What was your strangest, coolest, most unusual catch story..

[Harebear]

I can remember one day, I was fishing on Cripple Creek in S.W. Va at a place called Raven Cliff. A nice place with frequent mayfly hatches and spinner falls. This day in particular I was casting upstream into a narrow space along a fallen tree into a flood dam. There were limbs everywhere but that sweet patch of swirling water was too good to pass up. My first cast I dropped my #16 adams in as light as I could. Strangely enough, my tippet about 12 inches above my fly, draped across a strand of spider web and just dangled back and forth about 8 inches above the water. It was one of those impossible lucky casts into a tight spot and I didn't wnat to screw it up. So, I'm thinking... how can I get my fly to drop straight into this perfect spot? Well.... ten seconds of thinking was all that fish could stand. A 12 inch rainbow came almost completely out of the water , all but his tail, and dispatched my fly with heavenly force. The real challenge was getting this guy out of all that cover, but I did manage to horse him in. That was, by far, the strangest but coolest catch I believe I've ever had.

[estill]

My stangest catch happened Saturday. I was floating the Yakima River (WA) with a friend and we had stopped to try and figure out what a couple of fish were raising to. I waded over towards the shore and began tossing a grass hopper towards a couple of risers, when a 12-14" rainbow took the fly and headed down stream. He hade one good run then turned around and headed straight at me. He made on good jump and spit the fly. Before I could complete my sigh of dissappointment the fly hit the water and was promptly inhaled by andother 14" rainbow.

[Robert Taipala]

I was pan fishing on my favorite lake and had caught a small bluegill. As I was bringing it in a large bass bite the bluegill. In the process of the strike the bass became hooked as the bluegill traveled up the line thru the hook hole. As I was fighting the bass, another bass came up and bite the gill on the line. Although the second bass did release a few seconds later I did have three fish on a single fly.

[djo]

Mine was a slow double. I was fishing a beadhead nymph under an elkhair caddis attractor. A 14" brown grabbed the nymph and started running back and forth across the tiny spring creek. The fish was in close so the EHC was zipping around about a foot above the water. A second 14" brown jumped at the EHC and missed it only to jump and grab it on the next pass. The result was a double on the attractor-dropper combination but hooked about 15 seconds apart.

David

[rgregorchik]

Several years back I was fishing, Spruce Creek, in central Pa. as a guest. It was late July and very warm. Charley Mecks book called for #22 black tricos which I tied ahead of time. On a deep bend I threw out a #14 mayfly and an 18 in. "missle" brown came up from deep and "nosed" the fly, then swam away! I proceeded to offer a half dozen of my best ties in sizes 12 thru 18 and each time that trout "nosed" it then swam away! Finally, with many explicatives, I tied that #22 black trico on. The big brown came up, "nosed" it, paused forever(5 seconds), then lunged forward and devoured it... Great fight, brought to net, good release and lesson learned about tiny flies!

[Sawkill]

A number of years ago I lived at a small lake in northern New Jersey. One evening after all the swimmers had left, I went across the street to the beach to do a little fishing. On one of my first casts, I made my backcast and started to come foreward, but the fly was stuck. My first thought was "oh rats, I've snagged a tree." Then I realized that I was on a beach and there was nothing but sand for 100+ feet behind me, and I can't cast that far. So, I turned around and walked back to my fly, and there flopping around in the sand, was a bat, my fly in its mouth. Not thinking very clearly, I reached out, grabbed the bat, smoothed its wings back, and removed my fly from its mouth. I put the bat down, it looked at me for a second, I swear I heard it say "thanks," and it flew away. I never thought until I got home about the diseases, including rabies that bats carry, but everything worked out well for both of us. By the way, I stayed on the beach for a while and caught a couple of sunnies, and a very large Crappie.

Bob ...

[Royal Wulff]

RW here,

A 55 Buick. It spooled me. Nuff said

RW

[darrell]

reached the river - worked the area before stepping in - nada. So as I'm entering the river, line and fly dragging, the fly gets hung up 1/2 way across in the rapids. I step back to untangle it and there's a 10" rainbow on it.

[acadianfly]

I went fishing at my favorite oxbow lake here in Louisiana. I pulled up in my boat to one of my favorite spots for blue gill. I was using a local fly called a Jitterbee tied on a #10 hook. I was using a 2 weight fly rod. Right as I made my first cast and wet my fly for the first time a bass fisherman (ugh!) pulled up next to me in his $30,000 Blazer bass boat. He said he had fished all evening the day before and all morning and had not gotten a bite. He asked me if I had done any good. Just as I got out the words ?I just got here and wet my fly? I felt a tug on my rod. After about a 10 minute bout on my 2 weight I pulled a 3 ? pound bass into my little skiff! I never saw the guy again?

[Dave_Fulton]

A Seagull with a Clouser Minnow while fishing the IRI jetty in Delaware. It rose to my back cast.

The fellow I was fishing with gave me a quick demo on the proper C/R technique for seagulls.

Dave.