Your memorable fishing moments!

DixyDoodle · #1 04/26/06, 01:41 PM

Elffriend's thread about fishing got me to thinking about some pleasant (and some not-so-pleasant) fishing moments in my life.

I haven't done any serious fishing in maybe 10 years, unless you count taking the ds out for an hour or so of perch fishing or bullheading. But all this talk about fishing is making think maybe I should take a day off and get out there. I'm just sitting here thinking about those unforgettable moments like:

---thinking I had just hooked a big perch and hauling in a whopper of a largemouth bass.

---relying on the almanac or calendar for "good days" for fishing, standing in relentless cold rain for hours....and catching absolutely nothing.

---thinking I had caught a really large bass and pulling in a small but fiesty sunfish.

---the somewhat dazed shock of getting up off my butt after falling on slippery rocks and seeing two big hooks off a treble hook embedded in my hand.

---getting stranded on an island because my 'pick-up' peoples' boat died in big water and they couldn't come and get me for 5 hours....and I didn't care 'cause the fishing was great!

---watching an amazingly large gush of blood come out of a small head wound caused by my sister's hook caught in her 6-year old son's head. Oh course, I was quite young at this point, maybe 12, and my only thought on the matter was: "Well, darn, there goes my day of fishing!"

---my creepiest catches: a lamprey eel and a dogfish.

---my weirdest catches: a real live steel-toe workboot (yes, it does happen in real life apparently--- at the time, I was fishing in a stong current and thought I had caught "a big one" AND of course it happened in front of friends

LOL). I also 'caught' another fishing pole once.

---strangest baits used that actually caught a fish: regular bread rolled into balls mixed with spit, playdough balls, chewed-up gum, old pop-top can keys, and a small ladies wristwatch.

Gee, I have to get out fishing more!

DD

airotciv · #2 04/26/06, 02:21 PM

Special moments:

When my son's caught thier first fish. Then dad had them clean it. The smiles on thier faces when they caught it and the disguse when they had to clean it.

When my husband catches something.

Most unusual (sp) bait:

Nothing. We were at Lake Foster and the kids and the SIL were out paddling a round on rubber rafts. SIL spotted a leader and hook. So she dove down and got it. Put the leader in her mouth and paddled to shore. when she got to shore she had a 6" trout on the hook. The guys had been fishing all morrning and didn't have a bite.

Rita · #3 04/26/06, 02:35 PM

My most embarrassing moment came when I was salt-water fishing in the Indian River from the bulkhead and as I cast out with my rod and hook/bait I hooked my nice big landing net that was on my chair that I thought was far enough away! Of course the net didn't stay hooked and it floated on down with the current and of course there were onlookers. Rita

mpillow · #4 04/26/06, 02:50 PM

I used to bass fish mostly with my dad on Torsey Lake in Readfield Maine (we had a camp on the lake)..on the man-made end....we used to fish on the natural end....
Well one day we went to fish near a private "beach" that was one of our favorite spots...private quiet...we see a bunch of people at a distance so we cut the motor on the boat and drifted...the wind came up and blew us in real fast....it was a group of nude lesbians

We bumped the motor on a log because my dad was in such a hurry to get out of there....we got back to camp and he dropped me off and went to tell the story to neighbors and relatives...wasnt long before there was a bit more boat traffic in that direction

I was just about 11yo I think...

My biggest catch was a 15#dog salmon just outside of Nome, Alaska.....You havent fished until you've been there! I was tired after I reeled him in! I also hooked a King that completely jumped out of water....my line snapped...it was twice as big as the dog salmon.....and shockingly powerful!

I was born to fish!

FeralFemale · #5 04/26/06, 02:51 PM

This is really gooey, but my best memory is when my husband I were on our honeymoon and rented a bass boat and guide for the day. We were in the bayous outside NOLA and caught trout, redfish, and drum. We had a guide, born and raised cajun, named Poncho who we later saw on Bass Masters (or some show like it). The cleaned our fish packed it in ice. We bought a cooler and had the hotel put it in their deep freeze. We were able to have grilled redfish for our first anniversary dinner.

Ravenlost · #6 04/26/06, 03:26 PM

Hmmm...there was the time I cast my line and hooked myself in the back of the head.

My brother and his friend laughed all day long.

crystalniche · #7 04/26/06, 04:03 PM

We went out on the Mijoy II a couple of years ago. I was happily fishing over the side when I hooked something. Of course every man on that side of the boat had to say or do something~I ended up handing my pole to my husband and a friend used a gaffe to hook it over the side. That thing was a huge Blue Fish. As soon as he hit the deck he was flipping up and snapping his teeth at me! I was shocked and thought this huge fish knew that I was the one who'd hooked him and that he was out to get me. I screamed and tried to run but there were lots of people (men) trying to get ahold of him. He was jumping up snapping and I was trying to get as far away from him as I could. Finally someone did manage to grab him and took him away~yay! I gave him to the people we were there with because I was still afraid of him even tho he was now fileted.

