dumbest thing you've done while fishing

[jignfule]

stopped fishin and went home

[wishin4fishin]

Ate a huge breakfast at the crack of dawn, two giant cups of coffee, half an hour later on the far side of the lake the coffee "kicked in."

I realized I didn't pack toilet paper on the boat.

Not a good morning.

[jignfule]

Ate a huge breakfast at the crack of dawn, two giant cups of coffee, half an hour later on the far side of the lake the coffee "kicked in."

I realized I didn't pack toilet paper on the boat.

Not a good morning.

No NO NO NO NO

Top of the list when your out on a boat TOILET PAPER

Before rods, reel, tackle box, food & water,

TOILET PAPER

[TimJ]

my partner takes my plug (type with a closing handle) and puts it in, pointing downwards, outside the stern in my old aluminum...then wondered why water was coming into the boat.

I didn't notice that my trolling motor had rotated and touched the on switch...while on high...and fell out of the boat, almost slow motion. had time to set the rod down and fall, coming back up into my hat, laughing like crazy. found a great ditch along some reeds that day!

tie on a new spinnerbait and toss it into the lake...and watch the tag end disappear behind it.

seems like we all have our days. good to have a sense of humour most days.

TJ

[ProCrafter]

Just did another dumb thing yesterday....

While launching the boat, put one foot on the boat and one foot to push off and, with high water time, slipped on some algae and fell into the lake. I was in only up to my knees but the shock of 45 degree water put me off for a few seconds and when I got up I noticed my boat was now 20 or so feet away and movin fast!! with nothing to retrieve it and no one on the lake i was forced to venture along the shoreline....waist deep...through peoples backyards with the waterline into the berry bushes and such grabbing stuff to hold onto was impossible and after trudging 100 yards or so I hopped onto a dock where my boat had drifted to....removed my shoes...got out a towel and started fishin!! I paid my launch fee already and was'nt gonna give it up just for dry clothes!!!

Only caught a Perch for the day but for the first time this Spring saw Largemouth cruising the shallows!!

Well off to the T-Mobile store to get a replacement phone...(Lone Casualty!)

[islandbass]

The dead of winter, the day after Christmas, snow and ice on the ground. After parking the car on site, I put on my waders and boots as if I were donning on battle armor, feeling like a bad-***, ready for fishing combat. Mount up! Lock-n-load!

Rods - Check

Reels - Check

Head Gear - Check

Lures/Bait - Check

Starbuck's Drip Coffee - Check (I live in Seattle, you know )

Polarized Glasses - Check

Gloves - Check

Keys - Check

Ready to go!!! A quarter mile in, even with everything on, something felt missing, but I couldn't pin it down as to what it was.

I wade into the water about make my first cast and realize that I didn't bring my wallet.

No wallet = Driving without a License AND more importantly, fishing without a license.

I don't think I've ever been as upset at myself. Doh! Double Doh! Yup. Tucked the tail, walked back to the car and headed home. Fishing liberty expired!

Now if that isn't a dumb move, I don't know what is.

[i said ALL day]

Fishing topwater at night and was getting tired, made a cast and apparently forgot to hold on to my rod and threw it in the lake. Got it back the next day with the help of GPS and an aquaview. But hey! Got to go fishing two days in a row. I sould loose my grip more often.

[Bassin18]

haha one time my baitcaster got some bad backlash so I grabbed my back up spinning reel and pole well I cast and the 2nd half of my pole goes in the water and I jerk and my jig gets caught in a tree so I had to swim out and get the rest of my pole lol

[BassMike88]

Ate a huge breakfast at the crack of dawn, two giant cups of coffee, half an hour later on the far side of the lake the coffee "kicked in."

I realized I didn't pack toilet paper on the boat.

Not a good morning.

[BassChump]

On a nice warm sunny day last summer I took my girlfriend for her first smallmouth trip on the Umpqua River on the Oregon coast. Me, being the experienced boater that I am, calmly put the boat in the water and tie it to the dock. I park the truck, get in the front seat and turn on the trolling motor. The fishing is so good on the Umpqua that I usually troll to my first spot. I'll catch a few on a roostertail before I get the craws or jigs out.

