Mammoth to Merril Horse

[top_dollar]

                   I don't catch them very well on jointed jerkbaits and I sure have tried because I think they are cool, but a 3 to 4 inch regular jerkbait works well for me at least by my standards.  I've never caught 80 bass in a day though lol and don't think I would even with the best possible lure.  I would expect to catch maybe 5-10 bass/hour of fishing tossing one around. 

                My favorite is an xrap 8cm in river perch color for the upper big river.  I toss it around any current I see.  I work it very fast and aggressive most times.  4 or 3 hard twitches then ill let it rest for a few seconds, then Ill just "walk" it back most times.  Obviously experiment with retrieves because what makes them react can change quite a bit. 

 

[snagged in outlet 3]

8 hours ago, top_dollar said:

ever caught 80 bass in a day though lol

This!!!^

The MLF all time record is 88 fish in one day on one of the best smallmouth fisheries in the world by the worlds best professional fisherman.  Wheeler.  Second place drops all the way down to 47 fish.   80-100 fish days.   Right!!😂

[ColdWaterFshr]

3 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

This!!!^

The MLF all time record is 88 fish in one day on one of the best smallmouth fisheries in the world by the worlds best professional fisherman.  Wheeler.  Second place drops all the way down to 47 fish.   80-100 fish days.   Right!!😂

I know Al is fishing machine, as I have fished with him.  He does not stop,  outcast me 3 to 1.  I believe it.

 

[Mitch f]

Al’s greatest ability is his ability to control the solo canoe perfectly. Every time you look up he is going perfectly straight down the river and is casting. So yes, he gets at least twice as many casts in as the normal person. I personally suck at canoes and actually hate them.

Once I got a jet boat I never looked back. The thing about jet boats is you don’t have to worry about fishing a spot too long in fear of not making it back to the takeout before dark. you can always go back to that spot where you had a blowup earlier too. Too many advantages to count. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

8 hours ago, ColdWaterFshr said:

I know Al is fishing machine, as I have fished with him.  He does not stop,  outcast me 3 to 1.  I believe it.

 

12 hours X 60 minutes is 720 minutes/80 fish is a fish every 9 minutes for 12 hours straight.  Is that math correct?   No tinkle breaks, paddling through frog water, nothing but a fish every 9 minutes.  
100 fish day is a fish every 7 minutes and 12 seconds.   Nonstop for 12 hours.  

[Gavin]

Al will fish non-stop 24/7/365 if the fish are biting. He’s very detail oriented, and relentless. Kinda reminds me of Dave Barron, but Al is not a Putz..

[Al Agnew]

14 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

12 hours X 60 minutes is 720 minutes/80 fish is a fish every 9 minutes for 12 hours straight.  Is that math correct?   No tinkle breaks, paddling through frog water, nothing but a fish every 9 minutes.  
100 fish day is a fish every 7 minutes and 12 seconds.   Nonstop for 12 hours.  

Your math is probably right, but what you have to realize is that a lot of times I get into a nice stretch of bank and I'm catching a fish every other cast.  I fish fast moving baits almost exclusively, so a cast only takes about 10 seconds to fish back to the canoe.  If I hook a smallish fish, under 12 inches (which I count if it's a bass), it only takes a few seconds to get it to the canoe, and 10-20 seconds to release it.  So often I'm catching a couple fish per minute for a few minute stretch.  I will also admit that if I get the fish to the boat and lift it out of the water and it shakes off before I touch it, I still count it if it's a small one.  The bigger ones I have to hold to count.

I find that most people really underestimate the number of fish they catch on a good day.  I've had a lot of guys in the canoe with me when we are catching fish, and I keep a running count in my head and keep them apprised of how many we've caught.  But in the past I've kept a silent count, and asked them at the end of the trip how many they thought we caught.  They invariably underestimate by 25% or more.  Why?  Because the little ones don't stick in their mind.  It's not that I'm proud of catching 40 dinks, it's simply that I want a yardstick for how good a numbers day it was.

Today I did  12 mile float, from 7 AM to 5:30 PM.  It was a typical fishing day for me in warm weather; I only got out of the canoe three times, twice to stretch my legs and pee, and a 15 minute lunch break.  I caught a big one early and had a couple more strikes from big fish in the first couple hours, which always makes me fish even harder, but this is a very familiar stretch of river and much of it not all that scenic, so I didn't spend a lot of time gawking at the scenery or leisurely paddling, I fished hard and hit every spot I possibly could.  And it's great habitat, without much "wasted water" to paddle through and the riffles are short.  So I would estimate I was actively fishing for probably 9.5 hours of the 10.5 hours on the water.  Let me tell you how the day went:

7-8 AM--caught a 12 inch largemouth before I got in the canoe, while tying on lures and casting them to make sure they were working right.  A dink spotted bass in the riffle right below the put-in.  Then I fished a pool nearly a mile long, with only 2 more dink spotted bass throughout it.  At the tail end of the pool, I hooked a really good fish and lost it, caught another small spot, and then caught a 19 inch smallmouth.  First hour, five fish.

8-10 AM--the big one made me start fishing hard, and it hit topwater, so I was fishing walking baits a lot, but I was also using my homemade crankbait.  I didn't hook any more big fish, but caught a couple nice smallmouth in the 15 inch range, and a bunch of spotted bass.  I believe that by 10 AM I'd caught 4 smallmouth, 2 largemouth, and 11 spotted bass total, so second two hours, 12 fish.   

