The Bass SLAM

Whenever I watch saltwater fishing shows, they always talk about getting a "grand slam" in a fishing trip, catching four different species of fish. Last week at Lake Seminole , I caught my first Shoal Bass, a pretty rare species of bass. That day I also caught a Spotted Bass and caught some old fashioned Largemouth the day before. So how many bass species are there? There are eight of them. Bassmaster Magazine is actually holding a contest right now, challenging members to catch all eight species before July. They call it the Bass SLAM, you can read all about it here.

Unless you live in the South, this challenge would be pretty difficult to get. One of the species, the Guadalupe is only in Texas. Several others are only found in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. I would really like to catch all of these species someday, I have five already, but know I won't make it in time for the deadline on July. The writers of the article did it and you can see a cool slideshow of their trip here. They are going to feature any angler who meets the challenge in the magazine. It will be interesting to see how many people do it.

Below is a distribution map of the Bass SLAM species.