Strange But True Fish Tales 2024

Koz reply :

Have you ever had something really weird or strange happen when you were out fishing? If you have, share your story in this thread. I'll start it off with something that happened today.

We had perfect weather here today. Maybe not perfect for fishing, but perfect for humans. It was only 81 degrees out, low humidity, bluebird skies, and enough wind to keep the ripples moving on the lagoons. I was bank fishing a long stretch of shoreline, slowly making my way to the far end. I hadn't caught anything at this point, but I could see the bass were moving.

It should be noted we had a ton of rain this week and the lagoons were about a foot above their normal levels. Anyway, all of a sudden about 20 feet to my left I see a bass breach the surface right along the bank and he lands nose down in the high grass. I see the grass move a bit and then nothing, so I go to check it out. Sure enough, a bass about 1.5 pounds had wedged himself in the deep grass on the bank, leaving his tail sticking up. I picked him up, put him back in the water, and called it my first catch of the day.

I am the Fish Whisperer.

Glenn reply :

Had a similar thing happen to me once. I was fishing spinnerbaits when a bass inhaled it. He fought hard....hard enough to break my line. But about 2 minutes later, he came all the way out of the water, head shaking, spinnerbait in mouth..... and lands in a bush on the shoreline.

I went over to the bush, plucked the bass out, got my spinnerbait back, and let him go.

Sam reply :

Fishing for redfish in the Biloxi marsh southeast of New Orleans when I hooked a big bull red.

He pulled and pulled so hard that the line finally snapped.

About 5 minutes later, after re-rigging, I got another big hit and when we landed this bull red it had my hook in his mouth along with the line and bobber that he snapped off.

Fishingchucknj reply :

Was fishing with three in the boat. Everyone was throwing worms. Both my buddies set the hook at the same time. I was thinking that’s a nice double. As they were both getting their fish close to the boat I could tell something was amiss. Low and behold they had both caught the same fish. Both hooked in the mouth. Good thing it wasn’t big fish on the day seeings how we had money on that.

N Florida Mike reply :

One time I was bank fishing with a friend. He bent over and was looking at something in the water. All of a sudden he thrust his hand in the water and pulled out a 2 pound bass.

Another time I made a bad cast and it went over the top Cross beam of a dock , which was 10 -15 feet above the water. It came down and landed in the water and a bass got on it immediately. I set the hook and pulled the bass up to the top of the beam but couldn’t get it over . It got stuck there and the bass flopping trying to get loose.It was too high to get to , and we started laughing at the rediculousness of it. I was about to cut the line and the bass fell back in.

I have also set the hook and missed a fish , and had the bait go over the boat and land a fair distance away. And a fish get on it then.

Another time I was bank fishing in my back yard and set the hook on a fish that broke my line. I yelled a little in disgust but then noticed the broken off line still laying right near the bank and starting to move away as the fish began picking up steam. I jumped over a kayak , landed in the water and was able to grab the line in the same motion. Then I hand-lined it in . 4 pounder!????

geo g reply :

I have had several of these happen.

1). Twenty years ago I was fishing a Bill Dance crankbait in the Big 67 canal, the bass broke me off and jump several times trying to get rid of the bait. I thought that bait was gone forever. An hour later, I heard a rattle about a quarter mile away from the original spot. I motored over and found my bait floating on the surface. He finally freed himself from my bait, and I recover it to be used again.

2). I was throwing a weightless fluke on the Loxahatchee flats and while fighting the fish it broke me off. Two hours later I hooked a fish in the same area. Upon landing it I saw my fluke with my #3 gama hook still embedded in its jaw. What are the odds of catching the same fish, still ready to eat again, with my hook and fluke still in its jaw. These are tough critters!

3). One early summer morning my son and I were fishing the everglades canals in the heart of the everglades. The sun had not come up yet and we were in area with islands surrounded by swamp. All of a sudden there was a load cry from a big cat on one of the islands. We then heard a cry from a different cat about a mile away. We sat in silence just listening. The two panthers kept this love affair going for about twenty minutes, with a cry about every thirty seconds. It was an exceptional experience since the one cat was less than 50 yards from us.

the reel ess reply :

On 6/15/2019 at 11:25 PM, Fishingchucknj said:

Was fishing with three in the boat. Everyone was throwing worms. Both my buddies set the hook at the same time. I was thinking that’s a nice double. As they were both getting their fish close to the boat I could tell something was amiss. Low and behold they had both caught the same fish. Both hooked in the mouth. Good thing it wasn’t big fish on the day seeings how we had money on that.

My dad and I did the same thing.

I had a bass break my Spook Jr off and jump later and spit it out. I retrieved the Spook.

I was fishing one night with my buddy about sundown and we spotted an owl in a tree close by. The owl swooped down for my topwater and I yanked it away at the right moment. About 2 minutes later it swooped back the other way and I yanked it away again. I really did not want to be fighting an owl.

