If you are interested in fishing records, Amazon is running a 50% off special on my black and white paperback book, The Art of Fishing for Records. It covers all types of records from waterbody records to world records. It also has lots of stories about fishing. At $8.70, this sale is a great chance to purchase the book for a great price.

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/e...;langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader

Just ordered and will have it Saturday!!

I hope you enjoy the book. I can’t wait till you and your son replace all of my records. Junior angler records are wide open in many areas of the state.

Whoops, I missed the discount, but I had some Kindle points saved up . . .

Sorry you missed the discount. I hope you enjoy the book anyway, and I hope to see your name in the record books soon.

I'll probably be reading the book while I'm traveling this weekend. But I just got the TPWD Freshwater Elite Angler cert, so I've got a start at the record books already!

Congratulations on your Freshwater Elite Angler qualification. The freshwater is definitely harder than the saltwater. Which 5 species did you get?

I just got my saltwater elite angler certification 😅 It was pretty easy to get the first 4 fish but it took some time to get the 5th. I did it with a speckled trout, redfish, skipjack, black drum, and gafftopsail catfish. Just certified Tuesday. They said my name will be on the TPWD website soon.

@Lindsey congratulations on the elite angler cert!

@OsbornFishing, my cert fish were a rainbow trout, a common carp, a Rio Grande cichlid, an LMB, and a white bass. Saltwater is easier you say? I've been reading your book, and there's a bunch of tips in there that definitely would have shortened the time it took to get the elite cert, I'll have to apply those to my all too rare coastal trips.

Great list of species. I believe there are still less than 10 anglers who have the freshwater and saltwater elite angler certification. The saltwater fish are definitely available. Let me know when you get your saltwater.

Here's a plug for the book. Using one of the many helpful tips in "The Art of Fishing for Records", I printed out and laminated the Big Fish sizes for likely inshore fish, ahead of a weekend of fishing down at the coast. And then I caught four certificate-worthy fish over the course of the weekend. Really, three of them were Friday afternoon. The fourth, the 35-inch black drum must have really chafed my fishing buddy, because I caught it directly beneath my feet right as we stopped on the way out of town. Just got to get one more!

Wow. Those are some nice fish. It looks like there are only 8 anglers with both the Freshwater and Saltwater Elite Angler certification, so you are one fish from a unique group of anglers. Let us know when you get the last big fish award.

And thanks for reading my book.

Just for the thrill of resurrecting a long-dead thread, I just got the saltwater cert, making me the tenth angler to make both lists. Here's the cert-sized sheepshead that took me over the top:


Thanks, Osbornfishing!

But now what am I supposed to do? I was thinking of pursuing the award system that Mepps runs, but I really don't want to only use Mepps, and their length minimums are super-ambitious.

Nice sheepshead. Big congratulations on being the tenth angler to receive both the freshwater and saltwater elite angler certificates. That is a big accomplishment. There are lots of other goals you can chase. You can keep adding to your elite angler big fish award species. You can go after waterbody records, state records, or world records. Or just have fun fishing.

The water body records are tough! I've already got a bunch of the freshwater big fish certs above the initial five. Do you display yours? I've framed the elite certificates, but the others are just in a file drawer.