Once in a lifetime stories?

[A-Jay]

46 minutes ago, DomQ said:

Canadian fish aren't the smartest 

I've caught fish while picking my nose before

@DomQ

This just might be The Very First Post here with the word 'Smartest' 

and the term 'Picking my Nose',

in the same reply. 

Congrats ~

A-Jay

[NYWayfarer]

When my son was a toddler, my wife and I spent the weekend at cabin with one of my co-workers and her boyfriend. 
 

We were fishing on their pontoon and my son lost his Superman combo over the side. He was crying for a bit until he discovered the boat horn. 
 

We kept fishing while drifting. A half an hour later the boyfriend set the hook on something and started reeling it in. Wasn’t putting up much of or any fight. When he pulled it out of the water it was my son’s combo! I told him this one of those once in a lifetime stories you will always remember and tell over and over.

[Michigander]

One time I was reeling in a jig and it felt a little funny, when I got it back to the boat, there was a second jig attached. Didn't catch the line, just interlocked hooks. Doubt that will ever happen again.

 

Another time we were under a bridge and I was bouncing a trigged worm off the concrete sides about 20-30ft away into the water. After several casts, I did it again and my bait disappeared when it should have made contact with the wall. We took the boat near to figure out why my line had bonded with the concrete. Turns out there was a little 3/4" diameter pipe end sticking out and I had perfectly rocketed my weight and worm right into it. No way I could make that cast again if I was trying.

[Boomstick]

In the summer of 2018, I had rented a rowboat and was out with the kids. Two things actually happened that day.

 

#1) I nearly landed a largemouth and smallmouth on the same crankbait, same cast. If my oldest son grabbed the line, I would have gotten them both on the boat. Landed the 2lb largemouth, but the much larger smallie popped off and fell into the lake.

 

#2) A little while after that, I caught a good 30"+ pike. On my next cast, I hooked something that looked like el mondo, could be possibly near state record - my neighbor told me he had caught a bass in the same lake that tied the state record, but it was too early in the season to keep it. The only really look I got was belly and it looked like a giant bass, both kids got a better look at it and they both said it looked like a giant bass. It hit not too far from the boat, never really got any ground on this fish it just towed the rowboat around the lake like a motor, eventually swam under the boat and shook the hook and off it went.

[Backroad Angler]

3 months ago I was fishing for bass, and using soft baits. I was having no luck and tied on a spinnerbait for the heck of it, caught a nice catfish with the spinnerbait, about 4th cast and was amazed.

 

Another time, I was out kayak fishing for about 5 hours and was getting tired towards the end, was throwing weightless soft plastics, wanted them to drop quicker, so i tied a 1/4oz bullet weight on and said I'll do one more cast with this set up, casted and caught my PB, a 4.5 pounder.

 

 

 

[Sam]

Fishing at my friend's double secret farm pond in April I had a big lady clobber my Bandit chartreuse with blue back crankbait and she took the bait when the line snapped.

 

Disappointed that I did not land her and very upset at losing that crankbait.

 

Fast forward to October of the same year and fishing the same pond when something along the bank where I was fishing caught my eye.

 

Yes! It was the missing crankbait. One side was white due to it being bleached by the sun and the other side pristine like the day I took it out of the box.

 

Still have the crankbait but have not thrown it since my recovery.  Maybe next year when I need another big lady for a tournament I will throw it.

[Koz]

My son and I were fishing a secluded lagoon in the woods. It was surrounded by woody vegetation and there were only two spots where you could safely fish, but both were under a tree canopy and when you cast it was like casting down a hallway.

 

Anyway, I had previously noted a large bird nest above one of those spots but never saw any activity and assumed it was abandoned. Then one day I'm throwing a Whopper Plopper 130 and even through the trees picked up the shadow of something big that came out of that nest.

 

The next thing I know I giant Red Tailed Hawk swoops down and picks up my Whopper Plopper and tries to fly away with it. Luckily, once the hawk felt tension on the line it dropped it. But it was an absolutely amazing sight.

 

After it flew off I imagined my call to South Carolina DNR if the hawk got tangled or hooked. "Um, I accidentally caught a Red Tailed Hawk - on a fishing lure. Can you send someone out to help?"

 

No way I would try and take care of that myself. It was a huge bird.

