Numbers Of Fish Caught...

[laker67]

LOL I blame my granfather for making me a counter! He taught me detailed logs of Numbers, Species, Time of day, Water temps and so on. Gotta say though after years of doing it I have a better picture of where and when to hunt and fish.

Like you, I have always kept a log book, but only for lunker trout. Starting out I kept a detailed log like you speak of. Time of day, weather conditions, water conditions, moon phase and all that stuff. Then after a couple of hundred lunker fish, I realized that lunker trout, unlike any other fish, could care less about what was going on in the solar system. They eat day and night, are not effected by weather changes, and are affected very little by water conditions. Muddy water , lightning at night, and the crowds walking all over them, are the biggest obstacles that you face. And I think that muddy water affects the angler more than the fish. I still continue to keep the log book, but with less detail. What the early detail taught me, was that it pretty much didn't matter.

[Phil Lilley]

I always short my count... in case someone is watching... especially someone with a ticket book.

[David Unnerstall]

Hearing stories of you guys with 100-fish days makes me want to give this crap and pick up golf again -- except I wasn't any better at that. I have threatened to buy tee-shirts that say "I didn't catch jack-!@#$. I am just the outboard mechanic." But occasionally I do hook into something and then I am happy.

[DaddyO]

Hearing stories of you guys with 100-fish days makes me want to give this crap and pick up golf again -- except I wasn't any better at that. I have threatened to buy tee-shirts that say "I didn't catch jack-!@#$. I am just the outboard mechanic." But occasionally I do hook into something and then I am happy.

David,

I don't know what your approach to fly fishing is, but, my rule is that I give a fly 10 good drifts through a section that I know is holding fish. If that fly is rejected 10 times, I change flies. I keep doing this until I figure out what they are keying in on. Eventually, you figure out which flies are the most consistent producers in the areas that you fish. Then, if you want to go for numbers, your chances improve if you use the consistent producers.

Good Luck.

[ozark trout fisher]

First let me say that I am not calling any one person out, or implying that some aren't always correct in there reports. With that said, i have read many many reports of the total number of fish caught on a specific fishing trip. Reports of 40, 50, 60, or even up to 100 fish per day are sometimes reported. So, let's say you fish for 10 hours, that could be up to 10 fish per hour equalling 100 fish for that day. Absolutely an obtainable amount of fish to catch, but even at that rate that's a fish every 6 minutes without ever taking a break for a snack or moving a boat, or tying on a new fly, ( which I can never catch more than 4 or 5 on without having to retie). I have fished for nearly 50 years, with many other fisherman also, and I honestly cannot ever think of a day where I/we caught 100 fish in a day. And it's not just this forum, but on others I am on accross the country. Now granted, I usually only fish for 5 or 6 hours but a 10 or 15 fish day is one great day on the water, be it wading in a river or on the lake. Keep fishing, keep catching, and keep reporting.

Thank you for bringing up something I've had on my mind for a long time. I can't figure the math on people consistently having 100+ fish days-except maybe for bluegill. Just for the the heck of it I've kept count this year, at least most of the time. I've had lots of days, especially when smallmouth fishing where it's felt like I've caught 100 fish, but in reality most of the time it's only 30 or 40, and even that's only on very the best of days. I figure if you catch 25 or 30 trout or smallmouth in a full day on the water you've had a day worth remembering. Not so much with smallmouth fishing, but fly fishing for trout I'm usually well pleased with a dozen or so. Granted, I'm at best an average fly fisher and I've regressed a bit since I've started fishing for smallmouth more. 100 fish days might happen, but I suspect they're basically a once in a lifetime occurrence for most of us.

[KCRIVERRAT]

Hearing stories of you guys with 100-fish days makes me want to give this crap and pick up golf again -- except I wasn't any better at that. I have threatened to buy tee-shirts that say "I didn't catch jack-!@#$. I am just the outboard mechanic." But occasionally I do hook into something and then I am happy.

Catching a 100 fish in one day or breaking 100 in golf. Which is tougher?

[dgames]

Numbers of fish to a large degree depends on the waters you fish. In my opinion, the Lower Illinois where I have had big numbers, when it is good, is easier to catch large numbers than a lot of other places. If someone has a really good day on the LI and get near 100, that is probably comparable to 40 or 50 on the white or 25 or 30 on a tougher place like the NFOW based on my experience.

[dennis boatman]

Catching a 100 fish in one day or breaking 100 in golf. Which is tougher?

Personally a 100 fish day would be tougher...but that's me...and how many mulligans do i get?

[Al Agnew]

Today I had to go to town to ship off a painting, and I'd been wanting to meet and talk to the owner of Cherokee Landing on Big River, which is about fifteen miles from where I had to go. So I threw a rod and some lures in the car just in case I wanted to make a few casts after meeting him. As it turned out, he's a great guy and ended up letting me use a kayak that I'd been wanting to paddle anyway, and float the slightly less than two mile float from the park down to his place. With this conversation we've been having here in mind, I was really paying attention to how many casts I was making as well as how many fish I was catching. I was using mostly walk the dog topwaters, though I tried a few other things unsuccessfully.

Since I had such a short distance to go and no particular time I needed to end the float, I fished a little slower and more thoroughly than I often do, which in that stretch meant making a lot of casts to marginal water that I usually wouldn't waste a cast on. And I would call the fishing fairly slow, with long periods of time with little or no action.

Fishing the walk the dog topwaters, I was getting in between three and four casts per minute, sometimes a little less than that, so say an average of three casts per minute. It took me about three hours to float the two miles, and actually I did more wading than floating since it was so hot. I ended up with 22 bass (7 smallmouth, 6 largemouth, 9 spotted bass). Only 8 of them were over 12 inches, and the biggest was a 15 inch smallie. I'd call it fairly mediocre fishing, but it was 11 fish per mile and about 7 fish per hour. Figuring I probably made about 450-500 casts, that would have come out to something like a fish every 25 casts or so. If the fishing had been the same all day for a 10 hour trip, it would have translated to over 70 fish in a day.

What brought the "average" up, was a couple of very short stretches where I caught four or five fish in no more than ten or twelve casts. When you hit little stretches like that, the numbers climb quickly.

[Feathers and Fins]

Like you, I have always kept a log book, but only for lunker trout. Starting out I kept a detailed log like you speak of. Time of day, weather conditions, water conditions, moon phase and all that stuff. Then after a couple of hundred lunker fish, I realized that lunker trout, unlike any other fish, could care less about what was going on in the solar system. They eat day and night, are not effected by weather changes, and are affected very little by water conditions. Muddy water , lightning at night, and the crowds walking all over them, are the biggest obstacles that you face. And I think that muddy water affects the angler more than the fish. I still continue to keep the log book, but with less detail. What the early detail taught me, was that it pretty much didn't matter.

Laker I have my grandfathers logs and to be honest the detail he kept them its more like reading a book each time I do. Lots of memories in them and I hope to pass his and mine on to my grandkids some day. Something about an old leather bound book of stories of friends and family who caught what and who got sunburn to even little places to eat on the way. He kept a detailed book more than journal I tresure.