What is your weirdest fishing experience

Share your fishing adventures, especially ones using antique tackle!
Post Reply
Billy Berrill
Big ORCA Fan
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Mar 12, 2017 6:04 pm

What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by Billy Berrill »

Tell us your weirdest fishing experience here. It can be anything but keep it on fishing. Weirdest thing I experienced is in the link below. I made a video about what happened to a catfish 28 hours after it had been out of water. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/7qsyGLaH3a8
Last edited by Billy Berrill on Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
WeeKilt
Frequent Board Poster
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:35 pm
Location: Arden, NC

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by WeeKilt »

Catfish are creepy according to my son Ethan! I'd vote yes too!

This is an easy one for me! Ethan hooked a catfish a month ago in the dorsal fin. Even made it to the dock! I've had a couple of similar experiences in the past, but never had pictures to back the story up. This one I do! LOL







Not a mattress! That post made me laugh so hard I sneezed good bourbon through my nose! :lol:
User avatar
WeeKilt
Frequent Board Poster
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:35 pm
Location: Arden, NC

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by WeeKilt »

That was a nice 12lb catfish though. As I posted in another thread on this, he looked at us when we released him as to say, "Thanks, jerks! I was having a good day until YOU snagged me, but I'll wander on now." And then he slowly meandered back to the depths to be caught again...

If you ain't eating it, throw it back. Always the case for catfish for me. Not a fan of bottom feeders.
Billy Berrill
Big ORCA Fan
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Mar 12, 2017 6:04 pm

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by Billy Berrill »

Wow that is awesome. Good size catch too
wrong99
Star Board Poster
Posts: 2578
Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2012 10:42 am
Location: S.F. Bay Area ORCA MEMBER

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by wrong99 »

The weirdest was when me and my kids were trout fishing up in Washington state and found the rest of D.B Cooper's money.
Mark
Reeltyme

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by Reeltyme »

I'll have to say that my strangest moment in fishing happened in Key West. I was fishing off of White Street pier late one evening with my son who was about 12 at the time. The night was (as usual) warm and peaceful. The fishing was very slow and the water was calm. All of a sudden I noticed the water surface began to glow like the stars in the sky with little green spots. The glowing spots increased in number until the entire ocean around us was covered with them. It was truly an amazing sight! It turned out (as we found out the next day) that they were jellyfish that had begun their annual matting season. It's something that neither of us will ever forget. We often talk about it to this day and it has been close to 20 years ago. Nature never ceases to amaze me!
User avatar
john elder
Star Board Poster
Posts: 8541
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2003 2:44 pm

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by john elder »

I would have to say it was the time my daughter, then about 14, caught 5 trout on one cast. We were fishing Lundy Lake in the Sierras using PowerBait from the bank. Roni hooked into a trout, which proceeded to get wrapped around a line hooked to another trout that had broken off another fishermen's line. these two then got wrapped around a stringer that had been lost by someone....there were three more trout on the stringer! Roni managed to reel the whole thing in, with all 5 trout alive and kicking! My major regret is that I didn't get a pic of that one!
ORCA member since 1999
Honorary Life Member

Specializing in saltwater reels...and fly reels...and oh, yeah, kentucky style reels.....and those tiny little RP reels.....oh, heck...i collect fishing reels!...and fly rods....and lures
User avatar
54bullseye
Super Board Poster
Posts: 528
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:47 am

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by 54bullseye »

Back when I was a kid my best buddy Wayne Shedd "who died in a motorcycle accident in hi 20s" used to work on a deep sea fishing boat out of York Maine in the summers and I would tag along and fish as often as I could get away with it. I never got paid like Wayne but I helped cut bait and clean the boat but as a kid the fishing was all the pay I needed and I was in heaven !!

