how many fish can you catch?

[bearfisherman]

100+ trout days are relatively easy with the spinning rod under the right conditions, not so much with the fly rod for me. While I have had a couple of days of 40-50, if I get 20 with flies it's a good day.

 

[wildtrout2]

My best day fishing for wild trout was 40, and I fish some streams where this isn't a crazy number at all, but I also fish some really beautiful streams where this number is a dream. I do keep notes for every stream I fish. Date, weather, stream flow/ temp, numbers/type of trout, and a side note for bigger fish. I like comparing results of different outings. I just love going to the areas where this fish live, numbers or not.

 

[allan_s]

I know Spring Creek pretty well and I have fished with guys who claim they religiously catch 40-50 on it. They have NEVER caught close to that many when I have fished with them and my 15 were actually more than them. I would love to see somebody have a 50 fish day, I am completely self taught in the nymphing game and would love to watch somebody who knows what they are doing pull 40-50 fish out of an area where I struggle to get past 15. I will supply beer afterwards if anybody fishes Spring creek and lets me witness how to be that successful.

Edit: I am not trying to start an argument but the only person I have ever witnessed fish Spring Creek that truly kicked its butt was Frank Nale. I run into him quite a bit and that guy is truly a trout catching machine. That being said, I understand most people don't believe him one bit.

But I want to see someone do it with a fly rod!

 

[JackM]

99 is my highest, so I think 100 or more is impossible.

 

[tyeager]

If I lose count I'm happy, that means I'm not too focused and enjoying myself......

and I don't know whats worse....that there was a reference using "LotR" as an abbreviation or that I knew what you meant without thinking about it

 

[PJHarrington]

My most trouts in a day was maybe 30 at hickory run in the state park and best maybe 16in fishing close down by lehigh.

 

[mutzinbaugh]

The_Sasquatch wrote:
Coty that "competition" was funny! We were like Legolas and Gimli counting the orcs we killed.

Oh man I just made a LotR reference...my nerdom has been outed!

if you catch a 20 incher does that still only count as 1?

 

[tyeager]

guess it depends if your an elf or a dwarf

 

[stevehalupka]

16... everytime; usually on the mealy/waxie combo

I have an awesome mind for numbers, yet can never keep an exact count on my fish unless I concsiousley do so. I know I have been in double digits each Saturday and Sunday for the past 3 weekends on a local tail water, but it's a private club...

however, fish are now refusing bigger nymphs and eggs, and I've resorted to smaller (16-18) shop vacs breaking out of white sucks (antron or zelan) and the occasional pt w. a perfect taper.

when march/april hits and i'm throwing dries to freestone wilds... 40 is an easy day.

same goes for fresh stockies.

it's still always... 16

 

[wetnet]

There was a time not too long ago when I accepted some grief about supporting competitive fly fishing. They had rules so I'm wondering in comparing what are yours?

There is a difference to put your rod in a puddle full of fish than to catch fish in the worst conditions and places you never thought fish would be.

One fantastic fish ....where you would never expect it.... is worth 100 of nothing you never really earned. Stockies, catch them eat them, but half starved native brookies. Geez you can catch them on a pin. Not much to brag about.

Guess I should have read the whole post. I must be missing something,so no worries not into crashing on a good day of fishing.

 

[azjackstraw]

any day I see a fish, before it sees me, can throw a line and watch a refusal or a take, thats the best day, everytime!

 

[jeremymcon]

I'm coming up on 8 months of fly fishing now, and a great day for me has been about 8 trout in a 3 hour outing. Being a student I don't ever find time to spend a whole day on the water. This winter a really great outing has been 1 or 2 fish in a 2 or 3 hour outing!

I'm relocating to Lewistown after I finish school, and have a full time job lined up. There are lots of awesome trout streams up there, so I imagine in the next couple years a "great" day for me will be significantly better than a "great" day right now.

 

[thebassman]

If I just catch one wild trout I am hammering them!!

 

[wildtrout2]

I noticed one thing regarding numbers. The days I caught some of my biggest trout were usually days when I didn't have big numbers of fish.

