Stupidest Thing You've Done While Fishing?

[Catt]

Chasing schoolies

[rippin-lips]

Smacked my friend in the back of his head with a kvd 2.5 on a full blown cast. Buried 2/3 hooks. Had to cut his buff off and then the split ring. Then 2 hooks at the bend. Push them through and pull out with pliers. This was last week on my Tx trip.

[derekxec]

bank casting a 8oz sinker with bait....ready to rip it very far and grabbed the tip of my small spinning rod and that went with it lol luckily i just reeled it back in haha

[Kyle Mahaffey]

Right after I put braid of my first baitcaster I must have not tightened the reel all the way to the rod because when I casted, the lure it the water, and my reel hit the water. I just keep pulling the line until the bait caster came up.

[BassinLou]

I  wrapped up my fishing day and was heading back to the dock one day. As I was positioning the boat to the dock I stood up and reached up prematurely causing me to lose my balance. As I fell forward I luckily reached the dock with the tip of my fingers and the tip of my feet on the edge of the gunnels. Luckily I was strong enough to pull the boat back to the side of the dock and get my footing. I looked like a Tom and Jerry cartoon character completely spread out with my arms extended, my feet out and my body outstretched feet above the water. LOL. I wonder what yoga move that will be called?   

[fadetoblack21]

This spring I lifted my bass mojo rod and it was under my anchor cleat. The rod snapped. That really was really stupid.

 

I did this last year cat fishing. Set the rod down and didn't notice it slid under the cleat. About 30 min later I get a bite and go to set the hook. All I hear is this thunderous crack as my pole snaps at the handle. 

[fadetoblack21]

Can't really think of anything too stupid while bass fishing.

 

When salmon fishing, we were on the outside of the hog line and had a massive container ship bearing down on us. After a few seconds trying to convince ourselves that he would miss us, we concluded that we needed to pull anchor and move fast! I motored forward quickly and began dragging the anchor up, but I started turning too sharply too soon to avoid the ship and hooked our anchor on the anchor lines of the two boats next to us. Pulled them into each other and began towing them up river behind our boat. Our anchor was on the surface under the buoy with their anchor lines tangled around it and we got them released pretty quickly. I'm not sure if they knew we had them hooked. That could have really turned into a bad situation, could have easily flipped one or both of the other boats, and it could have prevented us from getting out of the way of the container ship. We move much earlier for those ships now, it's not worth it to play Russian roulette with them!!!

 

Motoring with an anchor in the water is a really stupid thing to do. I've been there. We were cat fishing below Bagnell Dam in MO, they opened the flood gates and we were anchored in the path of the swiftly rising water. Got the front anchor up, but the rear anchor was stuck. We decided to try and pull it out by gently motoring forward. Instead of the anchor pulling up, the back of the boat pulled down. . . . into the water. . . . we almost sank the boat that day. I've never pulled a knife so fast to cut a rope in my life. . . . 

[GaBankFisher]

Outstanding thread! Probably my favorite on this site.

[aquaholic]

I decided to go do some bank fishing down by the river this evening. I decided to throw on a rat l trap. Casted off and noticed my line wasnt going with the bait.... said some choice words. Reached in and pulled out a baby 1 minus, tied it up (checked the knot) and proceeded to make around 5 casts before that one went sailing off into the river......... Took everything i had not to wrap the pole around a tree. Then it started raining so i got in my truck and went home 

[HuskyKMA]

Motoring with an anchor in the water is a really stupid thing to do. I've been there. We were cat fishing below Bagnell Dam in MO, they opened the flood gates and we were anchored in the path of the swiftly rising water. Got the front anchor up, but the rear anchor was stuck. We decided to try and pull it out by gently motoring forward. Instead of the anchor pulling up, the back of the boat pulled down. . . . into the water. . . . we almost sank the boat that day. I've never pulled a knife so fast to cut a rope in my life. . . . 

 

That's the way everyone around here pulls the anchor when river fishing. We use anchor pullers like in the video below. The buoy gets the anchor up, if the buoy goes under, you stop because you know something is wrong.

 

[Tuckahoe Joe]

Ran my boat into hundreds of massive fishing spiders in some grass. They started jumping into the boat and I proceeded to have a crisis.

That's a bad one.  I don't do spiders.  I would have been freaking out.