The first mate on the boat Harry Horn had an old dragger he bought cheap and he used it to Tuna fish and Lobster with on his days off. Well me and Wayne jumped at the chance of going Tuna fishing with him when ever he asked !! They used to fish around Boon Island around 6 miles off York Me. and they would use old Kegs with heavy twine wrapped around them and about 10 foot wire leaders and giant Tuna hooks baited with live Mackerel. They would put out 2 or 3 kegs and have a couple hand lines set up the same way just off the side of the boat. If a fish hit the keg it would drag it around until it slowed some we would follow then they would grab the heavy twine with heavy gloves on and some times get the fish !!

While waiting for Tuna to bite Wayne and I would use our Mitchell 300s and light rods and jigs to catch Mackerel and small Pollock for bait and to eat. One day we both had small Pollock on and while reeling them in all of a sudden a Giant Bluefin Tuna of probably 500 plus pounds came up out of the deep not 20 feet from the boat and grabbed Wayne's Pollock and spooled that little reel in about 2 seconds !!!! We looked at each other both of us with eyes popping out of our heads in disbelief !!!! Keep in mind we were about 12 years old !!! Well Harry the boat owner and his buddy were busy and didn't see it happen so they gave us a hard time saying yah sure it did !!! But it did !! I will never forget it !!
John T.
User avatar
JoeW
Advanced Board Poster
Posts: 233
Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:59 am
Location: Western NY
Contact:

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by JoeW »

LOL John T! You should have just turned to Wayne and said "We're gonna need a bigger boat! ("Jaws"). You saltwater guys are amazing! I've fished the briny a few times but only for Mackerel, Black Sea Bass, Porgies, etc. I absolutely can not imagine hooking fish of 50, 60, 100, or 500 pounds! Hey- some reel talk- I also can't imagine how ANY reel can handle fish like that, especially the old time "knucklebusters"! Great story! Best---- Joe Walkowski (ORCA)
Joseph's Lures & Fishing Tackle Collectibles
https://www.etsy.com/shop/JosephsLures?view_type=list
Stop in for a look around! Best--- Joe ("Joseph") Walkowski (ORCA)
User avatar
WeeKilt
Frequent Board Poster
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:35 pm
Location: Arden, NC

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by WeeKilt »

I just had to jump back in. I lost a small Alabama rig about a month ago about 20 feet out from the dock to the unseen brush pile/log that eats anything thrown there. I was pretty ill about too as I had just bought it the day prior! :x Ethan and I were fishing yesterday morning (fishing, not catching) and suddenly he had a hit. He told me it felt weird and we thought it was a smaller catfish or small carp as it didn't really fight. Here it is...





It's amazing how corrosive even freshwater is on a rig. Pretty rusty but I got my rig back! Somehow he snagged it when he was reeling in the prize!

Tight lines,
Keith
User avatar
reelsmith.
Ultra Board Poster
Posts: 1715
Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2003 11:08 am
Location: Connecticut
Contact:

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by reelsmith. »

My story is quite short ...

I was about 8 years old, had never seen or heard of a sea robin before I caught one.

That's one creepy looking fish.

Dean.
Wanted: Kosmic Items, Small Leather Fly Reel Cases, Early Fishing Related Bottles, Fly Reels and Pre-1900 Angling/Casting Medals.

http://www.tackletreasures.com/
User avatar
JoeW
Advanced Board Poster
Posts: 233
Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:59 am
Location: Western NY
Contact:

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by JoeW »

Call these “fish that should never should have been caught”.

1) Ontario, Canada, trolling for walleye (“Pickerel” up there!) with the old “spinner and a worm” combination. The spinner was the type where pushing up or down on a little coiled spring opened and closed the lower loop like a safety pin.

Bang! Big fish! Few seconds later a Musky jumped out of the water! No wire leader, 12 pound line! Played it gently for 20 minutes, brought it in, grabbed a gill cover, and lifted the 42” 16 lb fish out of the water. Whew!

As I went to unhook and release, I noticed the upper part of the spinner hung out the corner of the fish’s mouth. Ah ha- that’s why it didn’t bite through the line! Then I looked into it’s mouth and saw the long-shanked Carlisle hook just laying on it’s tongue? Wha?

