One that really sticks with me involves Jimmy Gabettas, who owns Jimmy’s All Seasons Angler in Idaho Falls.
Jimmy was fishing the Snake River below the American Falls Reservoir last summer, from a drift boat. He was stripping a tandem of streamers ( two ). A 19" rainbow took the lead streamer. After a couple minutes, Jimmy had the rainbow almost close enough to the boat to land it.
About that time, a smallmouth bass about the same size charged out from beneath the boat and latched onto the trailing streamer.
It took a bit longer, but Jimmy managed to land, and release, both the bow and the bass.
Got to be some interesting, weird, and fun stories out there, with or without pics to prove them !! How about sharing yours ??
Good idea John,
Several years ago, my wife and I were bass fishing a small lake north of Spokane Washington. On one occasion that day we saw a frog jump/running as fast as he could across the lily pads, followed closely thereafter by a largemouth bass. Both were on top of the pads and the chase lasted for at least 20 yards. The frog was going as fast as he could and the bass was tail walking on top of the pads as fast as he could. I don’t know which one won the chase.
On the same day, in the same small bay, we saw a largemouth bass come out of the water and take a fledgling Redwing Blackbird off of a low hanging branch. The bird was at least 18" above the surface of the water.
We saw both those things on the same day, about 30 minutes apart from each other.
I watched a film one day called; Mr. Big Mouth, narrated by Rod Serling. There was some extensive underwater filming by Glen Lau. One shot was of a largemouth bass following a mother duck with a string of ducklings following after her. The bass was coming up under the ducklings and sucked the last baby bird underwater into his gaping yaw. Evidently the bass didn’t like the taste of duck feathers, because he swam toward shore and spit the duck out. Surface photography showed the baby duck bob to the surface and swim to shore. I laughed till I was sore.
The one and only day that I fished 2 soft hackle flies. I was sitting in my float tube on East Lake and I must have been bored, because I tied on a section of leader to the main fly hook and attached another fly to that. After a short time, I had a fish on and I proceeded to bring that trout to my tube, but, there was something still on my line!?? LOL I actually hand lined the second trout to my tube LOL Thank God I wasn’t on film! I landed two more doubles after that, and I never fished that way again.
Doug
I’ll contribute to this… It’s always fun to listen and tell stories… Real or not…
I got a friend of mine interested in fly fishing last year when we took the long trip to Nashville to the Bass Pro there. He bought some odd-ball travel fly rod complete with cheap reel and cheap line and a very unattractive tube sock to store it in. Earlier this year I was showing him how to cast. Not that I can do any better mind you.
Well, I told him it was a matter of timing, so I explained it the way I see it. Take the slack out, back cast, wait for it to load and forward cast. He heard me, and he cast it like he was casting a hunk of liver to a catfish. I kept trying to explain it and he kept casting like it was a spin reel. I took a wild guess and tried casting his rod thinking that maybe it wasn’t cooperating. The rod did fine. I showed him time and again, and he hardly learned a thing.
So I caught a little bluegill (about 3 inches) and he caught one slightly longer, though I’m not sure how. I also caught a bunch of tree fish and stump fish thinking that if he saw how far I could cast that he would try harder. So after we were done, I thought that I would show him the flexibility of my rod thinking that if he understood how flexible it was he would understand casting a little better. So I took my little St. Croix, grabbed the handle and the tip and touched them together. This was followed by a loud “snap” which was followed by my colorful language for situations like that.
Needless to say, I was a little confused by the day. He couldn’t hardly cast 10 feet and had much better luck than I did the entire time…
That reminded me of working in an outdoor sporting goods store years ago – there was a spinning rod on the market made by Shakespeare called the Ugly Stick – part of the advertising (in many many outdoor magazines) was a picture of the Ugly Stick bent so that the tip was touching the handle – and the ad said the Ugly Stick was guaranteed to be indestructible – so one day a customer comes into the store to check out fishing rods – he grabs the first Ugly Stick he sees and bends the rod just like in the ad – well of course the resulting crack and shattering of a rod under such unnatural pressure is already well documented in the quote above by joerogrz – the customer obviously had believed in the power of advertising as he refused to pay for the broken Ugly Stick – no surprise, the store felt otherwise and at least this once proved that the customer is not always right, but not always wrong either – he ended up buying the Ugly Stick which the store then gladly returned to the Shakespeare company since the rod did have a lifetime warranty against breakage – and Shakespeare replaced his Ugly Stick no questions asked – I guess this was not the only customer who believed in truth in advertising – and at least the company stood behind its warranty – but the ad was changed shortly afterwards
It seems things havn’t been too strange this last year. I have a couple stories that are a little unusual.
Last winter I was fishing the lower illinois river which is about 150 feet wide on low water where I was fishing. I had wading across some fast knee deep water to fish a little pocket on the other side. I had landed 4 or 5 12 inch trout when I hooked one that was 15 inches. Despite my efforts the trout got below me in the heavy current. The trout jumped a few times when all sudden my reel started screaming. I caught one flash of a big fish (guesss 25++ inches). I turned and took a shallow wading angle back to the shore still losing line at an alarming rate. Just as I reached the slower water and turned my full attention back to the fish,the fish turned and was running back up stream. I reeled like crazy as I backed up to the shore but in the end I did not land either fish. There are big stripers in this river that eat trout so it could have been striper or it could have been a carp
(buffalo)that hit my second nymph. I lean toward a striper but I will never know.
On the Mountain Fork river just a few weeks ago i cast across some heavy current to the inside of a bend in the stream. I held the line near me off the faster water near my feet. I hooked a nice deep 17 inch trout and it took off up stream. Immediatly downstream from me was a 2ft step falls with fast water below. I was in a good postion to fight the fish as long as it stayed up stream from me. After a couple of runs upstream the fish decided it was going to run down over the step falls. I could not move up stream more that acouple of feet because of a large tree on my side. I got enough of a rod angle on the fish that i survived a couple of its over the falls attemps. Finally the fish was done fighting. Just as I reached down to unhook it a piece of brush came floating down stream in the current and gobbled up my brace of flies and trout taking the whole mess over the falls breaking my tippet in the process. Sometimes you just can’t win