Almost Too Much Of A Good Thing...

[DaddyO]

Dude, If you can't say something nice, don't say anything.

Al, sounds like you had a good time. Thanks for sharing.

[Gavin]

320 fish in 24 hours on 30 miles of water......Thats 13.33 fish per hour, or 10.67 fish per mile. No 20" fish, and half of em under 12"...you probably sore lipped 2-3% of the fish on that stretch of the Jack's Fork....Think I'd find a way to be more selective in the future.

[eric1978]

Jack's Fork....

That was my first instinct, too, but after looking closer, I don't think it was.

And my math says more like 48 hours.

[Mitch f]

Alright, I'm going to catch it for saying this, but as I read through it . . . started to get nauseous. Tasted my own throw-up. I don't want to read a book about someone catching 320 bass. I think Al is a tournament fisher-wanna-be suffering from delusions of his own grandeur. There, I said it.

I have no idea why you would even post this! whats the purpose?

[Al Agnew]

Coldwaterfisher, actually, I think I understand where you're coming from. I have a few quirks in my nature that you'd probably consider character flaws. First, I like to keep reasonable track of how many fish I catch, in order to compare trips. Total numbers aren't the important thing, but Gavin's math is...fish per mile or fish per hour. Second, I love fishing fast and I love covering a lot of water. I like to see what's around the next bend. I enjoy paddling. I seldom stop to pound any one good looking spot, because I know that there are plenty more good looking spots to come. And maybe my worst character flaw is that I like to tell stories and relate interesting things that happen to me. I think I have mentioned quite a few times over the years when the fishing was bad but interesting.

One more character flaw, since I'm in confession mode. When I count fish, I count only bass, but I count every bass, including the 6 inchers. And, since I don't really care how many little ones I bring to hand, I often give them slack line once I see how big they are, and they get off before I get them in the canoe. If it's a fish that's under about 15 inches, and it's close enough before getting off that I can estimate length to within an inch or so, I count it in my totals. The bigger fish have to be brought into the canoe or boat and measured against the paddle before they count.

I considered the first two days of this trip to be pretty leisurely by my standards. Stopped to swim several times. Took more than a half hour for lunch. Stopped to take pictures, including some that I took at water level of rocks and stuff for future paintings, and even a few underwater shots. Watched an eagle for a while. But the thing is that I wanted to be on the water at daybreak, and since I was by myself and I don't much enjoy my own cooking or conversation, there was little point in stopping before dark. So that meant I was on the water that second day at 6 AM and didn't finish until after 7 PM. So that's a good 13 hours of fishing. Most people who float will spend about 6 to 8 hours at it per day, and if they like to fish soft plastics, as most do, they'll be able to thoroughly cover about 5 miles of water effectively. I spent about twice that much time that second day, and covered three times as much river because I was fishing fast moving lures as the canoe drifted.

The last day was different, because I knew it would be poorer habitat and I'd be going through a lot of water that wasn't worth fishing (but was still great scenery and interesting paddling). And when I said I got a later start, it was like 7 AM instead of 6 AM. Still, I stopped for lunch and to harass the cottonmouth, and I didn't paddle hard except where I had to in order to make headway against the wind.

When you stop to think about it, catching (or at least hooking) that many fish in a day means you've probably injured a few of them at least, and maybe a few will even die. It's always a concern. Although I only had one fish during the whole trip that was hooked in the gills bad enough to bleed, and one that was hooked through an eye, it's possible that a few percent of them will die later. If, say, 5% of them later die, that's 16 fish I killed. I doubt if anywhere near that many actually die, but it's something to consider.

Yet, I wonder which is worse...the guy who only covers 5 miles in a day but really concentrates on that five mile stretch, fishing each spot thoroughly until he's mined all the fish he can out of it (something I'm certainly guilty of when flyfishing for trout), or the guy like me who covers a lot more water but just takes one fish out of each spot. There were many times on this trip that I would be playing a fish and there would be a half dozen or more following it around, so I know I wasn't doing any real harm to any one little group of fish.

I'm fishing for the larger fish, using lures that have proven in the past to catch them, but with the aggressive nature of smallmouth, there is no way to keep the little ones away. And my one last character flaw is that I'm almost incapable of simply passing up a good looking spot. I've gotta make one cast to it. Actually, I did pass up a bunch of good looking spots the last day, but I had to keep telling myself that I didn't need to catch every fish in the creek.

The thing that bothers me about the trip was the three big ones I broke off. That just kills me. I don't mind losing the fish...the adrenaline rush when they hit the type of lures I'm throwing is more than enough for me. But leaving them with lures (or parts of lures) in their faces is not cool to me at all. If one explodes on the lure and misses, I mutter one or two bad words and go on. If a truly big one gets off at some point during the battle I think about it for the next few minutes. But when I break one off, I brood about it off and on for days. And I go for years without it happening...and then have a stretch like this trip when the coincidences and mistakes pile up and it happens more than once.

So, to each his own. I'll fish the way I fish until I'm too danged old to do it that way anymore, and then maybe I'll slow down. Mitch's points are well-taken...I really DON'T get to fish as much as I'd like because of the other demands upon my time. On average, I fish about 50 days a year for all species, and maybe 25 days a year for Ozark stream smallmouth. When I get on the water, I like to stay on the water for as long as possible.

[Smalliebigs]

Where are the pics??? sounds like a blast, I know of a few creeks like that. I just can't justify hitting them very often so like you said Al, it's a once every few years sort of thing. Those creeks that are that special need to be left alone and not advertised but don't be suprised who's hitting your secret creek. They are very fragile and the fish don't grow very fast at all.I know I will go very far and wide across Missouri and Arkansas if I have to get my smallie jones on so realisticly there are no secret creeks if you ask me. There are just some most guys won't take the time and energy to go to and research and go hit.

[ColdWaterFshr]

You're absolutely right, Al, to each his own. I just struggle with that whole concept of counting fish. I lose count after 3, so keeping an exact tally over 3 days and announcing on board like this that you caught exactly 320 . . . we fish for very different reasons I suppose. I fish to relax, and yes I want to catch a lot, and the bigger the better, but I don't fish THAT hard, and I would never contemplate keeping stats. Reports yes. But fish per mile, fish per cast, fish per hour??? Cuckoo.

And I know its not polite what I said, but my first temptation was to call this report a lie. But it isn't. I believe 100% the numbers you reported no matter how untrue I wanted it to be. Jealousy perhaps may be my character flaw (among many others).

Its like a fellow worker showing you his paycheck, which he knows dwarfs your own. A lot of us are smiling and saying good for you to your face, but deep down, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say I'd really like to take my power-drill to your canoe or snap your rods over my knee.

BTW - I'm guess extreme upper Gasconade.

[Al Agnew]

Okay, here's some smallmouth porn from the trip. These are the three good ones from the first evening:

These are some good ones from the second day, except for the biggest one:

Here are the good ones from the third day:

And here is the one I caught that was over 20 inches:

Given that my paddle blade is a bit over 20 inches, you can tell that most of these fish were probably in the 17 inch range. The second one in the first day's picture was pushing 18 inches and the third one was around 19, and a couple of the others were at least 18. But this certainly shows the difference between a fish that's around 21 inches and those 17-18 inchers!

[ness]

Holy smokes, Dallas! We need to get you back into therapy, and quick!

[Justin Spencer]

You sure that's a paddle blade and not a cutting board? Ever fly fish in that creek?