10-11 AM--Mary called me around 11, and asked me how many fish I'd caught so far.  I remember telling her that I was up to 24 fish, so I must have caught 7 in that hour.  One of them was an 18 inch smallmouth, which I caught on my homemade twin spin, which made me start fishing it a lot.  It's probably the fastest lure I fish because I reel it so that it bulges the surface.  If I'm fishing that lure I make a LOT of casts!

11 AM-1 PM--I stopped for lunch about 1 PM, and called Mary again.  This time I told her I was up to 31 fish, so 7 fish in those two hours.

1-3 PM--the fishing seemed to slow considerably during this time, with long stretches of no fish or maybe one dink spotted bass, but I hit a couple stretches of good fishing.  At about 3 PM I passed one of the major landmarks on this float, and had three miles to go.  I remember at that point I was up to 24 spotted bass, 9 smallmouth, and 7 largemouth.  So I caught 10 fish in that 2 hour period.

3-4 PM--I had stopped using the twin spin and was trying other stuff, and not catching much.  I think I only caught 6 fish in that hour, but one of them was right around the end of the hour, and was my second 19 inch smallmouth--as soon as I'd picked up the twin spin rod again!  I also hooked and lost two more big ones on topwater.

4-5 PM--then things really got slow.  I only caught two dink spotted bass in this hour.  I was up to 48 fish total.

5-5:30 PM--the big reason I can be so precise on these times is that I was supposed to be at the take-out at 5:30 to meet my shuttle person, so I was timing the float more than I usually do.  In that last half hour the big fish turned on.  I hooked and lost another big one on top, then caught my best of the day, a 19.5 inch smallmouth, and had strikes from two more big ones.  So obviously I was fishing really hard that last half hour.  I only had a half-mile to go, and in that half hour and half mile I caught 10 fish to bring the final tally up to 58.

Now...double those numbers for a day of more than 100 fish.  Believe me, it isn't that hard to do if the fish are cooperating and you're counting every bass you catch, no matter how small.  I've had a few days in the past where I seldom made more than a half dozen casts without catching a fish.  Heck, my buddies and I all kept count one day on the John Day River in Oregon, when you literally could have caught a smallmouth on every cast the little ones were so thick; the only reason we didn't is because we were trying a lot of big lures to try to find the bigger fish.  We all caught between 140 and 250 fish apiece.  Cory Cottrell and I kept count on the trip up north this year, and caught 140 our best day between the two of us, and the great majority were over 15 inches.  We were fishing mainly spinnerbaits and buzzbaits in murky water where most of our casts were very short, and we burned them back to the boat if the fish didn't hit in the first 3 feet off the bank.

 

[Al Agnew]

By the way, I started counting fish like this back when I was collecting scale samples and counting fish for MDC.  Then I was writing it all down, but if I went to a different river where they didn't need the data, I just started keeping a running count in my head.  There's a method to my madness...I just keep the numbers in my head--smallmouth, largemouth, spotted in that order.  So my count at any given time might be something like "14/5/16".  I can just keep the tally like that in my head as I'm fishing.  But I do love fishing in places where you only catch smallmouth with an occasional largemouth; keeping the numbers is easier.  Fishing Big River, you gotta keep all three, and often a fourth category--spot/smallmouth hybrids!

Also, I found while keeping the records for MDC that on average, about half the fish I catch will be under 12 inches, and then the numbers go something like halving it for each inch or two.  So if I catch 80 fish, somewhere around 40 will be over 12 inches, of those around 20 will be 13-14 inches, around 10 will be 14-15 inches, around 5 will be 15-16 inches, leaving 5 or so over 16 inches.  This isn't always true, of course, but it kinda shows you an average of what size structure you should catch from a decent Ozark stream.  Today, as near as I can remember I caught 6 smallmouth and a largemouth over 16 inches out of 58 fish, so it was a better than average day for bigger fish.

[top_dollar]

                   I am not calling anyone a liar.  I certainly do not fish as hard as Al said above.  If I am on the water for 10 hours, I am probably paddling for 3-4 hours, hanging out at gravel bars, exploring, and watching scenery for another 2-3 hours which leaves about 3-5 hours of actual fishing.  In that time I expect to catch 5-10 fish an hour or so.  My day job requires rigorous note taking and attention to detail, so when I go fishing I generally prefer to just fish and enjoy the time I spend.  The fact that I just like to "fish" probably hurts my skills as an angler because I am not constantly trying to maximize my time to catch the most or biggest.  I cant help but be competitive when I am fishing with someone else, but I try to just enjoy my leisure time out there. 

[Flysmallie]

32 minutes ago, top_dollar said:

                   I am not calling anyone a liar.  I certainly do not fish as hard as Al said above.  If I am on the water for 10 hours, I am probably paddling for 3-4 hours, hanging out at gravel bars, exploring, and watching scenery for another 2-3 hours which leaves about 3-5 hours of actual fishing.  In that time I expect to catch 5-10 fish an hour or so.  My day job requires rigorous note taking and attention to detail, so when I go fishing I generally prefer to just fish and enjoy the time I spend.  The fact that I just like to "fish" probably hurts my skills as an angler because I am not constantly trying to maximize my time to catch the most or biggest.  I cant help but be competitive when I am fishing with someone else, but I try to just enjoy my leisure time out there. 

I'm not much different. I've got enough goals given to me so I quit setting them when it comes to my time outdoors. I'm just along for the ride at this point.