To report or not to report. That is the question.

[Erik]

Hey Steve, and weezer,
I've been thinking about the fishing report thing for awhile and I came up with an idea. First off, by watching all the other fishing report type sites what I've noticed is that where people start to get mad at others for reports is when they talk about numbers of fish caught. Reports like went fishing on such and such river, and tore them up. Went 10 for 15. Saw many more caught by others. Then theres the obvious, giving out of exact, or even giving out vague directions to certain holes. I like the way TSS has the little fill in the blanks type report thing. You know, river temp, type of weather, what patern etc... Those are the really important things that I myself look for in a report. I only get offended when people start making comments like we fished the coffer and hooked about twenty on the big man. Or we filled two ten gallon buckets with smelt last night on the carp river. A simple, we were sucessfull last night would be good enough.
So I was thinking maybe what you could do, Steve, is set the reports section up so that people have to answer certain questions and are limited to only answering those questions. Kind of like this

River name:
Date:
Water conditions:
Weather:
Water temp:
Species:
Method:
Were you successfull: check yes or no
You could then have a comments area but warn that any posting of numbers or locations will be deleted.

I know its kind of like TSS but I think
Tom has a good set up there. The problem as I see it is to many people skip the pertinent info and go straight to the comments area where they proceed to tell how they landed 25 steelhead at the dam on the big man. I think it should be mandatory that they fill in the important things and even if they don't know the water temp just fill in unknown in that field. All the other comments like, "the snaggers were out in force" and that sort of thing could be directed to another forum.
What does everyone else think? I don't know I was just thinking about it and thats what I came up with. It doesn't appear that too many people on this site give out reports any ways, but maybe if the reports section were changed more people would start using them.
Just a thought.


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Phish

[toto]

Oh man, here we go Erik is thinking everybody, be careful. HEHEHEHEHE just kidding. You have a valid point here. I do admit that I like the TSS information section on the reports, I don't think the arguing will erupt here due to the nature of we are just guys fishing. We don't worry about whether it is flies or not. Where you get into trouble over there is mentioning that you don't fly fish that much, as long as we can continue with the just fishing theme, I think it will be fine.

[BowDad]

What is TSS and where can I find it?

[toto]

Its known as the steelhead site and can be found at www.steelheadsite.com (http://www.steelheadsite.com) it really is a decent site, they are mostly fly fishermen and women, and are real defensive about it. So just be careful what you say.

[Steve]

Well, I don't want to see this site get snooty like TSS can be and most of the time, probably 90% of the time people don't fill in the information at the top of their forums anyway. I'm not sure I can make a forum come up the way they have it, but I still think this forum software is far superior than theirs. I must admit, I am very disappointed at the lack of reports on this site, as I know we have lurkers out there who have fished these rivers but give not reports. I agree with never giving out specific spots on rivers, and it's probably not good to say that you limited out anywhere especially on a small stream. I think it is great to say you caught a few trout and say what kind of fly you were using. As for salmon I don't really see anything wrong with saying that you had 5 on but 4 busted your rig. I think if we make some of the fields mandatory to fill in, we might get even less posts in the streams forums which are already not getting enough. It seems only Weezer, myself, and a few others are reporting at all. If you want to be real non-specific like say I fished some river in North West MI and show a pictures of a brown you caught there and say what kind of fly you caught it on that would be great. I don't care if you don't want to say what river it was on, even if it was a big one like the Manistee. I think the TSS has gotten so ridiculous that people only will say that I went fishing somewhere in MI and caught some trout, which at that point I say why even have the forums at all.

I would really like to see our streams forums get as busy or busier than TSS sites by this fall. I'm really gonna bust my butt to make it happen. I think this site has a group of more open minded people who not only fly fish but put on the ocassional garden hackle or Mepps, and they will not be chastised for it on this site, I will not tolerate it. Maybe we need to start a contest with a give-away for whoever posts a picture on the forums of the nicest fish caught and then released on one of the Michigan streams covered on these boards. That's my viewpoint what do you guys think?

[This message has been edited by Steve (edited 07-29-2000).]

[Erik]

Yes I know, I shouldn't think so much it can only lead to headaches right? Oh well.
I read Steves report about taking some heat, and he said he was thinking about doing away with the report boards. I just thought maybe this was a better option.
BTW, sometimes I wonder just how many of the guys over there on TSS actually are purely fly fishermen/women. Not that I care. When it comes to fishing, I'm a steelheader, what ever that entails, I will fish with flies, or bait or whatever. I just like to fish!


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Phish

[Steve]

And Eric you will never be looked down on this site for fishing with crawlers or whatever else you want to use. Give me your comments on my previous post.