Way north bass guy reply :

Last year fishing with my dad for smallmouth, we were on a chain of lakes near where he lives in northern Ontario. There’s a ton of bald eagles all around the area, and on one lake we had one that would fly from tree to tree as we were working down the bank. He was quite vocal, almost like he was trying to tell us that this was his turf and we weren’t supposed to be fishing there.

Well after about 200 yds of this, I hooked about a 3lb smallie and every time it jumped, the eagle would swoop down to try and grab it out of the air. It got to the point where I had to really yank on the fish to try to keep it down, even ripping it out of the air just before he grabbed it. Never seen that before.

Sam reply :

I remembered one like geo g had happen to him.

Fishing my double secret pond in March two years ago I hooked a big one and she broke off, taking my Bandit blue and yellow crankbait with her.

Fast forward to October for my last venture of the season and something catches my eye on the bank. Yep! My blue and yellow Bandit.

One side is white from being bleached by the sun and I use it in tournaments as my lucky crankbait.

jbmaine reply :

On 6/15/2019 at 10:34 AM, Koz said:

Have you ever had something really weird or strange happen when you were out fishing?

This wasn't strange or weird but sure was a once in a life time thing that happened to me.

Some years ago I was up in northern Maine flyfishing for trout. Early one morning I was fishing out of my canoe on a wilderness trout pond. The water was dead calm and the mist was heavy on the water. I heard a noise on the shore, it sounded like something got in the water and started towards me ( I couldn't see it, mist was too thick). I was thinking beaver, and figured I'd hear a tail slap when he saw me. So I'm waiting and watching, and out of the mist, about 20ft. away , comes a huge bull moose swimming right at me. I just froze, didn't know what to do. He saw me and changed course just enough to miss me.

I don't know why I did it, but as he swam past me, His big eye staring at me, I moved my hand just enough so I could touch his antlers as he went by.

Still think about that moment from time to time.

Jim

CrankFate reply :

Only strange thing that ever happened was fishing on a dark dreary day on a pier with the water about 2” deep on the pier at high tide. There were, for the first time I’ve ever seen in 35 years at this spot, false albacore everywhere. I kept hooking and losing them, because my hooks were too big. One comes directly towards my feet at about 50mph, then just an inch from the pier makes a perfect turn putting his body sideways facing me thereby making a wake that completely soaked me. I still do not know how this was possible without crashing. It completely defied physics. Within a half hour, the water was up to my ankles and I then saw a large shark right alongside me on the other side of the pier. About 5 feet away. At that point, I packed up and went home.

Sam reply :

On 6/16/2019 at 9:51 AM, CrankFate said:

Only strange thing that ever happened was fishing on a dark dreary day on a pier with the water about 2” deep on the pier at high tide. There were, for the first time I’ve ever seen in 35 years at this spot, false albacore everywhere. I kept hooking and losing them, because my hooks were too big. One comes directly towards my feet at about 50mph, then just an inch from the pier makes a perfect turn putting his body sideways facing me thereby making a wake that completely soaked me. I still do not know how this was possible without crashing. It completely defied physics. Within a half hour, the water was up to my ankles and I then saw a large shark right alongside me on the other side of the pier. About 5 feet away. At that point, I packed up and went home.

Crank, my uncle used to take me and my two cousins fishing in the Gulf of Mexico and the Biloxi marsh on weekends. We usually found a sandbar near the Chandeleur Islands and fished for speckled trout, redfish and anything that would bite, putting them on a stringer by our sides as we waded the sand bars.

One time, according to my cousin who says he witnessed this on a sandbar, he saw my uncle go straight up six feet and then over six feet and landed in the 16-foot skiff. Seems a shark swam right between his legs.

This did not stop us dummies from continuing to fish the sandbars. It just made us cognizant of the danger we were creating by putting our catches on a stringer next to our legs before putting them in the skiff.

My uncle had a 42-foot Chris Craft and we pulled two skiffs: 14-foot and a 16-foot, out of the Pearl River in Mississippi. Both had live wells. We used his 18-foot trolling nets to catch our live bait (shrimp and baby croakers) and put them in the live wells.

If we hit shrimp in the marsh or Gulf we would shrimp all weekend and end up with around 400 pounds of Gulf shrimp. My cousins and I hated going after the shrimp as it was hard work; we got stuck more times than we can remember; and we had to stop and mend the nets when a shark or large fish would swim through them.

I saw and felt my first hammerhead shark one weekend while shrimping. It was a small one, about two feet long. Interesting animal. We threw him back.

Great memories and lots of fun. Thanks for your post that brought back those positive memories of growing up in south Louisiana.