 

[salmonoid]

Best day ever was a think an Opening Day weekend in ANF - something like 73 fish. About half were stockers and the reset were wild fish from some of the small freestoners there. Best fly-only day was a fall afternoon on the Donegal - black wooly bugger and I caught 60+. My numbers used to be quasi-accurate, in that they probably had a margin of error of +/- 10%. Last year, I recorded every fish in a fishing app on my phone and I'd say I may have off by 1 fish My criteria for recording a fish as caught was that I would have been able to take a picture of it with my phone.

I'd like to do a 100 trout day sometime, if I can find enough time and stream distance to fish, and a stream with decent enough numbers in it.

 

[geebee]

most trout i ever caught is four.

its more about a day outside for me.

1 fish is a day. anymore than than 5 or 6 is too easy - i came into fly fishing from Atlantic Salmon fishing then striper fly fishing.

I once had three fresh salmon one Morning on the Cork Blackwater where i have a small house - that is a day of a lifetime.

two years ago i had three sightfished keepers (stripers over 28" ) one dawn on Cape Cod Bay. i went home after that for a fried breakfast to celebrate.

it's what ever floats your boat guys.

 

[midnightangler]

For numbers, I doubt if I've ever made it past 30-45 fish. That has happened quite a few times, but I simply don't have the attention span to go for numbers for longer than 3 hours. If they were hammering dries or streamers it might be different, but I've never been in a situation where it was so fast and furious that I could catch 10-15 wild browns per hour all day long without using nymphs. Those days are really, really rare.

I spend most of my time fishing streamers that are more than 3" long. Typically this will get me one or two fish an hour, but I see twice as many big fish as I catch and this is fun to me. When you get right down to it, I'm not real interested in catching trout that are under a pound. I gravitate to places where bigger fish are more prevalent. Once the skunk is off I will pull my streamer out of the water away from a small trout rather than let him eat it.

I manage to hit my share of great hatches while streamer fishing. If the fish are rising like mad, I put down the streamer rod and throw dries. It's just about impossible to predict when trout will go nuts for a daytime hatch. Some days it just happens and you get lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Wild brookies over 9" are special fish but I don't think its ethical to hammer 100+ brookies out of a small mountain stream. From my perspective, catching a hundred six-inch fish is wrong. Either do something to target the bigger fish or skip every other pool so as to give some fish a pass. Brookies are way too susceptible to angling to justify trying to rack up numbers on tiny mountain streams. Those fish eat almost everything that they see.

The Frank Nale stories about spending twelve hours to catch 200+ brookies from small mountain streams sicken me. I think this is despicable. I realize that people have the right to do this kind of thing, but I have zero respect for it. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.

 

[Squaretail]

In my youth trout fishing was immensely popular. Almost all the kids would go out for first day and the Perkiomen and Unami would be packed. Say 35 yrs ago.
The in-season stockings back then never gave the exact day, only the week. This one kid and myself were known to be the best and we finally had a show-down during one of those in-season stockings. I'm not saying the whole school knew about it, but alot of kids did. We were both able to skip school the thursday of that week and it was infact the day they stocked.
My spot was the Palm Hill bridge area and I took 176? 170 something and ofcourse I felt just a tad confident with my totals. His name was Jeff and his spot was Leshers Mill area and he took 272? I remember he wasnt known to be a liar and I believed him and conceeded to defeat. Never underestimate the power of green giant niblets.

Today, it seems when I hit double digits I get the feeling of a successful day of fishing. Best dry fly day when I was still counting was 48. Almost all are enjoyable. There is the rare exceptions when I shouda stayed home in a nice dry bed.
The first time I fished Clinton counties Fishing creek and took 16 on beetles seems to be a memory I cant shake or duplicate.

 

[sandfly]

I catch as many as I feel like catching...

 

[pcray1231]

I know Spring Creek pretty well and I have fished with guys who claim they religiously catch 40-50 on it. They have NEVER caught close to that many when I have fished with them and my 15 were actually more than them. I would love to see somebody have a 50 fish day.

Allan, I've fished Spring Creek a LOT. I've topped 50 exactly once. And that was with live minnows in the winter, which is kind of like cheating, lol. With fly gear, high single digits to low teens is normal (i.e. average). I have worse and better days, of course. My absolute best days there put me into the low 30's, and that mostly occurred during the start of the BWO hatch, before word of the BWO hatch gets out, and while the trout are gorging themselves on the first major hatch after a long winter.