[BASSHUNTER315]

I once was fishing out of a small jon boat in only a few feet of water that was covered in weeds. We had thrown topwater all morning long and right before we left I tied on a soft swimbait and threw that for a bit. My friend fired up the motor and we were idling out and my bait was hanging over the side just barely swimming in the water. I held the rod and said to my friend "It would be crazy if a fish came up and bit this." not even 2 seconds later a nice pike came up and almost grabbed the rod from my hand.

[cheezyridr]

On 11/30/2020 at 1:25 PM, ajschn06 said:

I was wading for trout once... made my way about a mile upstream, fished down and back and returned to the car as it got dark.  I'm about a two mile hike straight uphill to a place where I even get cell service, and I realize my keys aren't in my pocket.  I go back upstream, cross in the two spots I crossed, and I actually spotted them- my car keys, wedged in between two rocks in about a foot of water..... talk about once in a lifetime..

 

i lost my keys once, they were clipped to the belt loop on my cut offs while i waded in the brandywine, with my 1st wife and my son.  had to call the wife's youngest sister to bring us the spare set of car keys. when she got there with a few of her friends, they decided to go swimming.  we went home.  her little sister came by the house that night with my keys.  she randomly stepped on them in about 3' of water, and picked them up with her toes. 

 

 

some of you guys talked about catching the same fish multiple times.  once i caught a 3½ lb bass on a white spinnerbait.  it had a balsa bee in it's mouth  that was in pretty good shape.  it also had a tail stickin out of it's throat that probably belonged to a 6" long sunfish. i caught lots of other bass on the bagley's before i eventually snagged it. 

 

another guy mentioned bass tracking things that fly over the water. 

i was talking to a buddy while fishing, and for whatever reason, i watched the lure fly as he cast to a spot in front of some pads.  not intentionally, it just sorta caught my eye as i was standing there. by completely random luck, i was able to watch as the moment the lure was about an inch or so over the water, a bass jumped out and grabbed it.

Edited December 5, 2020 by cheezyridr
decided to tell a shorter tale

[soflabasser]

If you fished long enough and caught enough memorable fish you will have many once in a lifetime fishing stories.  For me one of my favorite memories in bass fishing is catching a double digit bass from land in a pressured public park. This is a park that most people think is not worth fishing. Another time I caught a tiger shark while fishing from land on a reel older than myself. Loved hearing the drag scream on my Penn Senator when that shark took the bait and when it peeled locked down drag with 100 pound test mono. Have been fortunate to have caught some extremely rare fish and hope to catch more of them in the future.

[Mr. Aquarium]

Me hooking into those giants I lost. 

[trout123]

When I was 10 or so my family and I went and rented a cabin near a lake and we went fishing every day and night we were there, well after 3 or 4 days of fishing from 3 hours before sunset to an hour or more after and getting no bites on anything, nothing on flies, bait, lures, worms, you name it we tried it. Once we got there it looked amazing and everyone thought there was no way we would get skunked, super deep water, super clear water, plenty of rocks for trout to hide in, strong strong current, everything you need to catch a trout was there. So we get everything set up and fished for about 4 hours with absolutely zero action and my dad starts to talk about doing some other activity to keep the whole family entertained. I decided to try a random lure I saw in our tackle box for a few casts and somehow managed to hook and land a 28.5 inch rainbow trout with 5 minutes before we had to leave. At the time that fish was as long as my leg and Ill never forget that fish.

[Bubba 460]

While I was living in Alaska my sister and her husband came up from California for a visit. One of the things he wanted to do was to catch a halibut. We drove the the four hour drive south to Homer, Alaska. The next day we were on an eight person halibut charter boat called "The Tackle Buster". 

 

Every year Homer sponsors the Halibut Derby for the three biggest halibut caught that season; 1st place wins $30,000, 2nd place $20,000 and 3rd place fish wins $10,000.

I didn't buy a $7.50 derby ticket. 

 

So out into the bay we go until we hit 250 meters of water just before high tide. On a side note, Alaska has the second highest tides in the world at around 22 feet... so when the tide is running it's not playing around. Three pounds of lead weight and half a cut herring take a bit to get to the bottom.