[Tartan]

In my short and not so illustrious career fishing from the bank the stupidest thing I've done so far was getting up before the sun so I could be on at the water for the sunrise armed with my new frog.

Got up and got myself and my gear all ready making good time so I drove down all excited that this was my first presunrise arrival at the water and I was about to Whitness some top water madness!

Payed my entrance fee at the good faith box, drove into the park and ta da! Big wooden padlocked gate.

Park doesn't open till 7am I waited around till 845 for this gate to open.

At 9am I went home and got back in bed. Didn't fish that day but I manage to waste 4 and a half hours waiting for a park ranger

[grizzgreen18]

while catfish i had my brand new monster setup out in the water huge sinker big hook...and it got snagged on something on the bottom. we were in a rented pontoon with pole holders and my buddy said we would drive to the other side and free the line so i didnt have to cut it. well while he was taking his time pulling anchor and securing everything i see the boat drifting backwards and this 10 foot pole collapse the pole holder and go right in the drink. about 20 foot of water. and recently i had a 1/2 ounce red eye shad tied on went to cast the knot slipped and the luire bashed me the the back of the head so hard it broke skin luckily though i didnt get stuck by any hooks

[whitwolf]

The dumbest of the dumb? You decide.

 

I usually get all my gear together the night before and put in the truck without fail, but this one evening a buddy called and asked If I could fish an earlybird tournament with him the next morning as his regular partner was sick. I of course agreed. I decided since I was fishing the next morning/day I was going to mow my grass and do all the chores I usually would have done the next day. I completed all tasks and went in to clean-up and prepare my gear for the next morning.  I got everything ready but was dog-tired from the chores and decided I would load up in the AM and went off to bed.

 

Of course I woke up a little late and as I was rushing around I decided to take the car Instead of the truck as the air in the car was much better than the truck. I got everything out of the house, put the rods in the car and started thinking about where to buy a biscuit for me and my buddy and off I went. I bought a couple 4 biscuits, some drinks, and a snack at the country store on the way and was off to my buddies house.

 

All total It's a 15 minute trip to his house and as I parked to move my gear I was loaded for bear to fish! I got out and walked behind the car to unload boatside saw a jacket and my worm bags laying on the trunk;YUP, I loaded everything In the car but my jacket and tackle. I lost my big tackle bag with all my jigs, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, and terminal tackle. I loaded up what I had and told him I was going to run home and pick-up more baits and I would meet him at the ramp. I backtracked but never saw the bag, got home and got what I could and headed to the ramp. We got launched and had the livewell check and at the last minute I decided to move a few Items for comforts sake and as I stood up and bent over my brand new Maui Jim sunglasses fell off my hat(no lanyard) and Into the drink.

 

My frame of mind on the water was garbage and that translated Into a sub-par fishing day. I got home and by memory totaled up what I lost that day the  figure was right at $360.00. I was sick about for a while but as time went on I made a promise that from that day forward I would take my time, load up the night before, and ALWAYS double check. LOL

[fadetoblack21]

Left the house without the boat keys. . . add that to my list of stupid things I've done. . . . .

[IowaHusker28]

Actually happened 2 weeks ago. Grabbed my spinning rod and without noticing it wasn't all the way out of the rod locker, I closed it and snaped about 6 inches but that isn't the worst part. ticked off already I grabbed by almost brand new Veritas and did the same thing  breaking it from a 7'3 to a 6'6. In other words my ticked off stupid mistakes cost me 170 bucks in 2 minutes.   

[NWBasslover]

Two days ago I missed what was probably going to crush my pb by a few pounds.  I got so mad that I threw my brand new GLoomis into the lake. And then jumped in after it.

[GaBankFisher]

In my short and not so illustrious career fishing from the bank the stupidest thing I've done so far was getting up before the sun so I could be on at the water for the sunrise armed with my new frog.

Got up and got myself and my gear all ready making good time so I drove down all excited that this was my first presunrise arrival at the water and I was about to Whitness some top water madness!

Payed my entrance fee at the good faith box, drove into the park and ta da! Big wooden padlocked gate.

Park doesn't open till 7am I waited around till 845 for this gate to open.

