most ridiculous freshwater fights i've ever had), or get the **** scared out of you when a 40"+ musky would blow up your top water 10 feet away in waist deep water. Hell, i even remember foul hooking a 20" quilback in current on 6lb mono and being confused for 20 minutes trying to get it out of current.

This came out of a lake I used to fish a ton while growing up. The guy was fishing for trout on 4 or 6lb line and caught this:

I have no idea how many of these guys I have caught while bass fishing...Swimbaits, crankbaits, worms, jigs, senkos, topwater, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, they will eat absolutely anything! (Fallfish)