The force of the strike had pushed the spring up on the spinner, opening the loop up like a safety pin. The wire had caught in the soft corner of the fishes mouth, twisted around a few times and had taken hold! The hook had never been set!

2) One more. Georgian Bay, Canada, casting a big floating/diving Rapala for early season Northern Pike. Just completed a retrieve, lifted the up out of the water a couple feet, flipped bail open getting ready for next cast. Then... the head end on a good sized fish came slowly up from under the lure, mouth wide open, and hung there, waving a bit side to side. I don’t know what guided me to do so, but I just lowered the rod tip and let go of the line from my finger! The Rapala disappeared down the Pike’s throat, and we were in business! Brought her in eventually, thinking this was going to be a tough one to unhook, grabbed a gill cover and swung her up. Noticed the rear treble had hooked the outside edge of the gill cover from INSIDE the gill! Get it? The two-treble Rapala was inside it’s mouth, but the rear treble had come out through the gill opening and actually had grabbed the edge of the cover from the outside without the point or barb actually going in! I looked down it’s mouth, and there was the other treble hook just laying loosely inside the mouth. OK, I loosened the treb from the gill cover, then snipped the line while holding the fish. The lure dropped straight down, through the mouth, and with a little guidance- out through the gill opening and onto the floor of the boat! Never had a hook set in that fish either!

Buddy (the one that still rides me about the “25 ft deep hole”) was there to witness and he was amazed. Called me the luckiest fisherman ever. But know what, over the course of the years, he’s outdone me! Another post sometime, this one’s long enough!

Hope you enjoy. Best---- Joe Walkowski (ORCA)

Joseph's Lures & Fishing Tackle Collectibles
https://www.etsy.com/shop/JosephsLures?view_type=list
Stop in for a look around! Best--- Joe ("Joseph") Walkowski (ORCA)
di-dipper
Big ORCA Fan
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 6:41 pm

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by di-dipper »

Probably not the weirdest, but one we still laugh about.
My wife and I were fishing Ft. Gibson Lake in eastern Oklahoma and had been working the shoreline of a long narrow cove plugging for black bass. We had picked up a few in the 2-4 lb. range when we saw a green snake hanging in the branches of a tree close to the waters edge (about a five foot long eastern racer). We watched as he dropped from the tree and began swimming straight toward us. My wife was getting nervous and was ready to go (quickly) but I wanted to let it get closer so I could see exactly what it was. The snake swam straight at the boat and stopped only when he banged into the side! He then proceeded to rise up (about 1/3 of his body out of the water), look at the boat like where in the world did that come from – “I’ve been swimming across this cove every day and this doesn’t belong here”. My wife was becoming rather vocal at the snake and at me. The snake ignored the noise as he swam up to the edge of the boat, and looked in. my wife had as much as she could endure, picked up a rod (with lure still attached) and began to flail at the snake not caring that I was between them. The snake swam around the front of the boat – looking in the entire time – as he reached in other side you could almost see him shake his head in bewilderment before he lowered himself back into the water and finished his journey to the far side of the cove. I was laughing so hard I almost didn’t feel the welts from the rod …
BobC
Nick in NY
Advanced Board Poster
Posts: 351
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2007 6:59 pm

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by Nick in NY »

I'm sure I'm not he only 1 to experience it but I've caught 2 fish on a rattle trap more than once. Probably 4 or 5 times! The north east corner of the Bronx has a great striped bass spot in the Pelham Bay section. We would cast rattle traps to a draw bridge and bounce them in the rocks well the "O" rings were shot with 2 fish of 5 to 10lbs pulling the lure/trebles in opposite directions! That's a memory!
Tight lines Nick
Wanted Ultra rare salt water reels including big game as well as unknown rare surf reels!
User avatar
JoeW
Advanced Board Poster
Posts: 233
Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:59 am
Location: Western NY
Contact:

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by JoeW »

Snakes for fishing buddies and a two-for-one catch! Like Yogi said "90% of fishing is half luck" (or something like that!

