Funny fishing stories

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

As most of you probably know by now, I am brand new at fly fishing and I can’t wait to get started. I have been reading and practicing everyday, well I’ve been reading everyday. By the time I get home from work, it is already dark, so I have been practicing casting on weekends. Anyway, I guess I sort of got to reminiscing about fishing with my Dad as a kid. (just with spinning reel, he has never fly fished either) We had numerous fishing trips and at least 3 that really stand out as being pretty funny. At least they are to us, we still talk about them from time to time. I can tell 2 of them, the third would be self incriminating.:slight_smile: I thought I would tell one, and see if any of the rest of you would like too.

I was about 12, when we made a trip to a local watershed. We took our fiberglass canoe. I had rode in one at 4-H camp and loved it. Dad found one for sale cheap and bought it, in fact we still have it. (can’t wait to try it flyfishing, which brings me to alot more questions, but I’ll hold off on those for now.) This is the only funny canoe story we have, where we were both still dry at the end of it. We had been fishing for maybe an hour or so, when it happened. Dad hung a big one, or so I thought.

As I don’t know who will be reading this, I’ll stop here and explain, that here in this part of the country we have what we call snapping turtles. Not the giant alligator snappers, like in florida, these are a smaller size. In fact I don’t think I have ever seen one around here more than a foot or so across. Except for this one. Now I realize time has a way of changing facts in our minds, but this snapper was at least 2 ft across. It came to the top of the water, and it was mad. Dad had hooked it some how right in the side of the shell. Right where the top meets the bottom part of the turtle. We still don’t know how it got hooked like that.

Now normally when confronted with a snapping turtle like this, you would cut the line. After all, nearly every one wants to end a fishing trip with the same number of fingers they started with. But that would be to easy for my Dad, besides he wanted his lure back. I don’t recall what the lure was, but as we mostly fished with swirl tailed jigs like the ones you buy at Wal-Mart, you know about a dozen for a dollar, and I am sure he didn’t have more than a nickel in it. Certaintly nothing worth losing a finger over. So Dad grabs the line and gives the snapper a mighty bounce up and down. The turtle came up out of the water, and the hook came off.

Now, I don’t know how many of you have ever rode in a canoe. They are a tremendous amount of fun, and something I truly enjoy doing. However, if there is one drawback to a canoe, it has to be the lack of room. A 2 man canoe, at least the one we have, doesn’t leave alot of space between the back and front man. Especially, and I can’t emphasize this enough, if you add in a very ticked off snapping turtle, which of course is right where he landed. By this time it had grown to roughly the size of a Volkswagen in my eye. It’s head was out, it’s mouth was open and it was looking right at me. Now I am not a professional writer, as I am sure you can tell, but perhaps I should have done mentioned, we were 50 ft or so from the bank, and I couldn’t swim a lick. All this went through my mind in an instant and I immediately decided I was going to die fighting.

Sitting at the front of a canoe, facing certain death (or so I thought) I raised my paddle over my head to defend myself against the deadliest foe I had ever seen. It is a testament to the kind of man my Dad is and how he raised me, that when he yelled, “Don’t hit it!” I stopped. I hope I can raise my own son to listen to his Dad that well. It was not the only time I had seen or heard my Dad do something that I thought was crazy, but I knew better than not to obey him. He then quickly explained, “You’ll knock a hole in the boat.” It seems he didn’t think the fiberglass bottom of our canoe was going to hold up to the mighty blow I was about to give that turtle. (and he was right)

It didn’t take long for the “hole in the boat.” statement to register, and quickly weigh out as a much worse predicament than the one we were already in. I don’t really know how to explain this by writing, but my Dad took his paddle and I used mine and we sort of “chop sticked” the turtle out of the canoe. The moment the turtle hit the water, he shrunk to about 10 inches across. Amazing what a little distance will do.

After we settled down, Dad quickly cast his 5 cent lure into a tree on the far bank. Which, as far as I know, is where it hangs to this day. It may not be funny to read or hear, maybe you just had to be there, but that is my story and I am sticking to it. I hope you enjoyed reading it, as much as I do telling it. Now, tell me yours…

2

Great story hungNtree!

Fishing and fly-fishing has given me so many fond memories, lots of funny ones! Like when I hooked a huge Northern pike and my uncle (4’6" tall and just as wide) ran a hundred yards to the car and back for the net. When he got to me he looked like an Oompa-Loompa after aerobics class.

I remember fishing a lake for 'gills in my pontoon once, when a huge wake came at me. Then a mouth that could swallow a softball opened up not two yards from me… huge snapper! I never kicked so hard in my life, but trying to doggy-paddle a pontoon boat backwards doesn’t lend much for speed. If turtles had eyebrows, he’d have raised one, then he turned and disappeared. I went home.

Then there’s the time when I tried to get a coveted spot at the local tailwaters and some local-yocal tried to beat me to it. Plummeting down the hill in neoprenes and a couple of spin rods, wire fish basket flailing, he stepped in a hole in the hill and launched forward, sliding almost to the bottom of the hill on his well-fed belly. (Think trained seal.) I let him have the spot.