 

You're allowed to keep two halibut. My first halibut was what they called a "chick"; a very small halibut. It weighed about 12 pounds. Unfortunately, the gills were damaged by the hook which meant it could not be thrown back, so that was my fish number one. I said a silent prayer for something a little bigger. A few minutes later, I set the hook into something that didn't move but it was definitely swimming. Anyway, to make a long story short, an hour and a half later, I reeled in a 271 pound, 8 foot 4inch, "barn door" halibut. The skipper came out and shot it in the head with a shotgun; it took five guys with gaffs to pull it up and over the side. It filled the whole back deck of the boat up. This 271 pound halibut ended up being the third largest halibut caught that year in the Homer derby. That would have been a $10,000 fish, had I bought the $7.50 derby ticket.

 

All eight people aboard caught halibut up to about 40 pounds, and they were all happy. But not as happy as I was... $10,000 or not. That is the fish of a lifetime

[galyonj]

That's a big ol fish.

[Bubba 460]

5 hours ago, galyonj said:

That's a big ol fish.

You should have seen the fillets. A lot of great eating there.

 

The biggest halibut caught that season in Homer was 312 pounds.

[galyonj]

2 minutes ago, Bubba 460 said:

You should have seen fillets. A lot of great eating there.

I'd eat my weight but you wouldn't have much fish left. 

 

[TnRiver46]

@Bubba 460, great story. I fished halibuts in homer and brought back 51 lbs of frozen meat in the overhead storage compartment of a commercial airplane 

[Bubba 460]

3 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

@Bubba 460, great story. I fished halibuts in homer and brought back 51 lbs of frozen meat in the overhead storage compartment of a commercial airplane 

Glad you had the adventure. I lived in Alaska for 30 wonderful years

[garroyo130]

So when I was about 5 years old my mother took my twin and I to a park shortly after it had rained. I saw tadpoles which in my mind were fish and I begged and begged her to go back bc i was going to "catch them". She took me back but the ground had dried and I was super disappointed. Growing up without a dad, I never really go the opportunity to fish although our family did have an old fishing pole. Fishing was sorta outta mind but remained something I wanted to do so when myself and a couple of friends decided to go camping for Thanksgiving break when I was a sophomore, I broung along my fishing rod. Long story short, none of us had a drivers license and we were escorted by about 6 police cars to my friends girlfriends house ... so again, no fishing. My mother started teaching me how to drive the next year and one day my twin saw an ad in the newspaper for a catfish pay lake that was about an hour away. I didn't yet have my license or a car but we decided to go anyway. We woke up around 4:30 am and pushed the car out of the driveway. First stop was walmart where we bought a couple of Zebco Rhino spincast combos. Then we were on our way. We got to the pay lake before it opened and had to wait. We go to see the sunrise and the anticipation was killing me. They finally let us in and we had no idea how to fish (the only guidance I had was from one of those laminated "how to catfish" sheets). We got to fishing and weren't catching a thing. Neither was anyone else. Then, as my twin describes it, "from the heavens descended an 18-wheeler which parked right next to the small pond. A man who stood no shorter than 8 foot tall got out and connected a hose about 2 feet in diameter and proceeded to dump about 3 tons of fish in the pond". My twin and I caught our limit as well as our due punishment when we returned home that day. Even though I rarely catfish anymore, that was the start of a love for fishing for me. 

[the reel ess]

Fishing with my dad and his buddy once when we heard a gunshot. A couple minutes later a doe came down to the water and swam across the cove. It got to the other side and couldn't get up the bank. We trolled over and waited on it to bleed out. Once it did we hoisted it into the boat, got off the water and took it to be processed. This is the extent of my deer hunting career except for a couple I've killed with cars.

 

Walked up to the edge of my friend's pond once and there was a nice 3 pounder sitting there, looking at me. It made no attempt to leave, just swam back and forth in front of me. This was not during spawn-it was probably July. I had my frog rod in hand so I pitched it a few feet in front of the bass. It immediately attacked the frog and I landed, weighed and released it. My friend was watching from his golf cart when I caught it. I asked him if they feed fish there and he said no.

[N Florida Mike]

One time my wife asked me what I wanted for father’s day. I told her a new baitcasting combo would be nice.

The next day she took the kids fishing in my jonboat while I was at work and the only thing she caught was a nice baitcasting combo ! 

