Reeling In 2007

Given the weather as well as the my theme for 2007…less fishing due to growing demands at home, I’m not sure that I’ll get out more than a time or two at best for the remainder of ‘07.  This was a down year for me in terms of days fished, streams fished and sizes of fish. I spent way more of my portioned fishing time this year exploring and fishing brook trout streams than I normally do. Not counting my out of state fishing, I only fished 24 days in ‘07 specifically targeting trout in WV (not counting out of state trips). That is nearly half of past years. My kids are requiring more time, my wife’s shift schedule has gotten worse, rod orders are backing up and gas prices have kept me from going out for evening trips a lot more. Not to mention that we had two months worth of drought, you know how that was. In those 24 days, though, I did manage to explore/fish 36 different native, wild and/or fingerling stocked trout water in WV alone this year. On the flipside, I caught exactly 39 more fish in one week in Montana than I did those 24 WV days combined. I also fished Montana and Pennsylvania this year.

Here is my glorious hoo-raa for 2007 and good riddance. My goal for 2008 is to get back to normal on days fished, spend a little more time on warmwater and target big fish slightly more than in ‘07. We’ll see.