My twin 12-year-old boys aren't terribly competitive with one another. There's plenty of sibling rivalry but it isn't over the top crazy. They're generally pretty good kids who do well in school and mind my wife and I most of the time. If they'd just learn to pick up after themselves there's a good chance we'll keep them.
On our fishing trips they often keep track of (unlike where they left their shoes, homework, drink or television remote) the number of fish they catch. They generally say it's just so they'll know, but in reality it's likely to see if they one-upped the other. I guess even adult anglers fall into that category on occasion.
If I'm lucky, the fishing is good enough they lose track. It's easy to keep tabs on a handful of fish but much harder to mentally tally 30 or 40. If they lose track much of the individual rivalry is gone and the focus becomes the fishing. Such was the case on the first trip to a new pond earlier this summer.
A friend got us permission to fish and the landowners were gracious hosts. We got to the pond with a few hours of daylight remaining. The boys waded the shallows and each cast a spinnerbait. We fished quite a while before they got any kind of pattern going and then the action heated up as they learned to discern a bite from moss. As the sun set, each boy was catching bass in several year-class sizes almost on every cast. It was fun to watch and I'm guessing they caught 50-60 bass between them It was a beautiful night regardless the tally and fish up to nearly 4 pounds will live in their memory banks for a long time.
The boys caught plenty of bass. They chattered non-stop on the way home about how much fun they'd had, their nearly-bloody thumbs and the ones that got away. The sibling rivalry was ALMOST forgotten. But since they couldn't argue numbers, talk turned to the BIGGEST fish of the evening. "My bass could eat your bass!" one said jokingly.
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