I had this happen at least twice: Set the hook on a fish and miss. Worm  comes flying out of the water and lands on the other side of the boat. When I reeled up the slack another fish had picked up the worm and I reeled it in.

Another time I saw a disturbance on the water and found 2 bass locked together at the mouths. The bigger one had apparently tried to swallow the smaller one head-on. I pried them apart and they swum off.

Once I was bream fishing and as I was reeling one in the rod loaded up and a few minutes later I was holding the 4 pound bass that ate the bream!

I took a friend bass fishing for the first time. His first cast he thought he had a bite. I coached him on setting the hook. When he set the hook , his rod bowed into a u shape with something heavy on the other end. He was SO excited.

When he pulled it up we saw he had hooked a cowboy boot. He had the most disappointed look Ive ever seen. I told him , quick , cast over there again and maybe youll catch the other one ! 

I took my best friend’s teenage son bass fishing. Out of the blue he remarked about how scared he was of bats. It couldnt have been 5 minutes later when a bat flew between his line and the rod as he was casting out and got stuck. I said “ Hey david , theres a bat on your rod” , or something like that. He acted like he didn’t hear me and didnt notice the bat because he was focused on watching his bait.

As I told him again it got unstuck and flew off. He never saw it and thought I was just pulling his chain !?

 

 

[billmac]

Once while wading for smallies (or anything), I waded through some mucky bottom and up to the surface pops a weird looking eel.  Now I don't really like eels, so I don't know what possessed me to grab it (it was 7 or 8 inches long if I recall).  It turned out to be a small lamprey.  First and only one I ever saw in that river, that I've fished my whole life.

[the reel ess]

My dad and I were fishing with plastic worms. I got a bite, reeled down to set the hook and my dad said "I got one too!". We reeled up the same dink bass. Sort of the opposite of a double on one lure.

[Captain Phil]

Some years back I got a call from the fishing editor of the local newspaper asking me if he could tag along on my next fishing trip. I was pre-fishing for an upcoming Tournament, so I told him to meet me at the ramp the next morning. I was a little nervous because he told me he had never been bass fishing before and I didn’t know what he would expect. Unlike on TV, real bass don’t commit suicide on every cast...or do they?

 

We left the ramp and ran to one of my favorite canals. I knew the bass were beginning to move into the canals to bed and was hoping to catch a few good ones for my guest. It was a warm morning, so after settling down I cast a Devil’s Horse top water lure toward a sea wall. I wasn’t expecting much, but I decided to use a top water lure just to get my arms moving.

 

I hadn’t moved the bait more than a few times when the canal exploded under my lure. I struck the fish and immediately felt the weight of a big bass. But something was wrong. The fish stayed down and sort of just wiggled at the bottom of the canal. I slowly worked the fish to the boat wondering what I had hooked. As the fish came to the top I was surprised to find two three-pound bass hooked on my lure. To say the guy with me was impressed was an understatement. It took a while to get over this guy telling everyone in Lake County that I catch two bass on every cast!

 

In fifty years of fishing, I have only had this happen four times. The first time, I actually got to see how it happens. I was 16 years old at the time and was fishing on a small catwalk hanging over a Miami canal. The bass were schooling directly under me and would come up every now and then to hit shad that were circling below. Each time the bass would start chasing the shad, I would lower my lure into the water and catch one. One time I lowered the lure and hung a nice bass that immediately ran out into the center of the canal and started jumping on top of the water. I could see everything because I was at least 10 feet above the water level. In the middle of one of the jumps, a huge bass tried to take the lure away and got hooked at the same time. I was using a spinning rod with 10-pound test.  Through some miracle I was able to work the two fish to the bank. The bigger bass weighed 6 ¼ pounds and the small bass weighed about 3. Why doesn’t that ever happen in a tournament?

 

Since then, I have had this happen two more times.

 

 

 

 

[Whatever]

In 1975, I was sitting in a 12' Boston Whaler, discussing with my dive buddy whether to dive the 30' deep hole we were drifting over, for lobster, or another spot 5 miles across the lagoon. With the sun in my eye, I noticed a large shadow approaching the boat. A minute later a 14' Tiger shark (he was longer than our boat) casually swam by at a twenty foot distance.

We went to the other spot.

I really don't remember the dive that day, but I have the image of that shark locked in my mind forever.