Some fish stories..

[danbo]

About 20 years ago on a summer night..I was casting a Daredevil by the light of the moon on Mitchell Lake.

I get a heavy thump on my line & after a short battle I hoisted a 5.5 pound Walleye(Yellow Pickerel in Ontario lingo!) onto shore.

I hiked back to the car to look it over & damn if there wasn't a big tail-fin sticking out of it's mouth!

I grabbed the pliers & pulled a "Common Sucker" fish out of its yap that was over a pound & only half-digested.

That fish couldn't have possibly eaten anything else, but still smacked my spoon! Greedy fool!

Edited July 12, 2009 by danbo

[danbo]

The Old Man

 

 

Autumn leaves swirled in the eddy by the little falls. Dappled shadows of the afternoon sun through the trees, flickered & danced with the breeze. He always came to the river, to clear his mind.

 

The salmon were in, their dark forms streaked across the rocky floor of the shallow pool. After all the years, he still got a kick from fishing. It was his greatest passion in life.

 

Reaching into the satchel he had brought, the old man snapped-open the little plastic box that stored his collection of home-made flies. Today, the clear flow of the water called for a dark pattern to tempt the fish with. Puffing on his smoke, he plucked a small black & chartreuse "woolly bugger" out of the menagerie & reached for the line hanging from his fly rod, to tie it on.

 

As he quietly picked his way over the shoreline rubble to position himself to cast, he thought he saw a flash in the water below. There, where the red willow bush hung over the surface, he caught another glimpse of the fish..and Lord, what a fish it was!

 

38 years of raking this stream, yet he had never before seen a fish of such magnitude. He could usually guess a fishes weight just by looking at it, but this one boggled the calculator in his head. His nerves began to tremble as adrenalin coursed through his veins. Mother Nature must be playing a trick on me, he thought. Suddenly, the big Chinook leapt clear out of the sparkling pulse & hung in mid-air momentarily, just long enough to show it's glistening mass.

 

God Almighty, it had to go 80 pounds or better! As the old man's jaw hung slack, his heart raced so hard with anticipation, he feared he was having another "attack". Now, collecting his senses back together, he raised the graphite rod to begin his cast...

 

The sound of an electronic "beeping" was the first thing he heard. The muddy outline of the nurse leaning over his face added a surreal dimension to the fuss going on about him. A terrific weight pressed down on his chest, while another pain seemed to push-back against the invisible force that overtook his entire body.

 

"What the hell is happening to me", he writhed with the awful sensations that were crushing upon him. Suddenly, he felt his life-energy leaving his body & rushing into oblivion. As the room grew darker & the surroundings became distant, he faintly heard the sound of thousands of children singing from far away. A single spot of white light raced towards him, ever expanding with its approach.

 

Helpless & immobilized, he floated in a warp of time & space, beyond anything he had ever imagined before. This is not a dream, yet somehow, he felt no fear. As if entering some crystalline palace, the light energy enveloped him & took away his pain. Gently & unobtrusively, a woman with long flowing red hair appeared before him, though her facial features were indistinguishable. Words were neither spoken, nor heard yet, somehow, the message was conveyed.."you are loved and everything will be ok". Then as if someone was working a remote control, like with a television set, the channel was "flicked" & he felt the warmth return to his body, as he awoke again in the hospital bed.

 

"Dear God", the nurse wept, "we lost you!" The tired old man looked up into her tear-swollen eyes & smiled. "Lady", he mused, "If you only knew the half of what I saw..thank you for staying with me. I can't wait 'til I can get out of here and..go fishin' ".

 

A story by Dan Reid

Edited July 12, 2009 by danbo

[Greencoachdog]

About 20 years ago on a summer night..I was casting a Daredevil by the light of the moon on Mitchell Lake.

I get a heavy thump on my line & after a short battle I hoisted a 5.5 pound Walleye(Yellow Pickerel in Ontario lingo!) onto shore.

I hiked back to the car to look it over & damn if there wasn't a big tail-fin sticking out of it's mouth!

I grabbed the pliers & pulled a "Common Sucker" fish out of its yap that was over a pound & only half-digested.

