2 things - Saved carp and odd things

[OttoDita]

Saved, not caught

So I went down to the river today with my gear, even though it was pouring out. But I was bored, and still on my mission to catch a carp!

Well, when I got down under the bridge, I was shocked. I found more garbage, but this time it was a different bridge. Bread bags, empty corn cans etc. But that's not what shocked me. What shocked me was 9 carp flopping around on the rocks. 2 large carp, quite large and the rest from about 9-18". I know a lot of people hate them, and kill them. But to me, they're still animals. I don't mind if people kill them because they eat the game fish eggs etc. But I wish they kill them, not make them suffer. So, I got them back in the water and brought them back to where they swam away. Weather they survive or not I don't know. Only 2 didn't make it. And!!!!! I still haven't caught a carp!!!

What's the oddest/suprising thing you've seen out on the water or on your way to fish or while fishing etc?

Last year my son and I were wet wading the river and there's a bend that is quite deep, lots of rocks and sticks etc in it. So we didn't want to wade it. So we climbed the bank up onto the farmers property and cut across. Not a long hike, about 200 yards. While walking through the trees (Everygreens of some sort) there was an opening, loaded with marijuana plants. Maybe 20-30 of them. So we turned around and left and hiked up the other way of the river. Seen lots of wildlife, which we don't see too much of. Well, not beavers etc, so seeing them while fishing is quite nice. We stop fishing and watch them for several minutes when we do come across them.

Shane

[Scooter]

Shane, I would say that one of, if not the most oddest thing I've seen fishing happened back in the '80's. I was fishing with a friend in the lower Niagara River Gorge in the Devils Hole area. We were fishing with worms & sinkers. My friend reels his line in and happened to "hook" a dead, rotting rock bass. I say "hook" because he didn't actually hook it, but the bank sinker was lodged in this fishes mouth. What are the odds? Wish I had a camera with me that day.
The other happened in the upper Niagara River on Grand Island. We were catching large Sheepshead's (fresh water Drum). Again, using worms & sinkers. My brother in law leaves his pole unattended and sure enough one of these slobs pulls his entire rig into the river. Well about an hour later, one of the guy's we were fishing with "hook's" a fish. When he reels in we see that he has actually caught my brother in law's fishing pole. He pulled the once lost pole out of the water and reeled in the still hooked Sheephead.
There's been some other oddities, but those are two that will always come to my mind.
Tom.

[Grunt]

The strangest thing thing I saw happened in the 80's. I was working as a deckhand on a 130ft survey vessel testing sonar buoys out of St. Croix. We were a couple of miles off the north shore out over the Puerto Rican trench tracking a submarine. It was dead calm and we observed a large fish breeching a quarter of a mile ahead of us. I grabbed the binoculars and saw that it was a Sperm whale a half mile ahead instread of what we thought. It breeched while I was observing through the binoculars and I saw something that just blew me away. The whale had a giant squid in it's jaws. The crew was all topside and we passed around the binoculars. We motored over and found a section of tentacle about six inches in diameter and two feet long. The sighting was entered in the ships log.

[Bluegill222]

Just last year I was casting Clousers in a large tail water for stripers and snagged the filleted out carcass of what would have been about a 15 pound flathead catfish. What was weird was that I had snagged it in the lower lip, so that as it came in it looked for all the world as if it had taken the fly!