Get to know the Spotfin Chub! This beautiful, sometimes shimmery blue fish is endemic/unique to the Tennessee River basin in the Southeast United States and the only species in its genus. After listening, you'll know all about it's cool bedrock/crevice spawning habits, how the impacts of Hurricane Helene are still at play, and tips for interacting with this fish and other cool native species along the increasingly popular Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail. Our guests are Luke Etchison from North Carolina's Wildlife Resources Commission and Pat Ciccotto from Warren Wilson College.

Get to know the Blue Catfish! From their habits in big rivers like the Missouri and Mississippi to fishing opportunities in small reservoirs, we have two great guests to help dig into the details:  Kurt Hentschke and Joe McMullen from the Missouri Department of Conservation. Joe is a big river specialist and manages Missouri's commercial fishing program and Kurt manages Missouri's Hunnewell Fish Hatchery. You won't want to miss fun facts about hotdogs, deer hair, and catfish testes!

Learn more:

https://research.mdc.mo.gov/project/big-rivers-catfish-assessment

Take a trip to the middle Rio Grande: a sandy river that, in its heyday, was "a mile wide and an inch deep" and chock full of millions of minnows. Our guests are U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists Andy Dean from our New Mexico Ecological Services Field Office and Thomas Archdeacon from our New Mexico Fish & Wildlife Conservation Office.

Get to know the peacock basses! By the end of this episode you'll be familiar with the different species, their savage feeding habits and habitat preferences, and how to put that knowledge to use for fishing in South America or south Florida. Our guest, Dr. Kirk Winemiller, professor at Texas A&M University, brings a huge wealth of knowledge about peacock bass ecology, diversity, and behavior.

Come to the southern Sierra Nevada mountains with Katrina and Guy to learn about the fish that some consider the most beautiful of all trouts: the California Golden Trout.

You might also like these trout episodes:

• S5:E9 Greenback Cutthroat Trout
• S4:E45 Redband Trout
• S4:E42 Apache Trout
• S4:E10 Mexico's Native Trout
• S1:E49 Bull Trout
• S1:E35 Gila Trout

Learn more:

• Spiciest Trout in the West (cutthroats) https://www.fws.gov/story/spiciest-trout-west
• Western Native Trout Initiative https://westernnativetrout.org/

We've got two fish, four guests, and one closed basin for you this week! Get to know a couple of New Mexico's special fishes and the place they call home. Our guests are Jill Wick with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, Serena Kucera with our NM Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, Robert Prather with our NM Ecological Services Field Office, and Tracy Diver from our Southwestern Native Aquatic Resources and Recovery Center.

You might also like: Gila Trout: New Mexico's Sunset Fish (S1:E35)

It may not be the "most" chub, but this unique native fish has a lot to offer! Kaitlyn Purington and Chance Broderius from the Utah Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife Resources offer a state perspective on the public value of the very cool Least Chub.

Like chubs? You might like these episodes:

• S3:E51 Bonytail Chub
• S2:E7 Bluehead Chub
• S2:E6 Humpback Chub
• S1:E47 Lake Chub

Granddaddy Opossum Pipefish rolls in wearing burnt sienna and looking like a wet stick. Time to go explore Florida and get to know this remarkable native fish! Fish Biologist Eddie Perri with our Peninsular Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office is going to get you pumped about this straightened-out seahorse relative, the Opossum Pipefish.

Read more: https://www.fws.gov/story/floridas-remarkable-opossum-pipefish

Learn more about seahorses in S4:E25

Katrina and Guy dig into one of America's native catfish groups: the bullheads! Learn how to find and identify these fish, and get hyped to complete the bullhead slam for all seven species! This episode also includes a dive into the latest fanmail darter, so take a listen to hear what's on listeners' minds!

You might also like these episode:

• S5:E6: Sailfin Catfishes
• S3:E24 Flathead Catfish
• S2:E33 Channel Catfish

What does it mean to be an "amphibious" fish? How many fish fall into this category? It might be more than you think! We've got guest Noah Bressman from Salisbury University's Department of Biology to help us dig into this very interesting behavior.