So, unfortunately my wife's grandma passed away this spring. Her family has been going through her stuff and has sold alot and divied up the rest. Fortunately I inherited a few hunting and fishing books and one tells a sweet story.

This flyfishing dude has spent his entire life chasing all the 40 different native Trout species across America. I didn't know we had 40 native Trout species. To make a long story short, on his 81st birthday Bob Smith landed the 40th specie a female Sunapee Trout.

"Standing at the bank, he watched as she swam away through the shallows. Tears welled in his eyes. Here, amoung the glittering peaks of the Sawtooth range, his quest had come to an end. He looked out across the lake and recalled each Trout, each adventure, each body of water. At last, his dream was fulfilled."

Its an awesome story and is very familiar along with this website as a lifelist quest.

Again Corey/Andy, we need a facebook-esque "LIKE" button.

Awesome inspiration for any species angler

I have that book too, the 40 includes subspecies, but yes it was an inspireing story.

I was going to go off on a scientific definition of the word "species" and how it doesn't apply in this case, and how fish with pretty spots get to have 40 "species" because they are pretty with distinctive coloration, while the shorthead/northern redhorse probably has 100+ "species" by the same definition, but I'm tired and nobody except for geneticists will understand what I'm talking about anyway. Basically, if you think there are 40 species of trout in North America, then there are 100 species of shorthead redhorse, 30 species of golden redhorse, 5 species of greater redhorse, 5 species of river redhorse, 50 species of silver redhorse, 100 species of tullibee, 85 species of lake whitefish, 10 species of black redhorse, 20 species of quillbacks, 3 species of blue suckers, 120 species of white suckers, 9 species of longnose gar, and 4 species of lake sturgeon. Strains of trout are easily identifiable because they have colorful spots and body pigment. That doesn't mean that they are any more important than any other sub-species. It just means that an amateur in the field can tell the difference between them. There is more genetic difference between a shorthead redhorse from Ohio and a shorthead redhorse from south dakota than between any of the subspecies of cutthroat trouts.

Corey you are right I would not understand the lingo but thank you for shedding light on how he came up with 40.

Wow 100 shortheads! crazy.

That is a cool story anyway. What is the name of the book?

This book is by Robert H. Smith, & has watercolors of the trout by Vic Ericson. Mr. Smith talks about all the different subspecies of trout he caught with examples of each. (where, when, & how caught)Its a hardcover book and was a enjoyable read.
I think its out of print, I found my copy on ebay. I recomend this book if you can come accross it.
Mike

This book also has Mr. Smiths Sunapee Trout adventure in it.

It also has a lot of other interesting fishing stories in it.
That makes it a worthwhile book, and I recomend it too.

Here is the story of his full-filling his life long quest. Out of "Incredible Fishing Stories"

2nd page.

Unfortunitly the roughfish has not been romanced like the trout. So not many people would care about all the subspecies of suckers. People like sunfish more but I still can not find information & photos of all 6 subspecies of longear sunfish that were mentioned in the Peterson's fish guide.
Hopefully Roughfish.com can help change peoples atitudes, and help people apprecieate these wonderfull fish called roughfish.

Mike

I have a signed copy of that book. It really is a great story, it is also interesting to note some of the taxonomic changes that have occurred since.

A cool story no matter how you slice it, you gotta love someone with a passion for angling. Plus, even if you cut it down to the true species level, he still has more diverse angling than many people.

-side note, I have seen Longnose suckers listed with up to 4 different sub-species. I would think that there is more diversity than that but seeing a sucker with 4 recognized subspecies is kinda surprising

-other side note, aren't we "officially" up to 2 blue sucker species now? The original flavor - Cycleptus elongatus and The Southeastern Cycleptus meridionalis

It's just a story. To me it doesn't matter if their subspecies or not, it's just cool to hear about this guy who dedicated his life to the quest, sub-specie or specie as a whole. The guy can now die a happy man. It's almost more cool that he was able to find all of the sub-species, that would be an extreme challenge.

Right on M.mags. Sound like a good read.

So a Sunapee Trout is just a funky landlocked Artic Char right? How may trout spices are there in North America anyway? Counting char but not salmon I come up with 11 Artic Char, Bookies, Lakers, Bull, Dolly Varden, Rainbow, Golden, Cut’s, Gilla, Apache, and special guest star Brown. I know two guys that drive from WV out west and are working on catching every strain of cut and bow they can find. Some of the western states even give out certificates for accomplishing the feet with very specific requirements about landing the fish in their native drainages. I asked them about suckers and they reported catching “weird” looking suckers this summer in NV, AZ and CA but it never occurred to them to take a picture of a sucker because they were weren’t trout.
Any way I’m going on a float trip next weekend with Meadeo and Quattro we hoping to get our life list Shenandoah Northern Redhorse.