Fishermen are sometimes characterized as guys that, ahem, “stretch” the truth. Today I almost wished I was one of those, not wanting to know the truth about how bad this last year has been on the fishing front. Hal emailed me his totals and that shamed me into going out and adding up mine. His were off for him, but were still good, with a total of 934 and a good many larger fish. He is normally closer to 2000. I caught only 252 on 30 trips for an average of 8.4 bass per trip. My largest fish was 7 1/2 pounds. I did not look back but I remember averaging over twice that many per trip not too many years ago. The river lakes and Wolf Lake going bad is the prime reason why, I think, however it may be my fishing abilities going South. The question arose to me “What is a guy catching this few fish doing writing a blog about fishing”? Being an optimist I am going to continue with high expectations for the next year. Improvements in the river lakes are being heard about every day now which has got to help my outcome next year.