Fish of the United States

Range is the defining feature. The country stretches from subarctic Alaska to subtropical Florida, with the Mississippi basin between them draining close to a third of the territory. One season can see ice fishing in the north and warm saltwater fishing in the south, a few flight hours apart.

Recreational fishing carries a cultural and economic weight found nowhere else, and it shows in the water itself. Management, stocking and monitoring programmes are old and large-scale, to the point that the present range of several popular species owes as much to deliberate introduction as to native distribution.

It is also where most modern lure techniques were born. A large part of the vocabulary used everywhere else comes from here, often carrying the name of the species those techniques were built around.