So there we are, she is sitting in the back seat looking rearward and I'm up front looking forward trolling along having a great time.

After a while she happens to look at the fishfinder on the console only to find the floor is wet. She asks me if there is supposed to be water on the floor. Ok, my first embarassing mistake. I forgot the plug. So I grab a plug, lean over the back, put it in the hole and confidently flip on the bilge pump. I tell her not to worry about it. It will pump out in no time at all. Unfortunately I'm not done being stupid yet.

After another 15 minutes or so, she looks back again and there is water up past the drivers seat and screams, we're sinking!!!!!! She wasn't too far off. I had about an inch or two before the boat would have been gone. I had to have her get on the front of the boat, it was that close.

What happened is that I put the drain plug in the livewell inlet hole instead of the bilge drain.

I didn't just make the simple mistake of forgetting the drain plug just once, I did it twice and I did it on the same trip.

She has never let me forget that one.

[pa mountain man]

I'll share someone else's moment that I happened to be semi involved in...

My buddy and I were night fishing on a moonless swealtering night, and had just entered our favorite cove about 0300. This cove is a mile long, and has a road that runs halfway down it, but the fishing is excellent on the opposite side of the road. Through the darkness we hear "Toby! Thats it, you're done, I'm over it, get in the truck!" about once every 2 minutes. We expected to see some poor kid getting yelled at when we reached the back of the cove. As we get closer, we see that Toby is a beagle that nips at the owner's ear, who is laying on the ground surrounded by beer cans, which causes him to yell his trademark phrase. I'm running the TM, and being very quiet as I go by him, but as we're right in front of him, my buddy ripped the loudest fart I've ever heard, and that guy sat up like he was waiting for a reason, and asked if we were doing any good, but before we could answer, he layed back down and passed out. We hovered around for a while, and fed the dog our food, and watched as the guy had 100's of bugs crawling on him.

Though he probably doesn't remember it, I'm sure that was one of his worst fishing trips.

As for me,

I hung a rattle trap up in a low hanging limb, and instead of going over to unhook it, I jerked the line, and watched the chrome missle come at my head in slow motion. I pierced my left nostril with one of the treble hooks. My buddy snipped the barb off, and I removed it with no trouble, but I bled quite alot for a while.

[Bankbeater]

Two weeks ago, while digging out a backlash, I somehow managed to get the line wrapped around my feet. Not only that, but I got the line tangled in my shoe strings, lost my balance, and almost fell in.

[linehand]

Yesterday I was just out on a cruise down the river. About an hour in and a few brews my buddy says what the....just then I see water pouring out of the front livewell. Not a huge deal except that is where I store tackle. What a mess. Disable the livewell dumb dumb if you are going to use it for storage.

[fadetoblack21]

For those that dont know already...

DO NOT ANCHOR OFF THE BACK OF A BOAT!!

Me and my fishing buddy go cat fishing below the LOZ dam here in Missouri alot. Last summer we decided to use 2 homemade anchors, one in front and one in back, to keep the boat from swaying in the current. We always anchored the front of the boat towards the current. Now the anchors were 3" diameter pvc pipe about 2 feet long each with rebar rods crossed through the base and then filled with cement. The rebar had a tendency to hang on big rocks.

Well they started to let out alot of water on the dam and we were sitting right in the path of it. . . and we were doing fine until we decided to leave. I pulled my anchor up thinking he had his up already (I was in front). Walk to the console, sit down, and fire up the motor all while the current is turning the front of the boat putting the back of the boat directly in the swift water. At that moment my buddy flys to the front of the boat yelling at me. . . . . the current was pushing us so hard and the weight of both of us in back plus the anchor still hooked to the river bottom was pulling the back right corner into the water. . . upon seeing this I quickly followed him to the front of the boat and watched with great relief as the corner emerged from the water. Once I worked up enough nerve to walk back there and cut the line we were fine. . . but I will NEVER EVER anchor from the back again. We both still talk about that. . . and its usually not a very present topic either as it scared the crap out of both of us. . .

