The one second-moment you'd wish you could have captured on film.

[Tennessee Boy]

Unfortunately,  the moments I would most like to have on film would be for submitting to America’s Funniest Home Videos.  

[Troy85]

2 hours ago, Catt said:

On February 1, 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it reentered  the atmosphere over Texas and Louisiana, killing all seven astronauts on board.

 

I was on Toledo Bend in the Hemphill Texas area.

That's wild, you were basically directly under the debris path.

 

Were you sticking those pre spawn toads near Hurricane or the Indian Mounds?  

[Randy Price]

I did have a camera for this but only took a picture of the results not the action.  My friend and I were fishing on Lost Lake in St. Germain, WI a number of years ago in the late fall.  We were using smaller sucker minnows because that's all Ray's Landing had that day.  He notices his bobber go under and sets the hook.  Initially he thought he caught a big walleye but as the fish got closer to the boat it was a large musky.  I netted the musky and we noticed it had a 12" northern in it's mouth.  My friend had initially caught the northern and the musky grabbed onto the little pike and would not let go.

[steve carpenter]

Trout fishing with my Dad in the sierra Navada mountains. He was atop a beaver dam with water in front and behind him. Dad hardly ever caught a fish , but this time the fly hit the water and he caught a nice trout. Kidded him for years

[Catt]

4 hours ago, Troy85 said:

Were you sticking those pre spawn toads near Hurricane or the Indian Mounds?  

 

944 ?

 

 

[ATA]

The moment I wish I can capture is I am fishing with my father and two sons while my mother watching us and talk to us, But it seemingly impossible because each character of my picture is living in different part of word.

Father in Middle east

Mother in Europe

one son in Philippines

one son in USA having issue to meet him.

But I love all of them and thinking about them everyday.

[Way north bass guy]

About 20 years ago I was musky fishing on Georgian Bay, about a mile from where the Canadian record was caught in 1988 (65lbs). 
Was casting to the shoreline, and heard a splash behind me towards the open part of the bay. I turned around to see the largest tail I’ve ever seen in my life cutting through the surface almost like a shark. I figure it was either a massive sturgeon, or most definitely a new record musky. I cast to it until my arms were sore, but never saw it again. That was by far the largest freshwater fish I’ve ever laid my eyes on, and I can still vividly see it in my memory. 

[Tackleholic]

8 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

@Tackleholic, do you think it was a gar? Sturgeon? Blue cat? Something else?

 

@Darth-Baiter:

 

Back then we did have huge Alligator Gar, Sturgeon, Blue Cats, and Flatheads.  Pollution and trophy killing eventually wiped them out.  My first guess is an Alligator Gar.  It's immediate effect on me was worse than my first case of "Musky Fever".

[CM-fisher]

Last summer in Wyoming's Cloud Peak Wilderness I was trout fishing a small creek, and while I was hiking back to my campsite I came around a bend in the trail and was face to face with a female moose. She was no more than ten feet away from me. I froze and then started walking backwards very slowly. Luckily the moose was way more afraid of me than I was of her so she spooked and ran off.

 

Otherwise I wish I had pictures of both my largemouth and smallmouth PB's.

[Deleted account]

Ok, I've got one. Happened a while ago, was fishing alone in my center console in the Cheseapeke Bay (I used to do that alot), had one of those perfect fishing days we all dream about, I caught big fish for a couple of hours almost non-stop. There was an overcast sky, and a front pushing through. A thundershower blew through, then a perfect rainbow appeared as it continued to rain with the sun shinning through the clouds at times, it then got cloudy again, and the fish kept biting, now don't ask me why, but the thought came into my head "I've lived a blessed life, there is nowhere else I'd like to be, things are going great, if I died today, I'd be ok with that" almost as soon as I finished the thougth, a lightning bolt hits the water maybe 30-40 feet right in front of me, After I gathered myself, wide eyed, I said outloud almost yelling "just kidding!" Pulled anchor and ran back to the marina wide open, shaking my head, and laughing all the way.

[Pat Brown]

All the times Ive seen the NC state record LMB jumping on my home lake for starters....bald eagle doing battle with an osprey over a large fish in mid air....giant circular double rainbows forming when a storm passes...a duckling get eaten by a large female bass....big snake getting smoked by a big bass.....the time I popped my bait out of a tree and the tree turned into a fog of hornets that stung me and chased me away (I'm a LOT more careful now making accurate casts around old dead trees ;))

 

This one time I was paralleling the bank in super muddy water from maybe 50 ft back off the shore casting into the shallow water and working my baits back.  I wasn't getting bit much and had my eyes locked on the bank looking for signs of life.

 

It was a particularly sunny warm day after a stretch of colder rainier days and I was having trouble figuring the fish out.  They were supposed to be spawning or close to it but I knew the weather might move them back a bit, still I persisted.

