It’s not often that dropping truck keys in the lake is looked at as a good day, but Josh Dolin used the time spent waiting for the spare set of keys to arrive to catch a citation redbreast sunfish and complete his Master Angler V title in the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) Online Angler Recognition Program, catching citation-sized fish of 25 different species.

Josh Dolin and his citation redbreast sunfish, which earned him the Master Angler V badge from DWR’s Online Angler Recognition Program.

“I was kind of overcome with emotions about the whole thing,” Dolin said. “It’s a long journey to get there, so when you finally get there, it’s super satisfying. Having that sense of accomplishment is next to none. I’ve gotten to this place I set out to get back in 2008.”

Dolin, of Richmond, has been pursuing Master Angler V status since he was in high school, and by 2022 he had 24 species recorded. But then his father passed away, and Dolin slowed down his fishing. “That took a lot of the fire out of it for me,” he said. But then Dolin read a DWR online article about Michael Minnick’s quest for 25 species and the Master Angler V patch. (Minnick accomplished the Master V title in February, becoming just the second angler to earn the title in the 60-year history of the DWR Angler Recognition Program. The first was Stephen Miklandric, who earned Master Angler V status in 2019.) Dolin decided to re-start his Master V quest in a big way, identifying the bluegill as the species to complete the 25 species.

“I’d been catching a ton of bluegill, but none of them were quite big enough,” he said. When a friend called him and said he’d been catching good-sized bluegill in Western Branch, Dolin decided to join him. “I caught that fish, and I looked at it, and it didn’t quite look like a bluegill. It didn’t really hit me what it was, but I made sure to measure it. I called a couple of my friends just to confirm, and they said that it was a redbreast sunfish and it was big enough for the citation requirements. So at first, I was a little let down right away, because it wasn’t a big enough bluegill. But then it turned out to be a citation in the other sunfish category!” Dolin’s redbreast sunfish was 10 1/4 inches.

The redbreast sunfish that completed Josh Dolin’s Master Angler V quest.

It was almost the citation that wasn’t. Dolin and his friend were actually done fishing for the day in late October, but when they realized their truck keys were at the bottom of the lake and they’d have to wait for Dolin’s girlfriend to bring them the spare set of truck keys, they kept casting. “If that mishap didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have even been there,” Dolin said. “When my girlfriend called me and said she was at the boat ramp, I said ‘Okay, let me make one more cast.’ And I caught that fish! We met her at the boat ramp and we got all the pictures. It was just super special.”

Dolin, who works full-time as a contractor, tried to get out fishing every weekend. “I also try to sneak in a couple days during the week,” he said. “But it just depends on how work’s going. I’m very much a weekend warrior. I know a lot of the other guys going after these awards are a little older and they’re retired, have time, and are pretty mobile. I’m working until basically six o’clock Friday night, going home, loading up all my stuff and then driving to wherever for the weekend. And that usually ends up with me sleeping in my car to save money. I’m doing everything on a budget and with time constraints.” Of his 25 citation species, he caught 16 species from a kayak, seven on foot, and only two from a boat. He’s recorded a Virginia state record fallfish in 2022, though the record was broken in 2024.

Josh Dolin and his then-state record fallfish from 2022.

So, Dolin is very deliberate with his fishing. “I’m very goal-oriented, and always have been. So I focus on a target, and then I do as much as I can to try to catch that citation and achieve that goal. And as soon as I get it, I treat it like a chapter in a book—I had a lot of fun chasing that thing. And then I turn the page on that chapter, and I switch over to the next thing,” he said.

“I use the citation page on the DWR website, and that kind of tells you when certain species are going to be hitting better,” he continued. “I try to write down every little bit of information I get. It’s very much like a puzzle. I try to put it all together, and that’s how I figure out where I want to go, when I want to go, and what I want to chase at any given time. It’s just a culmination of different data points and information that I’ve gathered to help me build my game plan. Every year when it’s back-to-school time, I go buy the spiral notebooks, and I just fly through those things. I have tons of them.”

On his journey to the Master V title, Dolin has a particularly memorable catch—his northern pike. “That was probably one of my favorite catches because I had my girlfriend with me. We’ve been together 14 years, and she doesn’t normally come with me on these fishing trips,” he said. “She helps me get myself out the door on Friday night, but she’s not normally coming along. But we went up and fished the North River, and we’d fished all day.

“I’ve been fishing for northern pike for years without much luck at all, and it was one of those moments where everything came together in an instant,” Dolin recalled. “It was probably the only time where I kind of knew I was about to catch my citation. This father and son moved off of the spot that I’d want wanted to fish right before sundown. She and I went over and started making some casts, and all sudden, it was just like, boom, boom—I started immediately catching fish, and then I caught one pike. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I think it’s about to happen!” The very next cast, I hooked up with my citation pike. My girlfriend helped me land it and get all the pictures. That had been a fish that I’d fished for for eight or nine years, so for it to come together like that, with her being there, was super special.”

Josh Dolin and his citation northern pike.

What’s next for Dolin? Well, he’s definitely on the hunt for the Master Angler VI patch now. “With every citation, you’re hungry to go get that next one. So, I’m already scheming to go get number 26,” he said. He has sauger, white crappie, hybrid striper, brown trout, and that bluegill on his list to check off. “Brown trout is one of the ones where I’ve come really close a couple times and I just haven’t been able to get over the hump,” Dolin said. “They’re all cold-temperature species, other than the bluegill, so I should be able to maybe make up some ground this winter.

“There are also a couple of state records that I’m eyeballing that I’ll fish a lot for,” he said. “There are a few things during the year that I make a point to carve out some time and go do, like fishing for flathead catfish or longnose gar. But typically, I’m going to target one species, and I’m going to keep plugging away at it until I get it!”