OK-Remember Buddy who witnessed me catching that Northern without ever hooking it? Called me the luckiest fisherman alive?

Within a couple or three years, I gave Buddy my crown! I was witness to all of these!

1) He caught a small stocked trout by... hooking the loop of the snell on a bait hook that was embedded in the fishes mouth with the treble of his small spinner! Couldn’t figure out why his spinner was coming in about 6 inches in front of the fish!

2) How could he top that! He repeated the action of hooking the loop of a snell, but with a decent Steelhead on the end this time! I couldn’t fish for half an hour! Wondered why the State DEC didn’t pass a law prohibiting snelled hooks!

3) Steelhead fishing again, a big creek in a wide spot. Rocky bottom, 5-7 feet deep, moderate current. A lot of fishermen snag up their bait or lure here and break off, often leaving yards and yards of line trailing downstream in the current. Other fishermen snag the line and watch their lure slide up along it then drop off. A bit frustrating when it’s happening every other cast. Worst case is when your lure tangles with one of those trailing lines and gets caught on it! Then you’ve “inherited” the other guy’s snag! Result: usually a lost lure.

Buddy snagged one of those trailing lines, his Little Cleo tangled up in it, and as he pulled, there was a little “pop”. He started reeling in, expecting nothing but line, but what luck! His lure came in, trailing a long piece of the offensive broken mono! That doesn’t happen often! Not done yet! ... As he grabbed the line and hand-over-handed it in to get it out of the water, there, on the end of the broken line... Was another lure! Yep, a $4 steelhead lure to add to his kit! Geeez! How could he be any luckier! How?

4) Same spot, couple weeks later, he snags another wayward line! He raises his rod, pulls, the instead of feeling a “pop”... he feels a throbbing! Son-of-a-gun... a few minutes later after some creative handlining, he has another fish on the bank that he never hooked! The line he had fouled this time had another Steelhead lure attached, which was what had originally hooked the fish before it had broken the line! Result: one fish (which was returned to the water) and one lure (which was not).

Why do I still fish with Buddy and put myself through this? Well, after 45 years, bad habits are difficult to break!

Best---- Joe Walkowski (ORCA)
Joseph's Lures & Fishing Tackle Collectibles
https://www.etsy.com/shop/JosephsLures?view_type=list
Stop in for a look around! Best--- Joe ("Joseph") Walkowski (ORCA)
User avatar
David Lehmann
Advanced Board Poster
Posts: 300
Joined: Thu Jan 14, 2016 3:32 pm
Location: Rochester, NY
Contact:

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by David Lehmann »

Catching a six-foot alligator on a surface plug! I was having a contest with a herpetologist friend of mine to see who could get an alligator into shore more quickly: me with a fishing lure or him making a baby alligator call. (Big male alligators eat babies, and can be readily called in.)

I saw a good sized gator, and cast to it. It became interested in my lure right away. I had a surface plug on and thought that if I got a gator interested, I would speed up my retrieve and keep both the lure and gator moving without connecting the two. The gator was quicker than I thought and got hooked. Amazingly, it did not cut the line (line tie was in front of it's mouth). It did not fight very well, and came in pretty easily until it could dig its feet into the bottom. Luckily I was able to pull the lure free! Hurray for FireLine!
User avatar
Paul M
Ultra Board Poster
Posts: 2200
Joined: Fri Feb 03, 2006 9:10 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada
Contact:

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by Paul M »

My wife (then my girlfriend) inadvertently caught a seagull while we and a couple of friends were bobber fishing with cornmeal bait for carp. We were in the middle of an urban park with a shallow pond. We cautioned her that seagulls might try to grab the bait. Since the pond was so shallow, the baits were only 6 inches or so below the surface to keep them out of the weeds. We told her to look before setting the hook but she hooked one anyway! It was pretty embarrassing to reel in that poor squawking bird. There were lots of people around the pond with their kids and the commotion was hard to hide. I think that's the last time she went fishing with me, some 40 years ago, LOL. I think I have a picture of that somewhere but maybe she got rid of it hehe. Me and my friends killed ourselves laughing and I have paid the price ever since.