Another time when DS was about 8 years old we had gone to the local fishing pond and were on the bank casting off. We were with another couple, the man was very tall~about 6'6". Our DS is short so that friend looked like a giant to DS. Anyway, after we'd been fishing for awhile I heard a lot of deep laughing. We all turned and that guy said to DS "I know we're fly fishin' boy but I lookit here! You've done caught mine!" Thankfully all the hook caught was his zipper front and not his flesh. DS was so mortified that he steered clear of that guy for days! Thank God he had a great sense of humor.

Fla Gal · #8 04/26/06, 05:12 PM

One of the more not so pleasant fishing moments in my life was when I participated in the one and only fishing tourament in my life. Fresh water bass fishing, catch and release.

I bought a special spinner lure for that tournament and on the first cast I didn't realize the bail had failed on me. Got a great hit but wasn't fast enough to recover from the hit.

As though that wasn't bad enough, my partner and I went around to a J section of the lake to get to the next best spot and I made a really bad cast and lost my new lure in one of the trees on the bank. An eleven year old girl, in the tournament with her Dad, said "Look Daddy... she's squirrel fishing!" I laughed about it because it was funny but couldn't retrive the lure and the part that really hurt was the fact that the little girl and her Daddy won the tournament and I lost my good lure.

mamastars · #9 04/26/06, 05:24 PM

One morning after breakfast I took my sons, then 4 and 6 yrs. old, fishing off the pier at the beach. The pier was rather crowded but no one was catching any. After about 15 mins. with our poles in the water with no bites the 6 year old started to turn kinda-of green, stuck his head through the railing and let it goooo. He immediately started feeling better and within 3 minutes we were catching fish faster than we could pull them in with three poles. Within 10 minutes we barely had room to move for all the people moved around us. That was also the fishing trip I discovered bloodworms can BITE!! and draw my blood!! It was a fun fishing trip over 14 years ago, I'll never forget it even though my son wishes I would. LOL

arctichomestead · #10 04/26/06, 05:24 PM

We have seen tons of people freak out when a king salmon takes their hook. They aren't expecting it to be so...strong and startling. One very small woman actually went in face first and people had to grab her--but she held onto that pole!! My husband was once fishing in the mouth of the Kenai River here and had a group of Beluga whales swim right past him about 5 feet away. He just stopped fishing and stood still!

Florida · #11 04/26/06, 05:48 PM

-----My brother and I saw a 10 foot, dried up, skin and bones alligator carcass. I kneeled down besides the gator to examine it. As I reached out to touch it; the dead alligator exploded into a mad lunge toward the water. I was so shocked I bolted back and ran a backwards 50 yd dash. For the rest of the day I panicked at every little sound

-----It was 50 degrees and we were 7 miles away from shore in a boat that only ran 15 miles an hour. I had no rain gear and I was wearing shorts............... It rained harder and colder than I have ever seen before.

----We were in an aluminum boat trying to fix the broken motor. We had no way of getting in except a 2 hour paddle. A thunderstorm rolled in and lightning smashed around us in incredible divine explosions. I sat out there and though, "What a stupid way to die!"

I have so many stories I think Im gonna write a book!

mistletoad · #12 04/26/06, 06:31 PM

The catch we all still talk about was the day that I snagged my line. I am so cheap I will not give up on a rig, so I pull on the line a feel it give a little, it snags, I pull, it gives etc. This went on for ages and I just knew I had a tire on there but I wanted my rig back. Eventually I drag the "tire" up onto the beach and realise it was no tire, it was a huge snapping turtle! We were all barefoot, it was snapping and poor DH had to try to free it.

insanity · #13 04/26/06, 09:39 PM

My best moment had to be the time i went fishing with my girl friends step dad and uncle.I would have been around 16 back then.Along the way to the lake we stooped at a bait and tackle store and low and behold they had a green/black spinner bait i just had to buy to try out that day.Well they both started in on me before i even got back to the truck,about how i wouldn't catch anything on that ugly bait.You no the normal fun poking man stuff.
Well we get to the lake, launch the boat and before her uncle could get it fired up i had said wait lets troll over that way.Nahh he says ain't no fish around the ramp.Well lucky for me he couldn't get it started right away and we drifted that direction.Got my new bait tied on and on the first cast i caught the first and largest fish of the day a nice chunky four pounder.Ill shorten this up to we got rained out and had to leave early but on the ride back i was casting in front of the boat on every sharp turn where he had to slow down and i was getting bit on just about every cast.Making him have to stop the boat to get the fish in.End of the day i must have caught 12 or so,and they caught NOTHING! Skunked, by my ugly bait.
Hum i never did get invited again wonder way?