 

At some point during our slow working of that bank, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of gold maybe 20 ft from the boat ahead of us where we were slowly moving and I turned my head away from the bank and towards the glimmer in front of the boat instinctively to look to see what it was....what I saw I couldn't believe!

 

Staring back at me were probably 12-15 large female bass suspending inches below the surface in 8 feet of very muddy water like a fleet of submarines all literally TRANSFIXED with me flipping that bank.  As soon as they sensed I was looking at them, they all swam away in unison.

 

It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen and it leads me to believe bass are much smarter than we give them any sort of credit for.

 

 

 

[Ktho]

Only one moment comes to mind. Years ago started fishing freshwater again and grabbed a rod with old line on it. Got to the pond and bass were busting all over. Get hooked up on a popper and it breaks off. Tie on a soook and keep fishing, 30min later I’m reeling one in and notice it had a lure in its face, get it to the bank and it gets off because it’s whole face is trebles. It gets off but I got my lure, not totally sure if I hooked it again or lures got tangled when it hit. 
 

 

[cheezyridr]

On 4/10/2023 at 11:22 AM, ol'crickety said:

If there was a one-second moment that you wish you'd captured on film, what was it? 

 

 

hmmm...

 

well, there's  one time i would list, but i'm going to behave and keep that one to myself.

 

instead, i'll say one time when i said something ridiculous, and nature said "hold my beer".

me and a buddy get up early and go to this fishin hole,  where i always crushed 'em.  not that i was some great fisherman, anyone can crush them there, if they make a tiny bit of effort.  but we walk up and i point to a plant growing out of the water, behind a submerged log that you can still see part of.   i say "see that spot right there? i bet you there's a 2 or 3 lb'er hidin by that log with the plant hangin over it.  it'll hit when i drag this spinnerbait over the top of it". i cast to land just past the log.  the lure was a few inches off the water, about to land, when a bass leapt out of the water and caught the lure  before it ever hit.  it was exactly where i said it would be, and it was about 3 lbs.   i told my buddy "meh...i could do this all day."  hahahaha

[Woody B]

No camera when I caught my PB.  It was decades ago, before digital cameras.   I used to take a polaroid camera with me sometimes but didn't have any film this trip.   I considered keeping it and doing a skin mount, but decided to let it go.   I had it in my livewell for 30 minutes or so.   It weighed 10 1/4 lbs on my Zebco Deliar scale.  The guy with me talked me into taking measurements before releasing it.  It was 24 3/4" long,  19 1/4" girth.   

 

I wish I would have taken more pictures of the huge flathead cat I caught last year (bass fishing).  I was by myself.  I only took 2 pictures.  I with I would have at least taken a picture looking into it's mouth.   I had to grab it and pull it into the boat.   It wouldn't fit in my 25 inch net.  

 

 

[Swamp Girl]

@Woody B, that flathead is comically fat. A lot of flatheads have big heads with tapering bodies, but especially upside down, yours looks like it ate a blue cat. A pregnant blue cat. 

[Bankbeater]

I caught my first tiger muskie back in the mid '80s.  I thought I had a huge bass at first then after I landed it I thought it was a muskie.  Found out later that the DNR had stocked some tiger muskie in the lake to see how they would do.

[T-Billy]

The last muskie I caught came rocketing up straight vertical and ate my A-Rig about a foot under the surface. It's momentum carried it clear of the surface and I set the hook while it was still in the air with about 2' of line off the tip of my rod. Utter mayhem ensued. Those three footers go absolutely ballistic. Big fish are easier to deal with. So cool to see that wide open mouth and flared gills suddenly appearing from the depths, like a scene out of Jaws or something. It's a split second in time I'll not soon forget.

Several years ago, I had a 40" ish muskie shoot out from under the boat and grab my fluke mid air as I lifted it from the water. It went tail walking away from me like a billfish, then quickly bit through my 10# mono. Very cool moment.

I forgot the camera at home the day I caught my PB LM. After admiring it for a minute, I put it back and watched it swim off. When I turned around my wife (then girlfriend) was sitting there looking upset. I asked what was wrong, she replied, I just realized my cell phone is in my purse. DOH!!! I didn't think about it either as I didn't carry a phone back then.

On 4/10/2023 at 11:41 AM, TnRiver46 said:

I just wanted to puke for the rest of the week 

I know that feeling well. I've lost two 30" plus saugeye at boatside. First one was a 33"- 34" prespawn female. Pushing state record size. Still haunts me. I can see that little treble hook pulling free like it was yesterday.

[Jeff Zurawski]

THE one for me happened many years ago while a buddy, my brother, and I were on our annual Little Bay de Noc Fall Walleye trip.