Paul M
User avatar
busterboy
Frequent Board Poster
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Apr 26, 2017 6:09 pm
Location: Romulus, MI

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by busterboy »

My weirdest experience while fishing. . . . . . . . .

I moved to an apartment in SE Michigan a little over 20 years ago to open an office for an environmental consulting firm from New England. The apartment complex was situated on Ford Lake, an impoundment of the Huron River built by Henry Ford to provide electricity for his production facilities and the local population. I was bank fishing on a Sunday shortly after the opening of bass season. The weather was cloudy and breezy. I was working my way east along the shore toward the dam, casting and working likely looking spots.
Walking around a point, I noticed a line of debris in the water and moved to the end of the flotsam before starting to cast again. While retrieving, I looked over and saw what I believed to be a deflated soccer ball sort of bobbing on the surface.
I continued until I got to the dam and decided that I should head back to the apartment. I made a few more casts along the way on my return, without catching anything or even getting any hits. Walking back to my truck I had to pass the wrack line and all of the debris. To my dismay, it wasn’t a soccer ball in the mess, it was a human skull!
This was long before I owned a cell phone so I went back to the apartment, told my wife and daughter and then phoned to local police. I met them near the site about a ½ hour later and took them to where I saw the skull. It was still there since the prevailing breezes were keeping it along the shore. One of the detectives hauled it out of the water and placed it on the trail next to the water. It had obviously been in the water for an extended period of time since it was rust-stained and had algae growing on it. However, for the first 5 minutes of my interaction with the officials, I felt like I was the prime suspect in this apparent crime. There was a rounded indentation on the back of the skull, which indicated to me that the unlucky soul had been hit from behind, probably with a ball peen hammer.
I never fished there again..... since I didn’t catch any fish?
User avatar
reeltackle
Super Board Poster
Posts: 900
Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2003 10:11 am
Location: Florida
Contact:

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by reeltackle »

My weirdest fishing experience ...... we were trying a new method for catching cobia offshore that involved something that closely resembled a scavenger hunt where you have to jump through several hoops before you reach your final goal. This method was relayed to us by our local fishing guru, the guy that had fished Jupiter waters forever and ever and "thinks like a fish", you know the guy, every major fishing area has one. It was quite an involved process that, if executed correctly, culminated in a shark and cobia free-for-all with the outcome always in question. The key point here is that cobia hang out around bull sharks to eat the scraps that the feeding sharks leave behind, so, find the sharks and you'll find the cobia. It sounded just crazy enough to give it a whirl.

The "secret method" is as follows -

1.) Go near shore and catch some bait fish, greenies are the best, using a sabiki rig or a cast net.

2.) Go offshore, troll for bonito with your fresh bait and catch about eight to ten if they are cooperating.

3.) Take the bonito, go to the reef and cut strips and chunks from them for chumming. Take another bonita and cut its throat and cut it down the sides so as to get as much blood and bonito parts in the water as possible and then tail rope it off the back of the boat.

4.) This will, I assure you, attract sharks.

5.) If the sharks you attract are hammerhead sharks then there will be, for reasons that were not explained to me but turned out to be nail on the head correct, no cobia and you must then move to a different part of the reef and start all over again because you have failed. If you attract bull sharks then there will most assuredly be cobia accompanying them, you have now succeeded. Move one to step #6.

6.) When the bull sharks appear throw lots of bonita parts in the water to keep them (and the cobia) happy and near the boat. This can be both fun as well as a bit frightening all at the same time.

