My favorite fish species are catfish and northern. My brother and I started fishing 3 years ago when I was 14 dropping a bobber with a worm off the side of the dock praying for something to bite. We soon got very tired of this as the tiny perch never fought very hard and we didn't get much meat off them. We heard from people in the area about how good the catfishing is here. (We live approximately 20 mi from the Red) So, we began to go onto youtube to learn how to catch these fish. We watched many youtube videos and read a lot of Captainbrad's articles and a couple of his books. We began to learn to fish the river for catfish by trial and error. It took about a year before we found a handful of spots that consistently produce big cats and a few eaters as well. I would say that catfish are now our favorite open water species because they fight hard and we enjoy eating the small ones as well.
We started ice fishing two years ago, again just by reading articles and watching youtube videos. We started with catching small perch once again. We thought tipup fishing would be fun, so my brother and I went out and bought an arsenal of tip ups. Armed with smelt, we headed to the local reservoir. The first northern we ever caught was just under 20lbs and was 41 inches. This hooked us on pike fishing. Pike are my favorite fish to catch ice fishing because they taste great (and are not hard at all to debone) and they fight hard as well.
We bought a bought early this fall and have enjoyed learning Devils Lake and learning to catch walleyes. Walleyes are fun to catch and are tasty, but they don't hold the same place in my heart that catfish and northern do.