 

We were out late one night trolling stickbaits off illuminated planer boards over the reefs trying to connect with >30" hawgs the Bay was known for.  During a long, quiet lull in the fish-catching action, my buddy Randy grabbed the pee bucket and went up to the bow to relieve himself.  He's up there kneeling with the bucket, I'm at the helm using the GPS map to steer the boat along a contour line, and my brother is in the passenger seat facing the stern watching the boards waiting for a pull back. 

 

All of a sudden I hear the sound of a bird flapping its wings directly overhead.  It got louder and closer and out of the fog drops a big white colored bird.  It hovered briefly before landing on my buddy Randy's head while he's still kneeling there busy answering nature's call.  It perched there for a few seconds then flew off.  A Snowy Owl. 

 

Most people thought we were nuts when we told the story the next day, offering comments like, "And how many beers did you all drink?" or "What were you smoking?" 

 

After some research and a definitive id, I found out that, while not very common, Snowy Owls were known to migrate that far south. 

 

[jbmaine]

I've told this story before on the forum, but years later I still think about it.

 Some years ago I was up in northern Maine flyfishing for trout. I was in my canoe on a remote pond.  It was early in the morning and the mist was heavy on the water, making the visibility 10-15 ft. at most. I heard some movement on the shore, heard some splashing, and saw ripples coming  to me. I thought it was a beaver and waited to see if it would swim by.

 Well, within seconds I see this shape in the mist and realize I've got a bull moose swimming right at me. All I could do was freeze and thankfully the moose saw me and changed course enough to miss me. I can still see his big brown eye staring at me as he swam by. Call me stupid , and I really don't know why I did it, but as he swam past I reached out and touched his antler. As I said, I still think about it. It was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced, fishing wise.

[Swamp Girl]

JB, I have my own swimming beaver story. I was fishing a east/west strait for smallmouth. The Sun was rising, impairing my eastern vision, but I saw a really big beaver swimming the strait, so I paddled closer for a better look. I was so blinded by the rising Sun that I was quite close before I realized it was a...bear.

 

On 4/13/2023 at 5:18 AM, T-Billy said:

The last muskie I caught came rocketing up straight vertical and ate my A-Rig about a foot under the surface. It's momentum carried it clear of the surface and I set the hook while it was still in the air with about 2' of line off the tip of my rod. Utter mayhem ensued. Those three footers go absolutely ballistic. Big fish are easier to deal with. So cool to see that wide open mouth and flared gills suddenly appearing from the depths, like a scene out of Jaws or something. It's a split second in time I'll not soon forget.

 

Love. ^This.^ Story.

 

The pike below hit my F13 Rapala with such force that it beached itself on a flat rock. It took it a few secs to flop back into the water and I told my partner, "That's my fish."

 

"What do you mean?" he said.

 

"You'll soon see."

 

And he did.

 

 

Jeff, I think your story is my favorite. 

[LonnieP]

The time I caught a double on a Rattle Trap. At first I thought I had hooked a monster . When It got closer to the boat I realized it was 2 bass. Unfortunately the bigger one got off. The one I got in was over 3 pounds and the one that got loose made that one look like bait.

[Captain Phil]

23 minutes ago, LonnieP said:

The time I caught a double on a Rattle Trap. At first I thought I had hooked a monster . When It got closer to the boat I realized it was 2 bass. Unfortunately the bigger one got off. The one I got in was over 3 pounds and the one that got loose made that one look like bait.

 

I've done that at least a dozen times in my life so far.   Here's a photo of one time I happened to have a camera along.

 

 

[GANGGREEN]

I was Crappie fishing this spring and hooked what ended up being a 10.25" Crappie on an UL rig.  At some point, it just stopped coming in, then my drag started going and the line slowly started tracking towards the bottom in 15 feet of water.  I was able to slowly bring it up to the surface where I saw an enormous Largemouth (at least by my standards, never having caught one over about 7 pounds) which had the Crappie sideways and completely inside its mouth.  I estimated the fish at 11-12 pounds and I really think my estimate is/was probably quite accurate because I got a really good look at it.  The bass really wasn't fighting much either, just being dragged slowly towards my boat and my waiting landing net.  He got literally a foot or two from the net as I was sliding him in headfirst before he coughed up the Crappie and sunk into the depths.  I would have told the truth after I photographed and released the bass (that I didn't catch him "fair and square"), but I surely would love to have gotten photos and a weight on him, or alternately a video of the episode.

 

 

[geo g]

I once caught a 26” bass while bank fishing an interstate cloverleaf pond, reached for my phone and it would not except anymore photos.  Something about the cloud storage available.  Within a few days I had a new Apple 10.  But I wished I had a pic of that big old girl!  She was a fatty too.

[Skunkmaster-k]

I hooked a big turtle in the middle of the night and when I finally got it to shore the precious beast chased me around at rods length for a while. I would love to see my face at that moment.