Numbers Of Fish Caught...

[kirbydog]

I have had some 100 fish days but they were on private water and honestly, it got boring. You can catch TOO many and it ceases being fun after awhile. Plus, on days where I have caught alot, the fish have been on the small side. Would much rather have a 15-20 fish day with some good ones over 2-3 lbs.

[Dutch]

Dennis you need to get out more.

[mixermarkb]

Fisherman lie.

Having said that, on Bull Shoals, I've had one 100 fish day, and several 50-75 on smallies between 12"-18". It doesn't happen for me every spring, but it's fun when I catch the timing right!

[ozarkgunner]

I have had lots of 40 plus fish days. Size is the key. You rarely have a day of 40 big bass or trout. It feels like a bad day when I get less than a dozen.

[Al Agnew]

I keep track because I like to compare one day to the next, one year to the next, etc. In keeping track, I can tell you that for quite a few years now I've averaged somewhere around 50 bass per trip on all day trips on Ozark streams, give or take five or so each year. A 100 fish day obviously brings that average up, but on a lot of winter days I might not catch more than 10 or so, which brings it back down.

My all day trips are usually 7-14 miles, and 8-12 hours. So it's pretty much averaging around five fish per mile or five fish per hour. Of course, that's including stopping for lunch or just to get out and stretch, running long riffles, paddling through long, dead pools, etc. But I'd say that out of a 10 hour trip, I probably have a lure in the water or in the air for 7 or so of those hours. So at a pure guess, when actually fishing, I'd be catching a fish about every seven minutes on average. I usually fish pretty fast, lots of casts with fast moving lures in the summer, and I once timed my casts and figure I make maybe four casts per minute typically. So if you want to break it down further, that's a fish per every 25-30 casts.

But that doesn't really give you a good idea of what's actually happening. For one thing, when you hook a fish, it takes time to boat it, so that takes away from your number of casts. For another thing, we all hit stretches of water where we don't catch much of anything, and other stretches where we're catching fish after fish. So I might make 100 casts without catching anything, and then catch ten fish on my next 100 casts.

Now, you gotta keep in mind too that on an average 50 fish day, I'm counting only bass but I'm counting all species of bass, and I'm counting all sizes. 50% of the ones I catch are typically under 12 inches, and they don't take long to boat. In fact, unless one fools me and makes me think it's bigger, I often don't bother to set the hooks in the little ones, and if it's an exceptional day when I'm getting action from a lot of bigger fish, I won't seriously try to boat anything that's obviously under 14 inches or so. Still, with sharp hooks, I land a lot of them anyway.

100 fish days are rare, but they do happen. Gavin and I have had discussions on this before, but I like catching numbers mainly because of the way I fish and the fact that my greatest thrills by far come on the strike. If I could automatically let every one under 12 inches not get hooked, I would, because racking up the numbers caught isn't important, racking up strikes is. Face it, with a few exceptions with big fish, it takes little skill to land an Ozark river smallmouth once it's hooked. The skill, if there is any, is in getting that fish to take a lure, and the thrill for me is in seeing the fish take the lure, which is the main reason I use fast moving lures high in the water column.

But unlike Gavin, I don't "go for broke" and fish specifically for big fish on the great days, because I believe that big fish are most likely to come on the lures I normally fish, rather than on a much bigger lure or a different technique. I will do some experimenting now then on such days to see if lures I don't normally use but have in my boxes will produce. And this year, I've taken to carrying a fly rod with the intention of using it on days when the fish are really going nuts. THAT will probably mean I catch a lot fewer fish.

On the better Ozark streams, when the fish are hitting surface or near surface lures really well, it's not unusual to be getting strikes that miss, swipes that miss--in other words, action from bass--on nearly every cast in good water. Using walk the dog topwaters as I often do, you'll miss a lot of fish, and you might have the fish hit it two or three times in a single cast. One day I started out trying to count strikes, not fish caught, but I soon lost track. I believe, however, that I've had days when I probably had as many as 300 strikes. I had one day last year when my brother and I caught 15 smallies between 16 and 19 inches, but we probably had two or three times that many strikes and misses on fish that size alone.

And by the way, those counts are fish caught from my boats. If I'm fishing with someone, I try to count all the fish that come into the boat no matter who catches them. But I fish quite a bit by myself, so I have had plenty of high number days alone.

[Al Agnew]

As far as fly fishing for trout, my numbers don't come anywhere near what they do fishing for river bass. I've had a few 50 fish days on Western trout waters, and one memorable day on the Big Hole when the three of us in the raft caught over 100 on streamers. For some reason I don't always count fish when fly fishing, but I'd guess that my average would come out to about 15 trout per day, and probably a little less than that if I was only counting Ozark trout fishing trips. Probably the best I've ever done in Missouri would be about 40 trout in a day. Part of it is probably that I'm just not as good with trout and fly fishing as I am with bass, part may be because of the waters not producing great numbers, but a lot of it is that I'm a lot less efficient fly fishing, in that I spend a lot of time tying on flies, getting flies out of trees, etc.

[Stoneroller]

we have a simple rule to keep each other honest when I fish with my friends. Pictures or it didn't happen.

[dgames]

I have had some days I was pretty sure I was around 100, but it is hard to keep count to be sure. Had one on a Cotter to Ranchette float in the 90s and one on the NF tailwater back when you could access at McClellans. Now, when I go to Mtn Home area the fishing seems much tougher than it did in the 90s and 20-30 is more normal for a full day. However, it seems like I catch bigger fish there now.

In the last year or so, I have had a couple on the Lower Illinois. The latest was on the first low water day after about a month of constant generation. The fish hadn't really seen flies in a while, and they keep stocking during generation, so there were ridiculous numbers of fish in the river since the catch & keep fishermen hadn't had a shot at them yet.

I fished 2 different access points that day and it was a weekday, so I was hitting pretty virgin water all day. I often would get strikes on several consecutive casts when first approaching a run, so the numbers can add up pretty quickly.

[Mitch f]

we have a simple rule to keep each other honest when I fish with my friends. Pictures or it didn't happen.

Dems a bunch of pictures to manage

[Bob A]

Quite and interesting and amusing topic. What comes to mind if a flyfisher I used to fish with at Taney and Bennett who swore that never once in his life did he get "skunked." And oddly enough, when the day was done, if I got skunked, he caught 8. If I caught 6 he caught 22. And heaven forbid, if I caught 22, he caught 36...and so it goes on and on. The amazing part is, I never SAW him catch many more than I did. Eventually, it got to be a sort of game with me, and I did get some real chuckles. Oh well....so much for th enumbers game.

Bob A