Ok let us have some fun here what is the strangest thing you have ever seen while fly fishing?
Here is mine I once saw a man fishing in the middle of the river wearing all the normal fishing stuff the strange thing was he was wearing clown makeup :?
I just waved and kept walking
Jason
:shock: A Steven King book just came to mind! I’d keep walking too!!! :?
I don’t think I can beat that one!!
I once saw a girl fishing topless…nothing but waders and a mesh fishing vest.
Stange? Maybe…Awe inspiring? Without a doubt!
I saw a bunch of clowns spin fishing in flys only once.
Godspeed
Bob
If strange includes funny then - from “You Can’t Make a Living Tying Flies”
“Another Chuck story that I had forgotten until he reminded me of
it the other day.
Now Chuck thought so much of hot shotting and being of good
intelligence and adventurous spirit, he decided to invent a new method.
He had seen people use float tubes on lakes and even some more
adventurous souls use them for transportation on the river. But what
about hot shotting? Could they be of use there?
So Chuck got a float tube, fashioned a rod holder on it, secured
two ping pong paddles with cord to the side handles, grabbed a spinning
rod and set off downstream from Cabin 1 saying, ?I?m going where the big
ones are!? Considering the air was 34 degrees just like the water this was
going to be an adventure.
Next time we saw Chuck, sans rod, hat, and a little pride, he was
heading back for the cabin. Turns out, as he proceeded down river to just
above a likely looking hole and tied a line to a accommodating bush and
waded out into the current. Needless to say the current had its way with
him. We rarely ever mention this foray to Chuck. Right!”
Godspeed,
Bob
My wife and I were out in our 25ft cabin cruiser, trolling bucktails on Okanagan lake early in the morning . When out of the fog came a 19ft open boat trolling slowly by. It was probably no more than 30 feet from us. The fellow in the back steering the kicker was shouting at his wife to quit doing that because she was scaring all the fish. She was thumping loudly up and down, up and down, up and down climbing a set of those exercise stairs . She yelled an obsenity back at him and retorted. Yea? Well screw you buddy! I told you I had to exercise, let the $%^(*&ing fish wait. As they dissapeared once again into the morning fog, We laughed almost till we were ill. In the distance we heard the woman yell back at us Yea well Screw you too!
Certainly made our my day. :lol: :lol:
Maybe it’s “A movement”!? Because I’ve also met a young lady, in “Birthday suit attire”, while fishing the Nehalem River summer before or last!?
Wading in hip boots, wading staff, and light cotton LL Bean’s vest. Orvis rod and an Abel TR2 reel. About 22 to 20 something, years old I’d guess-ta-mate. Yes, I noticed the details of her “fishing gear”, because as I sat on a large, flat, rock to re-tie a tippet she came out of the water, walked over and sat down 3 feet away to talk.
She struck up the usual “fly fisherman’s conversation”, about bugs on the water at that time of day, the trouble she’d been having with the currents and mending her line just right, etc. Quite a nice, young lady, very pretty red head, exceptional figure and also was very well versed in the sport, but evidently “liked to fish lightly dressed”!?!
After our exchange, she walked off, upstream and I sat for a while longer, getting my tongue un-knotted out of the double surgeon’s knot, between my leader and tippet I’d tied while we talked.
The only other instance of “oddities on the water”, I’ve seen perhaps, “funnier” as opposed to “shocking”, was one time on the lake near me, while a couple of us were belly boating for largemouth.
We saw a man on shore drive in and park, unload his U-boat, then inflate another much smaller nylon covered inner tube and commence strapping the smaller one, to his U-boat.
Once both inflatables were in the water, he took a small self contained outboard from his truck and mounted it inside some sort of transom set up in the smaller tube. He got in, pulled the cord on the little putt-putt and off her went, heading down the lake!!
It was quite the strange site, considering the “aqua-dynamics” of a U-boat, coupled with the round shape of the tube for the motor, plus he was also obviously dragging his legs underwater!?! NOT, to mention, the way he’d set this whole “rig” up… he naturally traveled backwards, under power, too!
Different days at East Lake in Central Oregon.
Wife & I took her Sister out Float Tubing for the first time. She had a great time and even caught some fish!, THEN, when all 3 of us got to the shore, at the end of the day, I FORGOT to warn her NOT to try and walk forward with her Flippers. Becky went face first, right into the Lake! We laughed for the rest of the day!
The Game Warden almost ran over me in my Float Tube (he wasn’t looking where he was going)
My Son hooked and landed a 30 inch Brown on a size 16 nymph.
Periodically I would catch small Chub and I started feeding them to the Gulls. I pulled in a BIG Chub and I said “Watch This!” I threw the Chub toward a Gull, he somehow swallowed it, then he couldn’t take off!!
My Son got snagged after telling me he had a fish on. I took his GL3 and reefed, pulled as hard as I could! It finally broke loose and WOW! here comes the biggest pile of weeds I had ever seen! And there was a Rainbow in it too!
Two Days at Paulina Lake (close to East Lake)
My Brother lost one of my Rods overboard and by a miracle, I caught the Rod and I will NEVER forget the JOY of watching that Rod come up from the bottom!! I screamed with happiness at the same moment a couple in a boat went by. :lol:
We were trolling flies with spinning gear (not my idea!) and a Rainbow Trout zoomed past our boat and took my fly about 30 ft. away! It was an amazing moment!
Doug
east lake and paulina lake those are some awesome waters with scenery to match. You are blessed to live close enough to fish them
Just this past summer, I saw a guy standing in the river completely buck naked…with a fish on, no less.
harleybob87,
The 7.5 mile trail around Paulina is my favorite hike. The weather, not my favorite. East is a completely different Lake and it is a Fly Fishing Lake, because of the weeds.
