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TableGrouch

How to Conduct a Good Poll?

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New to the site and I'm interested in how the polls work, and if I were to do one, some suggestions on how to do it right. I've searched on this topic and can't seem to find anything that is really helpful.

 

I spend 300 - 400 hours a year recreational fly fishing for trout. I expect it will only get worse with age unless I die soon. My wife thinks I'm seriously ill. If I added in hours spent on the bench, plus reading fly tying and trout fishing books or material, then hours spent obsessing over all this in general she 'might' have a point. If ever a control group existed that could help me validate the past 50 years of my life, this might be it.

 

All suggestions are welcome.

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Can't help with how to do a poll.... frankly I'm not wild about them. But explain why the hours you spend may get "worse". Most guys here would consider it better. (I assume you're equating "worse" with more). Is more fishing worse because your wife thinks it is? Does she feel you're ignoring her, or your family, or other responsibilities? If that's it, you need professional counseling, maybe marriage counseling, not a poll. Or is it "worse" because you may be too ill to get out the gear and go fishing? At any rate I don't see how anyone could construct a poll to help you solve your self-validation. Self-medication is what drug addicts do.

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FlaFly,

 

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm the analytic type.

 

We seem to have a pretty healthy number of dedicated fly fishermen here. I'm wondering what they fish for, professional (guide) or recreational, retired or otherwise free to unlimited time on the water versus employed, and then how much time they actually spend fishing.

 

All the other problems I admit are mine.

 

What do you fish for? Not thinking many trout in your waters.

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depends... I live officially in Florida. Here in freshwater we're mostly limited to LM bass, black crappie, and bream (bluegills mostly). I also have a house in NC where I spend 4 or 5 months a year. There, we also have white crappie, SM bass, walleye, perch, and yes, trout. I don't fish for trout (haven't yet anyway). I mostly prefer fishing in lakes. We have around 8000 lakes in Fla. Not too many fishable streams (wadeable). A few big rivers but they're boat fishing (and none near me).

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Sounds nice. I target trout almost exclusively, about 95% of the time. Give it a try. The other 5% is steelhead minus the occasional outing for bass or carp (don't scoff - pretty challenging).

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Well ... when you figure out what to do for the "poll" ... I'll know what you want to know.

Until then ... I think you need to get out and go fishing some more.

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Well Grouch, when you do a poll, you have to make sure to include questions that will help validate your point if you are trying to make one.

For instance in your case, you may want to include a question such as how many hours do you spend in a strip club or bar. That way you can show your wife that those that spend so much time fishing spend a whole lot less time carousing around. Although on this board, those numbers may be just as high as the ones spent fishing...oh well, polls...

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Kirk

If he's trying to use a poll to convince his wife he's not fishing more than "normal" husbands, then taking a poll from a fishing website membership is hardly convincing. He'd need a poll from a much more general population.

 

I'd be willing to bet our membership spends considerably less time in bars than the general population. What would be interesting to me is whether members in northern states, where several months are frozen in and basically un-fly-fishable, spend more time in bars than us guys in the south. But that would hardly be helpful to Grouch.

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I haven't made up my mind what to do with this, so I'll likely just leave it sit for awhile, if I do anything at all. Like Mike suggested above, my season is about to really gear up so it is time to get on the water.

 

My primary objective would be to find out the amount of time members are fishing and for what species, but I think there need to be some additional questions. For example, I fish almost exclusively for trout 350 hours a year, live in the NE, am still working full time and it is all recreational fishing. I'd like to know how that compares to anglers in a similar situation. Guides' hours spent with clients wouldn't really compare, and someone retired with unlimited time to fish also doesn't directly compare. So I could see gathering the data and then segmenting it into different comparison groups for all the participants. Would like to make it broad enough to interest most members, but starts to get harder when you include overseas members and salt water.

 

Could be fair amount of effort, and frankly, not worth it if there wasn't enough interest. So before taking it on I was looking for some feedback from others who have run polls. I've looked at some that are quite simple, and others appear more comprehensive. Are the polls closed after a certain period of time and results published?

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"someone retired with unlimited time to fish..."

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Sorry about that.. I couldn't help it. As just about any retired person will tell you, I was never so busy until I retired!.

 

But I was going to suggest that first you might look through all the previous polls, as you might find a lot of your questions already answered. Now that you mention it, I'm not sure where old polls go. Perhaps using the search box for "Poll" might find them.

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Kirk is correct ... especially if you post your poll in the saltwater forum. Those guys actually have their vises set up where they can indulge all their vices at the same time. The fly tying/bar/brothel/bowling alley/pool hall/burger joint is located with one wall facing a large river. And, that side of the "facility" opens up so patrons can cast directly into the water from their seats.

Don't post your poll there.

 

The rest of the people on this site are NOT salt water anglers ... only because they can't find the above mentioned "facilities" ... yet.

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