[2-8-14 White River]

I read this deal this morning and my first reaction was to giggle about it and walk away. I appreciate all the folks I know that have piped up and vouched for me . I do ACTUALLY fish. I don't just blow smoke online.

Way back when I started fishing Ozark creeks for smallmouth bass I quickly realized that we were catching so many fish in a day that I couldn't keep straight how many I caught. I was used to going and fishing hard all day and catching maybe a dozen fish or on a huge day maybe 25 or 30, but on a creek BIG numbers were easier to catch than keep straight in my head . I got tired of saying "I'm sure we caught at least 40" or "it had to be at least 50". I wanted to be as honest as I could be so I bought a clicker. I decided for me to consider a fish caught I had to touch it. And I started keeping close tabs on what I caught.

JoeD man I'm sorry you have trust issues. I'm sorry you refuse to believe that someone else could catch more fish than you did. I'm sure you have mad skillz and all, but you have to understand that every dog has his day. Did you also have trouble believing me when I went to Bull Shoals the other day and fished for hours and never had a bite? Other guys caught fish that day and some good ones too. I freely acknowledged that I stunk it up and I was proud of them for doing a lot better than me.

The White River is fantastic and jig fishing for trout certainly seems to be the best way to put big numbers up. Your photos show trout caught on jerkbaits. That's a great way to get a GREAT BIG Brown, but not a great way to catch a bunch of fish in a day. UNLESS FLOW IS REAL HIGH, I think a jig will usually out number a jerkbait. I carry a lot of jerkbaits in my trout bag, but I rarely tie one on because 1) I catch more on a jig and 2) treble hooks injure the trout more. 6 to 9 hook points do more harm than 1 barbless point.

A lot of photos were taken that day. Way more photos than I usually bother with. They are on my buddy Darren's camera. He uploaded them to Facebook. IF we were friends on Facebook, you would have seen them already as several folks on here have. I sort of suspect that if I posted 10 photos, you'd want 20. I don't take the photos to prove anything to anybody. I don't post reports to prove anything to anybody. You aren't likely to believe me anyway and I don't really feel any obligation to prove anything to you. I don't much care for being called a liar though. That part bothers me a little bit.

The numbers thing is a game I play to motivate myself to fish hard and to fish as often as possible. I'm not in competition with anyone other than myself. For me, it is FUN to fish hard all day and try to catch every fish in the lake or river. Oddly enough, many of the fish that I or my friends catch make really vivid memories.

Since my 100 fish trip on 2-8-14 caused such butt hurt for you. I'll put out all of 2013's numbers for you to hate on and disbelieve.

I made a total of 87 fishing trips.

I had 8 trips where I caught over 100 fish and I had a total of 22 trips were I caught at least 50 fish. (8 + 14).

March of 2013 was terrible for me. I only caught 45 fish for the entire month. July was pretty freaking great though. I caught 619 fish that month.

I fished with 23 different people of the course of the year. More than half of which I had never fished with before. That was real cool.

By coincidence, I caught 23 species of fish last year. I'm really gonna have to step things up in different species this year.

I can tell you every day I fished. I can tell you how many days were in my Bass Cat, my canoe, my trout boat, my kayak, wade trips, or a guest in someone else's boat.

I know how many trips I took each month and how many fish I caught each month.

How about fish totals by year then?. I moved up in 2007. New job, new house, new routines. Not much fishing.

So Let's look at 2008 thru 2013

2008 = 1078

2009 = 2201

2010= 2433

2011 = 2356

2012 = 2365

2013 = 3174

I'll keep up with overall numbers in 2014, but the only number I really care about is the 52 species goal. I'll post photos on that deal as the year rolls along. I'm headed down to Louisiana tomorrow to try and fish with my Dad as his health allows. Hopefully, I'll add 6 or more species to the 8 species I've caught so far this year.

[Brown Trout On The Lir]

Had a good day catching small browns on dry flies on the other side of the island. They were about 8" to 9", feeding on some hatch in the surface film below trees. I imagine these are the ones they stalked over the winter, so hopefully some survive and keep growing.