Fishing Journals

[Maurice]

Les,

I appreciate your detailed explanation and I am not doubting you...don't get me wrong. I hate to drag this out....(no I don't) :lol: But did you move around in the stream? like from hole to hole? How much stream did you cover....really this interests me. I mean, to find that many trout willing to take a dry fly baffles me.

Here is my measure. My best FPH was during a whitefly hatch on the susky before it went to tish. I got on the water after work at 7:50 PM in late July and proceeded to catch 22 smallies and a few(8-9) rock bass & bluegills in 65 minutes. Literally every cast except a few brought a fish to hand. biggest was only 12" but after about 45 minutes I had had enough and they wouldn't quit. I lasted a little longer and I did quit.

I guess this brings me back to your exclamation about finding more productive water.

it also brings me to ask...was this one of the waters where they stock fingerlings? or if no, stocked water or wild trout water?

Enjoying the exchange.

Maurice

 

[afishinado]

Lestrout wrote: "For the fellow who felt every season's being different nullified the advantages of writing things down: I used to spreadsheet air and water temps with the Beaverkill to decide which 3 days I would go up there to hit the Hendricksons - since every year it was different. In the course of doing this, along with days of sun and water levels, I got pretty good at forecasting several weeks ahead when to show up. Now I do it intuitively, but the graphs I created and studied sped up my learning curve."


Lestrout,

I don’t doubt that if you fish enough, and you continue to enter data, over time the SS will become a useful tool for FF. I don’t spend that many days on the water (unfortunately for me), and except for a few close-by streams, I don’t fish the same streams more than once or twice a year. Besides for me, maintaining the SS got to be too much like my job. I also kept a journal for hunting. That proved more useful since I hunted the same area year after year, and patterns began to become evident. Besides, the entries in the journal brought back memories of each hunt. That’s one of the great things about keeping a journal. LT, it’s great that you are so into the sport, that you record and track everything, and enjoy doing so.


Maurice,

Lestrout’s catch rate of over 2 TPH is not surprising. There are wild trout streams that you can regularly catch 20+ fish in a couple hours. Also, 20-30 fish in a few hours is doable when you hit a major hatch on a good stream or fish stocked streams early in the season. I don’t worry about the count, and fish some of the tougher streams because I enjoy either the scenery or the challenge fishing there. Like Lestrout, when I begin catching a lot of fish, I usually begin to experiment with rigs, tackle, or try new casting techniques.

The thing that impresses me most about Lestrout’s post is that he catches most, if not all his fish on dry flies. I would estimate that 75% of my fish come on nymphs or flies fished under the surface. I surmise that LT fishes a lot of wild trout streams where a skilled and stealthy fisherman can catch a lot fish on a dry fly. Also, LT probably has with his data, the hatch times and places down to a science, for major the hatches on many prime streams.

I would consider anyone a true expert fly fisherman, that has fished 100+ days a year for decades, and records the data to learn and improve. Lestrout, I admire you for that, and I hope some day to be able to fish as much a you do, and to enjoy fishing that much. Like Maurice, I also await more details from you.

 

[pete41]

I once caught the famous Salmon Fly hatch just right.It was on the Lamar river in Yellowstone.The water was in perfect dry fly condition and the B-29s were as thick as I ever saw them.
Every-bodies dream day-not.After a couple of hours of catching cutthroat after cutthroat,ranging between 1 to 3 pounds in some of the most classic western scenery it was no longer fun.I became all too aware I was preying on pea brains so I quit.
I thought I would get some exercise by climbing out of the valley and walk down the road to the parking lot.It was hot and I was wearing waders.Heading down the really steep switchback leading to Gardiner I suddenly got a really painful ``Charlie horse''.Now that was exciting.
Anyway I can't imagine persevering when there was no challenge what so ever just to wrack up numbers so do tell what motivated you to keep going.This is intriguing.

 

[Chaz]

I used to keep a journal, if you want to call it that, it was simply a list over conditions and how I did. I stopped doing it, but now with my memory failing I intend to start anew.

 

[Acristickid]

After 20 or so who's counting? My journal would say something like lots of trout or great hatch etc...

 

[jpavoncello]

I keep a journal of my fly fishing adventures but not so much for future reference than to hopefully provide my future grand and great grandchildren a little glimpse of the crazy old fart who waved a wooden stick in the air! Seriously, I started keeping a journal a few years ago when I first fished the Smoky Mountains.
I do enter the required info, hatches, water condition, flies used, and fish caught, but more importantly, I try to write a little excerpt of the day highlighting funny or interesting things that happened or wildlife seen. I don't know if my future generations will have the same opportunities to fly fish for trout as we do now, and I hope to leave something behind that will preserve my love for fly fishing.
On a side note, I have a wonderful addition to my journal from today.
I was down on the Gunpowder and hooked a little 5 or 6 inch native rainbow. A big (probably 20 +) brown dashed up from the bottom and attacked the rainbow, grabbing it crosswise at the head. I fought both fish for a couple of minutes and the big guy didn't let go until I put the net in the water to land them!

 

[lestrout]

Pete41 - it wasn't your post about motivation that did it. After all, I generally consider I'm educating the trouts when I catch them )they oughtn't be eating those fluffy thangs with steel in them).

Anyhow, I got into another situation where I coulda broken my 128 trouts record: on an unidentified spot on the Lochsa in Idaho a few days ago. Although the October Caddis ffishing wasn't up to par, I found a spot that had maybe a thousand rainbows and cutts stacked up and hungry as all getout. I'd already caught 11 trouts elsewhere that morning, and after catching another bunch at this hot spot, I decided to wrap it up after a coupla more dozen and go searching for other hotspots (there are 50 other river miles with easy access to explore).

I briefly pondered hanging in there for another few hours to see if I could break the 128 record by one or 2 (don't want to overdo it, doncha know), but decided to do more exploring. Actually, the last dozen trouts were more to see how durable one of my Humpies was, more than to catch a mess of trouts.

tl
les

 

[mediclimber]

I started to keep a journal this past years since my parents bought me the Fishpond version for Christmas. Might as well use it I thought. Well, it sits in the truck next to the wader bag and gets filled out when I remember it's there. Most times I forget because I'm yapping to someone else there. I recently joined a hunting and fishing club/camp in Sullivan County and may just use it more often next year, who knows. I'm just happy to get out and walk around in the woods and streams.

 

[Fishidiot]

Inspired by a passage in Art Lee's book on fishing dry flies - I too decided to keep a fishing journal. This was, I think, from '83 to 89. I kept pretty meticulous records of fish caught, size, fly, water temps etc. Halfway through the '89 season I had an epiphany of sorts and decided that fishing was not about keeping score so I quit the journal and made it a point not to count fish caught. Late in 05 I blundered into my old journals and had a great time re-visiting my trips from my youth and decided to try a journal again in 2006. I had great fun with the journal that year. I don't think I'll keep a journal every year from now forward - maybe once every 3-4 years.