7.) Take the strips of bonita (or dollar crabs if you remembered to bring some) and cast them at the cobia that school up around the feeding sharks that are eating the bonitos.

8.) When you hook a cobia try like hell to reel it in before the bull sharks tear it to shreds. Again, as previously mentioned, cobia hang with bull sharks because they eat the scraps that the bull sharks leave behind and, as not previously mentioned, because they are too fast for the sharks to catch .... unless they are hooked and struggling, then, it is quite a different (and most often tragic) story for the cobia. Now the chase is on and you have to try and boat the cobia before they become a bull shark blue plate special.

We had many successful trips using this weird method.

OK, so this might seem to be a weird enough story in itself, but.........

On our 4th trip using this method we went through steps 1 through 6 and had about four BIG bull sharks around the boat and they had about fifteen or so cobia as symbiotic escorts accompanying them. I hooked a 20 pound cobia and fought him for about four minutes with my new, slick as sheet, all black Van Staal 100 reel attached to my new Star Plasma Series rod. He swam in an arch against the line and then suddenly turned towards the boat with a big bull shark in hot pursuit and then just disappeared beneath the boat. My line went slack. I reeled about 80% of my line in and waited a full minute eventually concluding that the shark must have cut my line and beat me to my dinner, well played Mr. Shark. I sat down and put the rod and reel across my lab and started going through my tackle box looking for a new circle hook. There was some splashing and when I looked up I saw the cobia shoot out from under the boat with another shark hot on his tail. The cobia must have doubled back and then been hugging the hull of the boat for the better part of two minutes. I watched them race away from the boat and then, BANG, my rod and reel flew off of my lap and into the water before I could blink an eye.

There are times in your life when a million things rush through your mind in a matter of a second, like when you're involved in a car crash for example. Well this was one of those times. As I saw my rod and reel hit the water my instincts kicked in, "Save the reel!" I thought to myself, "I can dive in and grab it before it gets away", and, being a good swimmer it was quite possible that I might have caught up with it. I remember standing up and taking a step toward the gunnel. Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw another big shark circling around the bow of the boat, I stopped, there were 3 more big sharks circling around the boat, I caught my self leaning forward but hesitated and came to my senses.

I turned back to watch my favorite rod and reel move off away from the boat headed down into the deep blue water at a 25 degree angle. The water was amazingly clear that day so I got to watch it for at least a full 20 seconds as it slowly disappeared into the depths like a skinny submarine, I was mesmerized. Finally, the laughter of my fishing buddies snapped me out of my trance. It was a weird and cruel day.

Catching the bonito for shark bait -



Big Hammerhead, the non targeted species of shark, going for a bite of tail roped bonito.



Lots of time to photograph these big boys because there are no cobia around them, this one was a good 14 feet in length and had the girth of a Volkswagen. No pictures of bull sharks because when they are around we are too busy fishing.



Well, at least we caught some cobia for dinner -

Ed Pritchard
http://www.AntiqueFishingReels.com
ORCA Charter Member "First Paid Member"
Honorary Life Member

"Reels As Big As Your Head" Always looking for BIG game reels and anything else that might go along.
User avatar
Midway Tommy D
Star Board Poster
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2013 11:23 pm
Location: Eastern NE

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by Midway Tommy D »

Holy smokes, Ed, that cobia sure whipped you out of a quick grand. :shock: With gigglin' & laughin' buddies like that who the heck needs enemies? :wink:
Love those Open Face Spinning Reels! (Especially ABU & ABU/Zebco)

Tom DeLong, NE
ORCA Member - 2027
User avatar
Tightlines666
Advanced Board Poster
Posts: 280
Joined: Sun May 31, 2015 4:16 am

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by Tightlines666 »

Nice!
bettybarr
Advanced Board Poster
Posts: 289
Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2015 7:13 pm

Re: What is your weirdest fishing experience

Post by bettybarr »

Ed, that's a good one. I hope your buddies bought you a cold one after that.
Joined: 2007
Post Reply