Why do you count them? Is it a numbers' game or am I missing something?
I have no idea how many coho I landed this year (or any year for that matter), but I know this one was one great season.
Good enough for me.
I count them as well. It is not a numbers game, It is not to compete with people, it is not for any reason that most people assume. In fact, most people don't even know how many I caught this year, and that doesn't matter to me. It was definitely a fantastic season though - my best yet by far.
I do it for 2 reasons.
1) I keep an excel sheet for both coho and steelhead each year. I keep it for these 2 fish as they are the ones I target and enjoy the most and I like seeing the trends I get. It helps me determine if I am getting more efficient at targeting them, and how the runs are doing compared to what others are telling me. In the diary I keep along side the spreadsheet, I write down stuff that old timers on the rivers tell me, such as what other rivers to hit, when the one I was on peaks, techniques. At this point the diaries I kept the last 3 years are a great read and refresher on new things I need to try out, it helps me expand on things I would normally forget.
2) RUN TIMING. You wouldn't believe how much these simple spreadsheets and diaries help me plan my trips out on the island now. At times, I have it dialled down right to the day, especially for steelhead. Some people may think it's silly, but why wouldn't I spend 5-10 mins after each trip writing down conditions, and the date, and how the fishing was, when at times I am driving up to 3 hours to spots and spending $100's in gas while in university. I want to make my time on the water count, IMO no better way of doing that than keeping a diary and seeing trends after multiple years (and retaining info from people in the know).
One other interesting thing... It's kind of cool to see how the CPUE varies between winter steehead, summer steelhead and coho. This year it actually worked out that I had the exact same number of trips and hours somehow of summer steel vs coho. I definitely catch more coho/hour than steelhead lol, something like a little over double.