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http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/images/editors/me.jpg

[toto]

I feel better already, to know that I can converse with guys/gals without worrying whether I am using flies, worms, spinners, and whatever, makes me like this site more and more all the time. Erik, you know that already about me using spawn for steelies, and I really don't care who knows it. I get very little time to enjoy this passion, and I don't mind sharing the resource, I have offered several times to take guys fishing on the Platte, Betsie, or the Manistee. The offer still stands as well. The problem is scheduling, try to fit my time with yours is sometimes difficult at best. But that offer is open and will always be to anyone who reads this.

Now for a report, there is a few chinooks in the Betsie right now, and if you ever have fished the Betsie, you know pretty much where to look. I will tell you this, when you hook one this early in the year, you better hang on, cuz you're gonna go for a long walk.

I'll try to post more info as I get it, and remember the offer is always open for fishing. BTW, does anyone like to surf fish for steel, and salmon??

[Salmonsmoker]

Guys,

I came across this discussion while wandering around the site.

TSS - a place where I looked around since flyfishing is something I do, however, most most Trout and Salmon are cought on spoons or other bait.

My main problem with TSS is that all they ever talked about is Catch and Release. Personally, I'm from the school of Catch and Cook. However, I never keep more than I can eat.

Just an observation.

ss

[chef]

ok after reading all of that i am ready to join! you have got all of my reports from know on. you guys sound prety down to earth and not near as argumentitive as the tss board. my spelling sucks and my fishing at times but 200 days a year on the river pays off once in a while.

[toto]

Welcome Chef, I know you from TSS, welcome aboard. I think you'll find that we are just guys/gals that like to fish, and even once in a while eat one. I hope we can see more and more reports on here.

[Steve]

SS, I am a member of TU who's claim to fame is catch and release. I do believe in that to an extent, however why did people first start to fish? To eat them of course. That's why I don't believe its a problem to keep one once in a while too. TU does do some good stream improvements which is another reason to join. The last thing we want to do as fishermen is to wipe out a stream because then what are we going to do next year? I especially believe in catch and release when we are talking about native populations of fish. I believe in it a little less when it's a put and take (dump em in by the ton every year) type fishery.

By the way chef welcome to the boards. Lets give these stream report boards a kick in the butt before the Salmon season starts. There's no reason why there can't be more posts here than on TSS.

[chef]

hey toto did i fish with you about a month ago at tippy? you and your wife were up there. i fished below the boat lauch.

[WEEZER]

Guys, I am in an arguement on TSS right now involving numbers! I posted originally on that thread because the guy who posted the numbers is my fishing parter about 80% of my trips and wanted to get a reaction from him. bottom line is that I don't really like hearing about huge numbers. In fact I have down sized my catch on posts for as long as I have been posting on any site!
Erik, Chef, Toto,Green Caddis, Ladykiller and I are all TSS'ers. I don't know about them but I am sick of that site for several reasons: #1. The site doesn't work half the time! IT has half the graphics and is way harder to follow and yet loads slower. I am also sick of getting the "Downed server message" on that site!(How many times does a server need to be downed anyway!?)
#2. Snobbish attitude!
#3. No webmaster/moderator involvement! They just let the arguments happen!
One thing that I like about TSS is the amount of reports and input you get from members! I also like the fact that you can "X" out of each thread!
The only way I can think of to not offend anyone on a report is to not report at all! I have been doing a whole lot of that lately!
I'm going to post a report on my fishing trip this week, I'll attempt to post something that would not offend anyone. Wish me luck!!
~Rick
Go ahead and visit TSS and read that post! It is kinda funny!

[WEEZER]

I totally forgot! Welcome to our forums chef! I have been a reader of your TSS posts for some time now and I think you will be able to help us out a lot!

[Steve]

Well this site will not be snobish, will have webmaster involvement, and if there are site problems they will be fixed. Please bring some more of your buddies over here and make some reports on these boards. I don't want them to be too specific here either but I do think we can say more than I fished somewhere in MI and caught some trout.

[DEERSLAYER]

Steve,I'm one of those guilty of not posting{although I haven't fished much this year} I will try to post more.As far as pictures,I didn't know I could post them on this site.Maybe it's because I am to computer illiterate and don't know how so didn't realize it.Would like to though.I think the report section is set up fine the way it is.

P.S. Went on the Muskegon two weeks ago and did not catch anything at Croton.Water was WARM,low and weedy.Had very few bites.

[toto]

Weezer, you are absolutely right, I get sick of the holier than thou attitude on TSS, but I quess thats just the nature of the beast. I know several fine fisherpeople who don't use flies, but still release most if not all of the fish they catch, me included. There is only my wife and I, so how many fish can we eat anyways? I will from time to time catch an extra salmon to give to fellow workers, as they don't fish but do eat them, and frankly with salmon I don't see a problem with that.

Any who, I haven't been able to fish for a while due to moving, just had to get a little closer to the river, but will try to get out this weekend and give a good honest up to date then.

[toto]

Chef, was that like the around the 4th of July? I hope you did'nt see me lose my wifes fish for her, man talk about feeling stupid. Were you the one standing near the boat when she hooked her first steelie?