Thursday, May 26, 2011

Streak Stays Alive... Just Barely



Right now I am on the hottest fishing streak that I have ever been on in my life. I have been reluctant to write about it in my blog posts because I don't want to jinx it. Unfortunately I know it is going to end very soon so I figure writing about it isn't going to change anything. What the hell am I talking about? you ask.


I have caught a trout on 26 consecutive outings that I have targeted them. Obviously days that I fish the ocean don't count in the streak. Basically all year I have fished for three fish, carp, stripers and trout. Twenty six times in a row, I have caught at least one trout. What is my definition of an outing?


Its like this...Its basically when I leave home to fish and then stop fishing to do something else ( go home, grocery shopping, etc.), that would be one outing. If I were to fish Saturday morning and then Saturday night that would count as two outings. If I caught fish in the morning, I couldn't count those fish if I went again in the evening. Also an outing can be multiple lakes as long as I'm just driving from one to another. Once I realized I had this streak going I had to make up some rules. Those are what I came up with.


In my entire life I have never had a streak like this. I've never caught fish 26 times in a row, never mind a target species. I wish I could say I've caught stripers twenty something times in a row. Carp would be nice and so would largemouth bass. I never had any reason to keep track of a statistic like this. I only realized I had a streak going when I looked back at my fishing reports. Sometime around 13 or 14 times in a row, I started to realize it. The streak started April 24. During that time I have caught 75 trout.


Once I hit fifteen times catching a trout, I started focasing on the next multiple of five. I knew/know sooner or later this will stop. I just hoped it would hit 20 then twenty five. I seriously doubt I will go 30 consecutive tripslanding a trout. Why? The water is warming up and it is getting much more difficult to catch them.


Monay morning I got up real early to catch a tiger trout ( catching a fish I'd never caught before was more important than my streak, yet it was in the back of my mind). It took me three hours to catch my first fish. It was a tiger. I was real excited to catch something I'd never caught before AND keep my streak alive.


This morning I did the same thing. I wanted to catch some more tigers so I headed back to Whitings Pond. After three hours and ten minutes! I caught another tiger trout. A couple minutes after that a rainbow. I stayed another hour and didn't get anymore. Four and a half hours/ two trout. After two hours troutless, I was writing this post in my head about the streak ending.


Its going to suck when it finally ends. Right now my streak is the equivilant of fishing everyday for almost four straight weeks and catching at least one trout. Unfortunately, the weather is gettingt warm. I'm fishing for longer periods of time without a fish. Sometime this weekend, I'm guessing I will catch a goose egg in the trout catagory. I could stop fishing for them right now and start fishing for bass and more carp. I wouldn't consider that cheating. That way my streak could last until the weather cools in the fall. Bass fishing is better then trout fishing in my neck of the woods right now anyway.


I won't do that though. I have another goal that will motivate me to keep trout fishing for another week or so. I am seven trout short of 100 for the season. This weekend DJ, Laurie and I are going to New Hampshire if the weather forecast stays the same. I hope to do some trout fishing up there. Although the water is cooler and trout fishing is in full swing, I don't know the ponds and my time may be limited. So I do believe sometime early next week I will be writing the companion story to this one about my streak ending.


For what its worth, its been one hell of a run!!!



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