Or when my buddy and I did a float trip for smallies and he left his poppers on a rock to air out overnight. In the morning they were gone, lots of raccoon tracks around. We still laugh thinking about the ribbing those coons got from their buds when they showed up with yellow and chartreuse poppers hanging from their jaws! Funnier still about that trip is the image of my friend running around in red longjohns with boxers over them, and a Strawberry Shortcake-looking hat, collecting natural coal from the riverbank to burn (purty green flames!). Then my wife asks “Did you catch anything?” “Yeah- Black Lung.”

3

As writers you both do very well. Great stories and as soon as I get the whiskey out of my keyboard I will file a cease and desist order against both of you!! :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Those were great and funny stories you fellas told. I was going to tell about when my nephew tried out his new pontoon kick boat, the back broke off the seat and he flipped out backwards but the whole thing is still in litigation and I have a gag order.:rolleyes: Oh well, some other time. Keep up the good work.Jimsnarocks

5

I took my daughters fishing on the Millers River and one of them cast their line over a downed tree and as soon as the lure hit the water a trout hit it. As my daughter was trying to get the line out of the tree she kept fighting the trout, as the line got tight, the trout came out of the water and into the tree branches. I had to use my fly line with a large fly on it and hook her line and have her let line out as I reeled in my fly line to get the trout over to where I was so I could release it. Nice rainbow, about 12", spent more time going in and out of the water that day than it did in it’s whole life. And yes the trout lived.

6

When I was young we lived in southern Missourri and my family camped nearly every weekend at Table Rock Lake and spent most of the day bass fishing. One day my father was prefishing a particular rocky section of shoreline for an upcoming tournament, using a 3/4 ounce bass jig, bouncing it along the bottom trying to imitate a fleeing crayfish. He was fishing from the bow of the boat, leaning against a tall seat and operating the trolling motor as he fished facing the shore, with his feet up on the side of the boat. He was bouncing the lure along the bottom on the rocks when it snagged in the rocks. My father leaned forward, pointed the rod tip at the lure, reeled in as much line as he could, and pulled the rod straight back intending to pull the lure free using the 20lb test line. The lure didn’t budge but instead the front of the boat drifted in towards the snag. Undetered, Dad stretched himself forward, reeled the line tight, and hauled back hard against the snag determined to break the line. Suddenly, the lure popped free of the snag, broke the surface of the water, and came flying through the air with enough speed that I could hear the hissing sound from where I was fishing in the middle of the boat. My father froze, suprised that the jig came free, and left himself completely exposed. The heavy jig hurtled towards him and hit him in the groin with a sickening thud. A brief titter of laughter escaped from my mother, in the back of the boat. My father let out a low moan and collapsed in the front of the boat. My mother couldn’t help herself and burst out laughing and took several minutes before she could compose herself enough to ask if he was ok.

To this day any time my Dad tries to break a line, he still turns sideways so as to protect the jewels…

7

Great stories guys. Hugefish 80 yours reminded me of the time my Dad was trying to get my little brother to catch his 1st fish. They were sitting on a little wooden bridge fishing. We had a picnic before we started fishing and Dad had a glass of tea with him. My little brother, James, felt a bite and Dad quickly yelled “jerk the rod” James jerked a little to hard, he missed the fish, but the hook and the worm all came up out of the water, and landed right in the Dad’s glass of tea. Probably never happen again, but I don’t think I have ever seen my Dad go fishing with a glass of tea again.

8

Probably a little longer than you intended, so I’ll post a link here. It’s a true one…mostly.
Enjoy.

http://www.hatchesmagazine.com/page/june2006/206

Deeky

9

Well this great – well done – hope you don’t mind if I wade in here with a couple of funny stories too:

I worked for a while in a fly shop. There was usual questions about this rod or that reel or what line to use. But the strangest request I had was from a man who came in for a landing net. He needed the largest fishing net we had. I asked what kind of fish he needed it for – thinking it was for a salmon or a steelhead or even possibly a muskie. No not exactly!!! Apparently the man was restoring a building nearby. And a seagull (probably an immature adult) had somehow managed to get into the basement (completely windowless) likely coming down the chimney. The problem was the bird had been making “deposits” that even a bank wouldn’t accept all over the newly finished concrete work. The seagull was obviously not very happy about being in such an enclosed space – and was very much alive – and active. Unfortunately the only nets we had in stock were for landing trout, not for providing a “landing strip” for a bird. I do hope the man was able to practise “catch and release” though. But I must admit to wondering how many flies one could have tied with all those seagull feathers.

Second funniest thing I heard while working in a fly shop was the guy who came in with his Sage rod for repair after he had broken the tip. Apparently his wife had decided to use his rod to rid their cottage of a bat when he arrived and he was “dumbfounded” to see her attempting to “swat” the bat with his rod. His loud “exclamation” at her use of his brand new Sage rod caused her to react by slamming the door of the bedroom (that the bat was residing in) on the tip of the rod, causing it to break. Eventually he was able to “reside” in the bedroom himself (once he had spent the night on the couch AND the bat was finally removed – “catch and release” was also used in this case too).

10

Ya know, Mike, it’s stuff like that keeps me from owning a television or watching cable or whatever it is folks do these days for artificial entertainment.

Nothing like the real thing! Life is always the best entertainment!!

Thanx!

11

Mike;
You now owe me a new key board, or at least cover the cost to get the Bloody Mary out of it!!