My girl friends mom had warned me not to out fish her bother or he wouldn't carry me with him again.So figuring i wasn't going to get to go again any way, i might as well rub it in real good all the way home..

Bet i own about 20 pounds of ugly spinner baits now.And enough parts to make a hundred more.

busybee870 · #14 04/26/06, 10:53 PM

most memorable moments, when i got my sons their first ZEBCO, on their 2nd birthday. The had no clue at first what was supposed to happen until that brim was a tugging. The looks on their faces when the got it in PRICELESS

most unusual bait, ivory soap, and kernel corn
I thank my granfather for teaching me to fish
'Give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, TEACH a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime."

kesoaps · #15 04/26/06, 11:32 PM

My dad used to haul me off to his favorite fishing hole as a kid. It was a rock that had a waterfall pounding down on it from 25 feet above. Too much rain, and you couldn't see the rock. But on this day, the rock was there. I was about eight or nine, and my little sister was left on a lower rock with a neighbor friend (they went fishing for crawdads there), while Dad held onto me and had me drop my line down behind the rock under the waterfall.

Not sure how long we'd been fishing, but the neighbor girl's dad was there, and a teenage boy, when I got a whopper of a strike. We fought and fought for what seemed forever (when you're little, it's always forever!), with the neighbor and teen straining to see over the edge of the rock. My pole was bend downward, and because it was a kid's only fishing place, Dad could only hold onto me while I was trying to reel. The boy finally got is fingers in the gill of my fish, the neighbor was whoopin and hollerin over the size...then SNAP when the line, and the fish was gone. I never even got to see it...nor did my dad. That was the biggest fish that ever got away, and I only know it was big because of the two witnesses who saw it!

Other memorable moments? Kids' Fishing Derby; family tradition! My uncle won the first ever derby, my dad has won, I've won, my sister's won, and both of my kids have now won (DD last year.) I want my uncle to come up this year, as he still has the bamboo rod they gave as a prize. I'd love to get a family photo of all of us, him with the rod and DD with her bike from last year.

BobK · #16 04/27/06, 12:08 AM

Fish stories what fun!!

most memorable....so many have special moments its hard to decide what to post....

most memorable and brings a grin to my face everytime I think if it was a afternoon on the Chetco river in Oregon.....buddy and I arrived (after 9 hour drive) about 1 pm on a Thanksgiving day (yeah we were real popular with the families that day) to a rising river..it was raining like it can only rain on the north coast..took a quick walk down to the social security hole and the firing line had caught some nice salmon......ran back to the truck to wader-up and felt so great we has stopped by a guide friends house for some roe.......back down to the river which was constantly rising and as the day wore on the fish started running up the river in gang-busters. As the river got higher there were so many fish making the run on the first big rise of the year that they some were actually using the current breaks created by all the people who waded out in the river to fish.....they were migrating up the far side and even behind us!! We fished to the last light knowing that the next day there would be no fishing only another 9-hour ride...the river was bound to blow-out that night and whew boy did it! I caught 15 kings to 35 lbs off the bank that day and my buddy caught 11 and a twelve pound steelhead to boot.....it just doesn't get any better than that.

Scariest...well there were several I recognized and some I look back on in horror......most horrifying(in retrospect) was when we first started fishing the river for sturgeon....we launched on evening to fish all night on another rising river...as we paid the launch ramp fee the owner of the 'resort' told us to be careful and make sure we anchor out of the trash line...we both (same buddy) nodded and said you bet....walked out to the boat and started up the river. We weren't set up to camp on the boat at that time so we found a beach and dropped our stuff off and went back out to fish. Once anchored and we started fishng my buddy noticed all the logs going passed us and I started talking about what the heck could a trashline be? Well several hours went by and the river was really getting high..finally about 3 am we heard this crashing on the other side of the river and there was an entire cottonwood tree being washed down the river....if we would have been over there it would have rolled right up our anchor line ans swamped the boat....at that point we figured out what was meant by the trashline...got back to our gear and where we had walked our gear about 8 feet above the water was now about 6 inches away from being washed away....so young and so dumb.

most enjoyable is taking someone out for the first time and letting them reel in all the salmon hooked on the boat that day....did that on the Sacramento with my buddy and our friend. Now my buddy and I were living on the river for ten days and we had the salmon dialed....20 fish days....so we invite our friend out who never caught a fish before. We head out and proceed to hook fish on a every drift handing them all off to our friend. He keeps resisting after about the first 5 but we tell him he needs the practice for when he hooks his own fish....as the day wears on and we keep catcing salmon he finally hooks one all by his self....and lands it like a pro....we stopped fishing on that note.