At 9am I went home and got back in bed. Didn't fish that day but I manage to waste 4 and a half hours waiting for a park ranger

[GaBankFisher]

Same thing happened to be about a month ago! I arrived at 0445 all excited, only to find the gate closed and sign saying that the gate would open at 0700. I fish on this lake nearly every weekend and the gate has never been closed before. Talk about an early-morning disappointment.

[Traveler2586]

Two days ago I missed what was probably going to crush my pb by a few pounds.  I got so mad that I threw my brand new GLoomis into the lake. And then jumped in after it.

you've been watching some hot head pro too much.  I hope you got your rod, and didn't loose your phone, watch, and things in your wallet to water damage.

[basskicker98]

Hmmm I have a fishing buddy and good friend named Justin. I mostly fish with grown men because they tend to have more maturity and knowledge then kids my age. However, Justin is my age and we constantly compete with everything we do. Fishing included. So... how many times have you accidentally swung into a stump and said to your buddy.."dang fish got me hung up!" Guilty. So I had line tension but I knew it was just weeds. I decided to really lay in to this one to make it look like I had a hawg bass on my line that hung me up. I actually figured that the hook would pop out of the "weeds" and it would look like I lost him altogether. So I set the hook into what I though was weeds and my rod snapped. Turns out that little tap that I though was weeds was me dragging my crank over a stump field. I set my hook into a stump, snapped my rod, and lost a $16 backstabber crankbait.

[NWBasslover]

you've been watching some hot head pro too much. I hope you got your rod, and didn't loose your phone, watch, and things in your wallet to water damage.

Yeah. I didn't lose anything, I keep it all in a dry box when I'm on the boat. Even got my rod back. When I got home, to make matters worse, my wife laughed at me for the rest of the night.

[SudburyBasser]

Probably not the dumbest thing but it happened yesterday so it's fresh in my mind.

 

Friday night I decide to go trout fishing early the next morning. As I'm getting my stuff together that night I decide to switch out reels on my rod to one I like more.

 

Early Saturday morning I drive 45 minutes to a stream I am told there are trout. So I assemble my rod, tie on a lure and confidently cast out a lure into the stream. I reach down to begin reeling in the lure when my hand hits air. I look down and notice that I had forgotten to put the handle on the reel. So for the next hour I cast out and then furiously spin the reel to take in line. As you can imagine, nearly to impossible to do so in a smooth and consistent motion.

 

End result. Caught nothing and battled the most aggressive mosquitoes I've seen in a while.

[scrutch]

Went way back into a secluded cove to take a leak and as I was in mid-stream I looked up to see three hikers (two ladies and a guy) standing on the shore staring at me laughing. After the struggle to turn the faucet off (you all know how hard that is) I zipped up and waved an apology wave and got the heck out of there! Afterwards I was thinking to myself "I hope they were only laughing at my situation".

[CalebWVU]

I've had two things happen to me in the past 3 weeks that would probably qualify. First, I was driving with my pole diagnal in my car (small car) from rear driver seat to front passenger seat. It was a 7' pole so the tip was bent up against the window a little. It was hot, so I rolled down the window as I drove to the river. I get to the river, roll up my window, and hear a CRUNCHHH noise. I look over to see that the tip of my pole that was bent against the window must have  stuck out of the window when I opened it. When I rolled it up I broke the rod off at the tip. The worst part is that it was a 2 piece rod and I was just being lazy and didn't feel like taking it apart to transport it lol.

 

Second one just happened today, and it's probably not all that uncommon. Let me preface it by saying I've had my baitcaster for about a year now and have always used mono on it. I rarely backlash anymore, and yesterday a big bass ran me through some pads and broke me off on 14 lb mono. So I decided to put on some braid last night before going out today. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

 

So today I go back to the same pond and fish for a few hours without any luck. I was on my way back to the car to leave when I saw a fish jump up right near the bank I was just fishing from, allllllllll the way across the pond. Being the stubborn man that I am, I decide to cast one more time just to see. Rather than walk all the way around the bank to be within reasonable casting distance of the fish, I decide to huff and puff and give a superman cast from where I'm at. I loosen up my tension a tad, give a bit more line out, and cast with all my might. Which would have been great, if I didn't catch a tree limb on my backswing. I've never seen a backlash like this in all my life lol. I had to cut the braid off the spool, but luckily I didn't have too much on there and I used mono backing. Still not my proudest moment.