[Lake O Bassman]

Last summer we had a club tournament at lake Okeechobee out of Clewiston. We have a draw club and I did not draw a co-angler. I was running a little late and got to the launch with about 15 minutes to get launched, so I did not see many of the guys except for blastoff out of the rim ditch. I fished pretty close in the West Wall area, and had a small limit when I went to move and blew the top cylinder in my motor. I fished on trolling motor for the balance of the day and went in about an hour early, and put the boat on the trailer and got a burger at Rolands. I then went to the counter to buy some refreshments for the guys at weigh-in. While at the counter, the teenage girl at the register asked what was on my shirt. I said I don't know. She walked around from behind the counter and pulled something off the velcro on the back of my vented fishing shirt. It was a pair of my wifes thong underwear, that I guess had stuck to it that morning when I got it out of the dryer. She held them up, and I said those are my wife's; and she said I hope so. I have never been so glad to be late in the morning and I still wonder what the people were thinking in the restaurant seeing someone eating their burger with underwear on their back. I ended up telling the guys because it was so funny.

[Avalonjohn44]

I was salt water fishing with a snapper popping rig, which is a large popper cork, a two foot leader, and a little hook with a piece of surgical tubing. The baby bluefish just kill this rig. Normally I cast side arm because of the long leader, but I started throwing overhead. I really went for distance on one cast and put all I had in it. I felt something slam into the back of my head, but didn’t really feel any pain at first. I thought the cork had hit me. I kept fishing for a while until my brother asked me if my head hurt. I said not really, but it felt hot. He said it should, you’ve bled all down the back of your shirt. Sure enough, I felt my scalp and there was a good inch long tear just seeping blood. There was a tiny chunk of scalp skin on the end of my hook.

[Fishing Cowgirl]

Ouuuuchhh

[lou304]

There was a tiny chunk of scalp skin on the end of my hook.

So, did you catch anything on it?????

[green]

I have a problem with forgetting to take rubber tubing off hooks... and i wonder why i wasn't hooking anything

[Jim McC]

I locked my keys in the car when I got to the lake. Then while using my rod to try to pick up the keys from the car's floor, I ran the hook into my thumb. This is all before I even wet a line.

[Jaheff]

My old fishing friend and I tied his boat up to some brush and started to hit the honey hole. well I went for an overhead cast,got the hook stuck in the brush and birds nested the crap out of the reel. To make it even worse, I did it again on the back up set up! Good thing I used cheap mono back then..

[BassThumb]

I haven't seen many stories about people falling off their boats. Am I the only who has done this?

[mferris]

i have 2 stories,i'll use 2 separate posts....years ago i had a old duracraft alum. boat with a small gas motor.it was a good sized boat and very wide.while fishing with a friend of mine we were going thru a channel to the upper part of the lake.I pulled of to the side to let a canoe get by and hit some rocks with the prop and broke the shear pin.After about an hour of taking turns rowing this wide boat against the wind ,we finally got to the boat ramp.on the way home i remembered there was a spare pin under the motor cover......

[mferris]

my other story is more bad luck than stupidity,same old alum. boat.i was on the way to the lake to meet some friends very early morning. i noticed while driving 1 trailer tire was almost flat.i went thru a yellow traffic lite and pulled in to a gas station for air when the officer pulled in behind. despite my pleas i got a ticket cause in his words the truck went thru the yellow lite but the boat went thru the red...got to the boat ramp ,backed the boat in and the rope broke and it drifted into the channel...a guy fishing on shore casted a spinnerbait to it and finally snagged some gear in the boat....he was able to guide it to shore where we found out i never put the plug in!!!!after bailing the water out and went fishing,of course we caught nothing.......

[pat_walker_fishing]

I was fishing my first night tournament at pickwick.....hadent had a bite all night then all of a sudden i felt... tap,tap........so i set the hook on what feels like a really nice fish.....onley to see at the boat that my nice bass was a peice of flat shelf rock.....very embarassing