Doug
The strangest thing a saw in all my years was more then 23 years ago in august we were u camping and a couple(2 women) were camp just down from us. I got up early to hit the river and as I entered the river there was one of the ladies stark naked with a big cigar in her mouth and a pair of tennis shoes on fishing my favorite hole. fished up and down the river with her and invited her and her wife back to camp for a fresh trout dinner nice people
Doug,
When I was at east lake ther was not a weed problem so much but there were some huge trout. That was about 20 years ago tha also was in july or august and we got snowed on most of the week
Hopper-
Before I ask what river, bend, time of year…Could you give me an approx. age? 
J/K. I would definitely stay for “one more cast”!
[quote=“River_Teeth”]
Hopper-
Before I ask what river, bend, time of year…Could you give me an approx. age? J/K. I would definitely stay for “one more cast”![/quote]
you and me both
We weren’t flyfishing, we were jiggin’ for Lingcod in about 18 fathoms off the CA coast at Crescent City, My brother and I, about 1980. We were about 25 miles out in our 26 ’ Cabin Cruiser, when I spotted what I thought were some seals playin around about 20 yards off the rock that St. Georges lighthouse is on. They were about four miles off, so I handed my Bro. the Binocs to check 'em out, and he says " Them ain’t seals, that’s a couple old boys in a boat, and they’re wavin for us to come over" Turned out to be two gents in they’re 70’s out trollin for salmon in their 12 foot aluminum Sears cartopper. It was plumb swamped, and everything had floated off except them and their 15 horse sears outboard, which may never have run again. They were very calm, considering they’d been like that for quite a spell, and were darn cold. Not to mention, there wasn’t another boat besides us within sight for 360 degrees of the compass, and they were out of sight of land. We brought 'em alongside, and put our bilge pump in their boat. we stowed them boys in our cabin with blankets, hot chocolate and sardines to warm ‘em up, and after we got their boat fairly pumped out we towed ‘em till the Coast Guard arrived & took over. When them OL’ boys got warmed up, they didn’t want to go in, they insisted on hangin’ with us and doin some fishin. All they had to say about the deal was “thanks boys, we knew somebody’d happen along in a little while. We was gettin damn cold though.”…Some people’s kids, eh ? …ModocDan
There’s a high alpine lake north of here where the Fish and Game Department stocks older, full grown rainbows from the hatchery. They manage the lake and you are only supposed to keep 2 fish over 14 inches, no bait, etc. It’s not hard to catch 14+ inch fish there and not uncommon to catch 24+ inch fish. I was in a float tube, and was spending the last part of the day watching the eagles fish. Several of them were waiting for one of the others to catch a fish and then a mid-air chase and fight would begin. The winner was always one of the larger, mature birds.
At one point, a young golden eagle dove to the top of the water. He must have latched on to a very large fish, and either didn’t or couldn’t let go…It pulled him under and he never came back up.
Joel,
That is an amazing story! One day at a lake near Mt. Hood, my nephew and I were float tube fishing. Preston and I were only about 40 ft. apart, when out of no where a mature Bald Eagle dove between us, grabbed a trout and took of again. I will never forget how BIG those talons looked!
Doug
That is a great story! The wild beast of the land and air are always better fishermen than we are. :shock:
Doug,
It’s a truly amazing sight watching them fight, talon to talon, in mid-air. The acrobatics of turning, twisting, climbing and diving with no regard for anything other than the fish is wild. At times they came so close to me that I could feel the wind coming off of their wings. Best Regards…
ive got two stories.
3 years ago i was in michigan fishing and me and my dad were trolling.(before i took up fly fishing) so we had been fishing for a while just calmly trolling back and forth across this lake, and it was soooooooo relaxing. i was starting to get a little drousy, and out of nowhere, this loon pops up right bext to our little 12 foot aluminum boat right next to me. it scared the heck out of me and i accidentaly dropped my pole overboard. so i looked at my dad, and he said" just grab another rod" so i did. about 2-3 minutes later he says"alright i think i got something" so i get the net ready and hes bringing it in and by this point he just thinks its weeds because it wasnt fighting at all. so he gets it close and it was fishing line! so we started pulling the fishing line in and my dad feels a buch of weight on one end and tugging on the other. so we finall y got on end of it in and it was my fishing pole! so i grabbed the pole so i could reel in the rest of the line and i got in all the line that was in the boat and something was tugging at the line in the water. i brougt it in and it was a 14 in bass. after i got the fish in we both looked at it and started laughing. it was a great day
and my next stroy was at locushade park.
now at some bodies of water, there is a no fishing section. locushade happens to be one of those accursed places. and it seems as if the fish no it too. if you walk up to it (its a small roped off area next to the docks) you will see about 300-400 bluegills. behind them is always the biggest darn bass ive ever seen( about 25-30 inches each. and behind them there will be a few more bluegills and then there are the carp. there are about 4 of the huge submarines in this pond and they are about 50-60 inches long. they basically look like submerged trees with huge scales. well i was sitting on a bench contemplating a loophole so i could catch some of the brutes when a goose swam over. THAT got all the fishes attention. i looked at them all and the goose started swimming over closer and stopped about a foot away from one of the carp. slowly the carp starts to rise, and suddenly it splashed out of the water and tried to eat the goose. it had the gooses bottom half in its mouth when the goose started flapping its wings like mad to get away. im not sure what happened i think the goose may have kicked the carp in the mouth, but it let go and the goose flew off.
i was just sitting there with my jaw to the ground amazed at what happened but about a minute later a just fell to the ground laughing. one of the attendents(or whatever theyre called) walked over and asked me why i was laughing. i told him what happened and he just said “yeah, them’ll do that”