Funniest day fishing I think was again salmon fishing on the Sacramento......It was a slow but steady pick for us and there was a couple of of guys fishing in a small boat who obviously were doing more drinking than fishing....and getting really frustrated watching us catch fish.....finally towards the end of the day one of the guys is smoking a cigar and has it in his mouth......his rod bends double as a salmon loads up on his flatfish....he rears back to set the hook and sure enough that mono line hits the end of his cigar and there was an immediate parting of the ways...we laughed till we cried....and so did his fishing partner...he on hte other hand he wasn't too pleased.

and the characters you meet fising on the north coast for steelhead....one guy we called the corkie-birdy man (two drift-lures used for steelhead about 0.25 each) we saw this guy everyday for the three weeks we were there...he wasn't fishing but had a long bamboo rod with a kitchen strainer taped onto one end...he would spot one of those drift lures floating down river and the chase was on...he was having a ball.....and so were we watching him

man this could go on and on......Ok one more...

Again on the north coast with y buddy chasing steelhead...we were/are addicts...stayin at a motel six and have a wakeup call set to get us up....well we get a call and up we jump...never looked at the clock or anything....get ready and head out to the car to go fishing......meet a cop there who says our car was broken into and gaveus our registration back...they caught the bad guys...we say yeah yeah whatever outta our way were going fishing.....jump in the car and head out to go fishing....well we get out to one spot and go hmmm....where is everybody? Neither of us had a watch so we turned the radio on and found out why there was no one there ....it was 2:30 in the morning! My buddy is ----ed the cop would wake us upbut I have another idea...there was this spot on the other side of the river that these locals would occupy and catch fish all day....we could never beat them there because they rode up a private loggin road with the crummy crew....so off we head to a spot we can wade the river ...in the middle of the night of course.....and again it was raining and hard....anyhow we crossed the river and made it down to this hot-spot and hunkered down to wait for light....2 hours can be a long time as the rain beats down on you....my buddy was not a happy man.....about an hour before light we hear the crummy truck on the road...it stops and we hear doors slam......about 20 minutes later we see flashlights heading down our side of the river...to what was not 'their' spot but 'our' spot...we let them get about 50 yards away and then turned on our flashlights...stoped them dead in their tracks..hear lots of talk and cursing but they don't come any further...come daylight it was their turn to watch us catch fish....and literally right at our feet as the fish moved up and held for a moment behind that one rock....they got to watch us all day long...and we caught a dozen steelhead that day and lost a bunch of other ones.....if looks could kill we would have been vaporized at any moment during that day.....they were not happy campers to have someone else in 'their' spot.....

btai · #17 04/27/06, 04:27 AM

strangest thing I ever caught was a scallop that went after my shrimp(seriously)

weirdest moment was when I was fighting a kingfish while deepsea fishing for about 15 minutes when the line suddenly went slack - I figured it got off or broke the line. But eventually way far out I saw something skimming along the water towards the boat. It was the front half of the kingfish! The back half had been bitten clean through by either a shark or a 'cuda! The center bone was almost 1" across, so it must have been a serious bite

IMP · #18 04/27/06, 04:47 AM

No special story, only that it's a favorite memory from my childhood. Fishing in a stream in Hillsdale, New York, I was about 11 standing on a little bridge, cast my pole over the side and caught my first fish. I don't know what kind of fish it was, I thought it was a trout, it was about 5 or 6 inches long, and boy was I excited. A neighbor who lived in the farm across the road came over and told me to hit the fish's on the head on the road. Hmm, I wonder what that was all about.

**fordson major** · #19 04/27/06, 06:09 AM

picton , small stream by the black river cheese factory. caught lots of sun fish and dad bought a giant brick of extra old chedder ! we kids ate half the cheese on the way home! we used to fish in a little crik just behind our house there too, lots of turtles and sunfish.

went down east and went fishing at any stream near the dog show we were at. lots of sunfish!
snake river and lake huron many many times! lots of sun fish plus saw a massasauga rattler on the oppisite bank of the snake once. :baby04:
rideau canal lots of tires ,shopping carts, royal swan chased us (many times) oh and sunfish!

field ont. not sure of the stream but my cousins, brother and i fished for hours! lots and lots of sunfish.
friends stocked trout pond with my then girlfriend , we caught lots of sunfish, didn't care , found a gal that could bait her own hook!

kids have bout the same luck in thier canoe on the lakes round westport

going to visit good friends in new brunswick this year they garrentee lots of edible fish even if we pull in sunfish.they have a fish plant just down the street!

have caught other fish over the years but seems any memorable one was a sunfish day

Westwood · #20 04/27/06, 06:27 AM

When you're bow fishing and nab an alligator gar. The kids grin, expectations abound. How do you tell them it's worse than a bottom feeding catfish and you REALLY won't enjoy eating it!