Quest to catch 50 different fish species in Wisconsin

I'm turning 40 tomorrow.  I figure, I'm not going to get better at anything athletically, but I still want to have some goals in life.  I like fishing, but I don't get out there as much as I'd like.  To motivate myself and to keep it interesting, I decided to set a goal of catching 50 different species of fish here in my home state of Wisconsin.  And to add to the difficulty, I have to catch each as I'm filming it.  I'm going to post each video to this thread, and I'm also going to need help as I go.  Any tips on how to catch different species of fish would be greatly appreciated.  Here's the first fish I caught on video, the Bigmouth Buffalo by the Hustisford Dam.

Thanks for sharing these Tiefsa! In times like these...any fun entertainment is well appreciated. From one school teacher to another!

I didn’t see any hornyhead chub or red belly dace or red sided dace.  Trout stream I grew up on had all sorts of baitfish in it.  Multiple species of chubs, shiners, dace.  The river has lots of different species.  We used it to our advantage as kids.. easy to catch, cut up with a sharp rock, then use the cut bait for trout and bullheads.. 

Way to go Tiefsa! I'm sure a bunch of us old timers like me ponder, "I wonder how many species I've caught in the last thousand years "?

NEW SPECIES ALERT!  I'm up to 47!  This was a fun adventure.  A lot of fish caught on the search for a silver redhorse sucker.  

Any tips for trying to catch Cisco/Lake Herring/Tullibee?  Rumor has it they are in Pine Lake, a lake really close to my house.  I just got my boat out of storage and I'm going to try to catch some.  The information on them is pretty sparse as far as how to target them (I've read a Roughfish.com article - watched videos of people catching them in the summer in deeper water)

That's awesome, Crawdaddy!  I'll have to try that in the fall.

In late September/ early October, the shad move into the fox in Depere and in Oshkosh by Rainbow. I’ve caught them on small hook and piece of worm.  They were 10-11”, much bigger than I expected.  I then pulled out my filet knife and cut strips of meat 1/2” wide and 3-4” long.  Best white bass bait ever...

I was able to get to the Oak Creek Power Plant before it was shut down.  I had a gizzard shad on for a second or two (small jig & wax worm) but they were really hard to target.  I couldn't sight fish for them because the water was really cloudy.  I didn't get the momentary hookup with the shad on video either.  Still made a video of my failure.  In a week or two, I'm going to try again near there because I'm going to take my boat out.  Here's the video if you're interested (most of the time spent in this video was taking ugly statues to my in laws) 

I've caught shad up to 9 inches on tiny ice jigs with a small waxie or spike on the hook

I visited the Oak Creek Power Plant Pier this morning just to check it out for a little bit.  Right next to the discharge, there were a lot of fish, which I think were whitefish, but I couldn't really tell.  They might have been shad.  If they are shad, that's a fish I haven't caught yet.  How do you target them?  I've caught alewives on a sabiki rig before.  Do you think that would work.  Maybe very tiny ice fishing jigs and a wax worm or spike?  Are those good ideas?

Lol... acquiring gear is just a part of the sport and spiffy marketing!

Taking the kids, which you've done, pays off in spades... and if they love it,  a bonus to you and the sport...

Good luck,  enjoy 

Don't tell my wife about all the gear I've bought! Ha!  She's reluctantly let me gear up so long as I include the kids with some of my trips.  It really has been a family adventure! I might be going after Cisco soon if I can get this stupid old fish finder to work that I bought on Craigslist for 50 bucks.

congrats on the grass pickerel ! ...been interesting to watch the accumulation of fishing gear since you started this quest

Four left!  This is species 46 - Grass Pickerel - Through the ice in Rockland Lake in Burlington, WI 

Fantastic Tiefsa!! Only (3) left, correct?