12 Questions to Test Your Angling and Fish Species Knowledge

Here’s short, fun quiz about fish and popular fish species that won’t be graded. But if you get all twelve answers right, take a bow. We’ll be impressed. You’ll find these fish trivia answers at the end.

1. The inland and saltwater striped bass are:

• a. one and the same fish
• b. different and unrelated species
• c. related subspecies of largemouth bass

2. Izaak Walton is revered as the patron saint of angling. He became one of the angling world's foremost literary figures by authoring a book about fishing for sport in 1653 that is the most famous of angling tomes. The name of that book is:

• a. Standard Fishing Encyclopedia
• b. Treatise on Angling
• c. The Compleat Angler

3. Anadromous fish species:

• a: are males when young but change sex during their lifetime
• b: are saltwater fish species that cluster in schools in open water
• c: live out their lives at sea but return to freshwater to spawn

4. The first wooden plug was reputedly made by a man who whittled it, tossed it into a creek in Dowagiac, Michigan, and watched a bass strike it. That person was:

• a: Dr. James Henshall
• b: James Heddon
• c: Lauri Rapala

5. The all-tackle world record for largemouth bass is co-held by two fish of the same size, one caught decades ago in America, the other more recently in Japan. The first catch was made in Georgia in 1932 and is one of the longest-standing, and most highly coveted, of all freshwater angling records. How large was that fish?

• a: 22 pounds 4 ounces
• b: 28 pounds
• c: 20 pounds 15 ounces

6. Largemouth and smallmouth bass are not actually bass but very large:

• a: perch
• b: trout
• c: sunfish

7. "Pound for pound the gamest fish that swims" is a famous quote originally attributed to which freshwater fish species:

• a: Atlantic salmon
• b: smallmouth bass
• c: muskellunge

8. When retrieving lures it is generally a good idea to keep your rod tip angled low in order to:

• a: minimize slack and respond quickly to a strike
• b: see where your line is
• c: use it to help keep your balance, especially in a boat

9. When you land a bass the best method of handling it is to:

• a: slip your fingers under the gills
• b: place your thumb firmly over the lower jaw
• c: grasp it with your whole hand across the top of the back just behind the head

10. When using spinning tackle, the best way to control accurate lure placement is by:

• a: feathering the line as it comes off the spool with your index finger
• b: closing the bail just as the lure reaches its target
• c: changing the force you give to the casting motion

11. Which of these fish are related to each other:

• a: carp, suckers, and catfish
• b: Atlantic salmon, chinook salmon, and steelhead
• c: white bass, white perch, and striped bass

12. In angling parlance, a place in a stream or river that is likely to hold a fish, especially trout or salmon, is called a:

• a. hole
• b. lie
• c. pool

Answers: 1a, 2c, 3c, 4b, 5a, 6c, 7b, 8a, 9b, 10a, 11c, 12b