That fish couldn't have possibly eaten anything else, but still smacked my spoon! Greedy fool!

 

I caught a few fish like that!

 

This little ol' Spot still has the claws of a crawdad sticking out of the back of his throat:

[danbo]

C'mon dudes... let's hear some more.

[MCTFisher9120]

Aint got any except for this small walleye that hit a bass popper 3 years ago.

[danbo]

Cool!

[Rich]

My great uncle loves to tell the story about one time he was night fishing for bass on Rice Lake with a Jitterbug. It's pitch black, he feels a hit, and up goes his lure. He caught the line class record horned owl. lol

[Fish4Eyes]

Fishing off a dock on the kawarthas with a wooden hand made 7" perch lure, I had a small muskie (30ish") come underneath the dock jumped out of the water and grabbed my lure (while it was out of the water, and I was getting ready to cast it again). It did hook itself, but after violent head shakes it got off. It scared the heck out of me. Went back to the same lake last summer, and had a muskie slam a sunfish at boat side, but then just let the sunfish go after peeling some of my drag.

[muddler]

My favourite local lake is just 10 minutes away from home. It has a very healthy populations of pik, largemouth, smallmouth and walley. When I break for lunch on the water I usually throw in a crappie sized tube and jig under a slip float and let the wind and waves do thier magic for me while I take a short break. I've caught every type of fish from this lake using this method. It's slow fishing but it works. I get to eat too.

 

About 2 weeks ago I was fishing the slip bobber and tube in about 15 feet of water for my snack break and then after finishing my snack I slowly reeled then paused. Sometimes this will trigger a strike. All of a sudden the water explodes and a a good sized pike smashes the float. I was a little stunned. Everything just disappeared. I reel in the line and there is something on my line. The pike still had the flaot in its mouth amd somehow wrapped my line around its head and gills. Wow. As I bring it closer to the boat , on the the little tube jig there was a walleye about 14 inches long. Landed both fish. The pike was 32 inches.

 

This was my strangest catch to date.

 

muddler

[Fang]

Was trolling for lakers last summer along a steep bluf bank. Had the rigger right in the thermocline at about 65ft over 100 FOW. Was running a small trout lure and on the graph see a streaker come up from below. Look back at the rods and see the inside rods bounce just a bit and then again. Ok must be a small trout. Grab the rod and pull the line out of the release - up there's something small there.

Turns out to be a 1/2 pound smallmouth

[CLofchik]

Well seeing as a few guys have kings on the brain, and infected me as well, here's a fun story on late night salmon fishing.

 

Fishing kings years ago the river mouth was having a quiet night. It was one of those Indian Summer evenings where everything was muggy & still, not a whisper of wind and the fish were definitely not on the move. Well over on the other side of the swim one of the marshmallow brigade rears back on the rod "Fish ON!". There's not a whole lot else to do so everybody just watches, there's a bit of weight but it sure ain't running like a salmon, hmmmmm probably a carp. Fight keeps going on for a good five minutes of slow give & take, a carp would've been done by now....dang it sure looks bigger than the fight it's giving, this could be good.....the guys buddy stands by with the net as the line comes in closer & closer. Finally its up on the surface, net man goes in for the scoop......then pauses at the moment of truth. Their mutterings carried all across the rivermouth, piquing everybodys interest even more.

 

Heyyyyy, what is that.....

 

What the hell.......

 

HOLY CRAP IT'S A FUGGN' BEAVER!!!!!!

 

Yup, one of Kraft's finest has become lodged in the armpit of a now very irate beaver. Now there's two very important things about beavers that become very relevant if you've ever had to remove a hook from one:

 

1) They are larger than you think.

2) They are alot meaner than you think.

 

As these two guys are just standing there staring doesn't this damn beaver charge up like a 40lb. ball of brown fur fury and start chasing these two down a gravel road at a good clip, dragging buddy's rod behind him and screaming a blood curdling beaver war cry, WHEEEEECHEEECHEEECHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

 

After 50' or so another angler grabs the dragging rod, snaps the line and the Beaver Of Doom then waddles off and quietly slips away with one last tail slap to let everybody know who is the boss of this particular stretch of water.