Strangest place you ever caught a fish

[Kirtley Howe]

What is the strangest place you ever caught a fish? For me, it was the Ithaca NY Wegmans parking lot. This was about 16 years ago. Wegmans had built their store near a flood control channel. I was working a second job doing security at the store, so I spent a fair amount of time there. We had one of those "once in a hundred year floods", and the channel overflowed pretty dramatically. After a few days, the water receded, but a large section of the parking lot was still flooded with 2-4' of water and one of my jobs was to put cones and caution tape around the area. While I was doing that, I noticed something swimming around in the water. So I said to myself (and I know it was me because I recognized my voice)...."Self, after work you need to break out the fishing gear and see if you can catch a fish or two." So after work, I grabbed a rod and some lures out of my truck, and gave it a go. I figured that the fish were most likely Carp, as there were always a few of those in the flood control channel, so I ran into the store and bought a can of corn for bait. Tried that for about a half hour with no luck. I should mention that customers going into the store were giving me some pretty strange looks...but that did not deter me in the least. Anyway, I had no luck with the corn. I figured what the heck,  and put an original floating Rapala on and started working that. Long stort short, I ended up with 2 reasonable size Bass, and 3 very nice size Brown Trout. The Bass got put back in the flood control channel, and the Trout went home with me. I had several nice meals of broiled Trout over the next few days. I keep fishing the parking lot until the water was pretty much gone, buy only caught (snagged) one Carp after that day.  

[Craig P]

When I was a kid, there was a factory complex down the road that had what looked like a large wooden wine barrel.  It was 20' in diameter and 25' high.  One of the town kids heard a rumor there was fish in it so we had to try.  There was!  Sunnies, and you could catch them with a bare hook.  The barrel was directly across the railroad tracks from a concrete landing with a large pump on it at the river's bank.  The pump was used to fill the barrel, the barrel was used to store water for the fire sprinkler system for the complex and I guess fish got pumped in at times and were simply starving and would bite anything.

[BrianMDTX]

I didn’t, but was a witness and it was hilarious. 
 

My friend and I were fishing just after ice-out below the second dam on Loch Raven reservoir in Maryland sometime in the late 70s. Nobody was catching a thing. There was a concrete culvert about 24” in diameter that emptied into the Big Gunpowder River and some little kid (fishing with his dad) kept casting his bait into the culvert (the culvert was about 75% under the surface). His dad was getting ticked and started berating him that he was wasting his time. The kid was adamant that there was a fish in there. 
 

He must have cast his bait 50 times and on Cast #51, his rod bent. Hard. He reeled in the largest black crappie I’ve ever seen. Like dinner plate-sized. Everybody came over to congratulate the kid…except his AITA dad. He was fuming. What a shame. But boy, did he catch a whopper in an unlikely spot! 

[Scott F]

The area where I live used to be a huge wetland. Over 100 years ago, the wetland was drained and turned into farmland. The ditches they dug to drain the area run into a river. In the spring, when the river is high, the ditches fill with water. Northern pike and smallmouth swim up the ditches and get trapped there when the water levels drop. Good sized pike and smallmouth are often caught in these roadside ditches along the cornfields that are narrow enough that you could jump over them. 
Back in the days before Navy Pier on Chicago’s lakefront was turned into a tourist attraction, we used to fish for perch there. The perch used the pillings under the pier for cover. The pier had a roadbed built on it with occasional drains that opened up right into the lake. We’d take the drain covers off and fished through the holes like we were ice fishing. It was quite a sight to see people sitting on what looked like a road fishing and catching perch.

[N Florida Mike]

A friend said there were a lot of redbreast in a ditch. There were. I think it drained into ( and out of ) a creek.

I caught a bass once in a tiny pond where a contractor parked his school busses. I could have easily thrown a rock left handed across it…

I once caught 50+ bream out of a sewer treatment pond…

I recaught a bass out of my swimming pool recently…?

I keep having a recurring dream of catching bass out of the grass at the house I grew up in. The water will be a foot or less deep , sometimes inches in the dream. They are all dinks though ?

[PhishLI]

On 3/9/2023 at 2:40 PM, Kirt Howe said:

What is the strangest place you ever caught a fish?

I could tell you about the strangest place I caught crabs, but I'd get banned.

[FishTank]

At a restaurant when i was a kid. It was a seafood place that had game fish in an indoor pond with a big stream going through it. I think it's illegal to do this now but it was a sort of hibachi grill place that was off the beaten path in Ohio. Nobody cared. It was fun.

 

[Bird]

My mom ran a tropical fish store out of our basement back in the 70's.

When she left the house, I'd run down in the basement and catch her big Oscars on a line and hook......they love krill.

[Fishingmickey]

14" Rainbow trout out of the Chicago river right next to the B'hai temple.  It was on a Glen L. Evans Loco Lure, Circa 1970ish. When I first saw prism tape on a lure.

FM

[Darth-Baiter]

wasn't there video of people fishing in the NYC sewers?  maybe it was a drunken dream of mine.  dunno.  feels real.

[TnRiver46]

2 hours ago, Darth-Baiter said:

wasn't there video of people fishing in the NYC sewers?  maybe it was a drunken dream of mine.  dunno.  feels real.

Plenty of those not just NYC 

[cheezyridr]

in a 75 gal fish tank, in my living room, i caught a 2 lb bass.  the wife said "you're not funny". i told her if that was true, she wouldn't feel the need to tell me so.

?

[813basstard]

“I keep fishing the parking lot until the water was pretty much gone“

 

Thats a phrase I thought I didn’t need to hear but glad I did..my man also ate the fish from the parking lot. 
 

There should be a statue 

[TnRiver46]

31 minutes ago, cheezyridr said:

in a 75 gal fish tank, in my living room, i caught a 2 lb bass.  the wife said "you're not funny". i told her if that was true, she wouldn't feel the need to tell me so.

?

I bet you got the floor all wet 

9 minutes ago, 813basstard said:

“I keep fishing the parking lot until the water was pretty much gone“

 

Thats a phrase I thought I didn’t need to hear but glad I did..my man also ate the fish from the parking lot. 
 

There should be a statue 

Some people are rock stars, he didn’t even need livescope 

[Captain Phil]

Many years ago the Corps of Engineers allowed Lake Okeechobee to rise to over 18' above sea level. This doesn't sound like much, but the average water level is 12-15'.  I have seen it at 9', but it's been awhile.  At over 18', the parking lot and boat ramp at Belle Glade was under water.  I fished a bass tournament that weekend and we caught bass in the parking lot of Slim's fish camp.   Interestingly enough, Junior Samples of Hee Haw fame was fishing the same tournament.  I don't remember him weighing a fish.   At 18', the 30' dike around the lake started to spring leaks, so they backed off the water. 

[cheezyridr]

15 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I bet you got the floor all wet 

 

it was the only thing that got wet that day, sadly.