The Devil is in the details

[Terrierman]

Without trying to be a yahoo, I'm surprised that you only fished with 27 people.  Proud to be part of a small crowd.  Happy New Year my friend.  I wish you to fish with 28 next year.  And to have even more fun in 2017 than ever before.

[Johnsfolly]

Daryk

I'll be hitting the darters and minnows hard starting in late Feb/early Mar through May/June. We'll have to get together and catch a few. Maybe we can even convince Ham to get above I-44 here in MO. I now have two streams that aren't too far from you that I have caught greenside darters. I want to catch a bright green male next season to get a good photo. Both streams have a variety of species that with some luck you could catch 8 to 12 species on one trip.

[Phil Lilley]

I got you beat in only one category... trips.  That is if you count stepping out my office door and casting once a "trip". 

[Gavin]

Impressive! Never do, or talk about taxes, financials or math on the river because that's what I do for a living, but fine if it's what you want to do. Got out around 20 days this year. Had two or three great days of river bass fishing, a couple good days of trout fishing, but just average mostly, and my saltwater trip was a bust. Had fun, caught some fish, and spent some time with some great folks, but did not get out enough. Plan to get out more in 2017.

[duckydoty]

I made 3 casts yesterday and caught 1 trout. Can't remember much before that.

[Johnsfolly]

I will say that it is a pleasure to fish with Ham and the other guys from OAF that I got to fish with as well this last year. I only got to fish with a few, Terrierman, Wounded one, and Micropteris, at Jigfest. So I hope to expand that list next year.

As many of the folks on here know that I am also a big numbers guy. I know that when I have fished with Ham he goes out of his way to put you on fish. I also know that if all in the boat landed 60 fish on a trip. Ham would have come pretty close to boating that total or more if he was fishing by himself. Who knows how many more fish he could have caught if he wasn't so generous to take out guys like myself.

 

[grizwilson]

14 hours ago, Ham said:

Here's a quick rundown on the numbers from my fishing in 2016. If my using a clicker and keeping up with my fishing trips bums you out, stop reading NOW. It isn't about me being better than anyone else ; it's about me being better at catching fish than I was before. Spoiler alert: I'm a numbers guy.

I made 85 fishing trips.

I caught 3679 fish.

I caught at least 36 species of fish (I feel like I lost track of one or two, but that's my Bad.

I had the pleasure of fishing with 27 different people.

I fished in Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas

I used Fly rod, spinning rod, bait caster, Tenkara, and fixed line jig pole.

I wade fished, bank fished, used kayak, jet boat, canoe, Bass Cat, and was the guest in 1/2 dozen other boats. 

This year I caught more fish than I ever have before. Last year was a little bit of a down year ( I caught 3197 fish) because of distractions. It really shows when comparing each month in 2016 to each month in 2015. I caught more fish every month except March, May, and October. May I was only off by 2 fish and October by 23. 

I have a bunch of BIG plans and BIG goals for 2017. I will save those for another thread.

 

All of that while being a slave to the Bluff House and Lot.... No telling how much improvement we will see in 2017.  It was my pleasure to be on a few of those trips, hope many more to come..i do not keep tally but fished yesterday evening, hoping for 3 more trips this year...i do have a clicker...some where... lost track of it.

[Haris122]

For my own interest I decided to keep track of the numbers of fish caught this year too. One thing I didn't actively track, was how many trips I made, but I did go quite frequently. At least 33 times were with one or two of 4 other people. Numbers wise so far (still plan on making it out once more before the year ends) I only got up to 251 fish. And that's counting even small sunfish and such. Actually quite a lot of them were little sunfish of various types.  I got about 25 species, with White Crappie, Black Crappie, and Rainbow Trout as the 3 most frequently caught (I lumped a lot of the sunfish into 1 group, for the ones I wasn't sure of species type so I'm not counting them as 1 species otherwise they'd be #1). Barely anything bigger than 18" though, and even the ones 15" and over, were few and far between. Those are my stats for the year.

[Blll]

That's more like Beaver Lake hrs/fish ratio. Any trip for me with over 10 fish is GREAT! 

[Haris122]

Quote

Any trip for me with over 10 fish is GREAT!

Same here, especially if the majority of  those have average or larger size to them. When I first started fishing, I think there was a gap of several months between my first and 2nd fish caught.