CrankFate reply :

On 6/16/2019 at 6:31 PM, Sam said:

Crank, my uncle used to take me and my two cousins fishing in the Gulf of Mexico and the Biloxi marsh on weekends. We usually found a sandbar near the Chandeleur Islands and fished for speckled trout, redfish and anything that would bite, putting them on a stringer by our sides as we waded the sand bars.

One time, according to my cousin who says he witnessed this on a sandbar, he saw my uncle go straight up six feet and then over six feet and landed in the 16-foot skiff. Seems a shark swam right between his legs.

This did not stop us dummies from continuing to fish the sandbars. It just made us cognizant of the danger we were creating by putting our catches on a stringer next to our legs before putting them in the skiff.

My uncle had a 42-foot Chris Craft and we pulled two skiffs: 14-foot and a 16-foot, out of the Pearl River in Mississippi. Both had live wells. We used his 18-foot trolling nets to catch our live bait (shrimp and baby croakers) and put them in the live wells.

If we hit shrimp in the marsh or Gulf we would shrimp all weekend and end up with around 400 pounds of Gulf shrimp. My cousins and I hated going after the shrimp as it was hard work; we got stuck more times than we can remember; and we had to stop and mend the nets when a shark or large fish would swim through them.

I saw and felt my first hammerhead shark one weekend while shrimping. It was a small one, about two feet long. Interesting animal. We threw him back.

Great memories and lots of fun. Thanks for your post that brought back those positive memories of growing up in south Louisiana.

Crazy. But no doubt it’s true. My father did a little commercial fishing when I was a kid, so I had seen sharks many times. Everywhere everyone would say “there’s no sharks in there.”

Fae Hime Blossom reply :

A friend recently told me this story from his days as a commercial fisherman down off the West coast long lining for tuna (not bass but it's interesting!)

Middle of the day with the sun shining, not another soul in sight as the small boat tugs a handful of lines going close to full speed (4 or 5 knots?). There was two decks, the uppermost being about 15-20 feet out of the water. Well, my friend was looking out behind the boat from this deck when suddenly the biggest bull shark him or any of the crew has ever seen decides to check out what's on the menu today. This thing was so massive, the tip of his tail was eye level with him as the beast stalked their ship!

Everyone just kind of stared, awestruck, until they saw/felt it grab hold of one of their lines. And keep in mind, this is 500lb heavy-duty commercial line. It snapped.

The recoil was like a gun shot hitting the back of the boat. At which point the captain comes out wondering what the **** is going on. Lil bully boy is catching up again though so not much explanation is needed. He grabs another line and the captain calls them all idiots for being on deck still. Nevermind the line snapping and hitting you- imagine if it nudged the ship? You slip and fall in the water, you're as good as dead.

So captain goes back to the helm and puts it full throttle.

*SNAP* second line gone."****, we're gonna lose all our gear if we don't lose him"
Literally going as fast as possibly but it still grabs a third.

*SNAP*
luckily at this point it lost interest/had a good snack and a nice lil workout so it left them alone. I dont doubt it could've caught up with it again despite being at full speed.

Some scary **** out there... ????

Oregon Native reply :

Was fishing a north coast stream in Oregon many years ago and was fishing for steelhead with glo bugs. I caught this one steelhead about eight or nine pounds and since I didn't want to take fish to bank at the time to land it I just cut the leader. Fish was hooked in side of mouth. Retied on another glo bug .... cast again... hooked up with another steelhead...same fish....was hooked in the other side of mouth with a different color bug....!! Nope...did not bite again.

Jigfishn10 reply :

All great stories here.

One day I was fishing a crankbait and felt something weird. I thought I had snagged but could feel a fish on my line, but I could tell that the fish wasn't on my crankbait. It was heavy and a struggle to reel in. I final got my lure back and on the belly treble was a 3 way swivel that was hooked dead center. The 3 way had a line going out, so I hand lined in an caught a rainbow trout. Strange thing about it, there was no other line or sinker on the 3 way.

Big Mike in Fl reply :

Sitting on a dock in the Indian river lagoon, Bait fishing for whatever would bite as a young teen, a group of porpoise were chasing mullet, in skinny water around the docks that lined the shore. I saw a mullet jump, and the porpoise jump, catch the mullet, and jump clear over a dock! Won’t ever see that again.

also had about a 2lb bass jump straight into the boat, wasn’t hooked or anything, just chasing bait and jumped right in.

Coolest experience though was witnessing gators pool up some sort of fish, either shad, or gar. Hundreds of gators in an area of a football field, they would then come under the fish and hit them like bass hitting a top water. Something I’m pretty sure very few people have ever witnessed

Justin Roberts reply :

This past Saturday I was bank fishing at the city lake, which is fairly over-fished, when gunshots came from a house nearby. I couldn't see the house or who was firing, but I hit the ground after hearing the bullets fly through the trees. That was startling to say the least, especially with how busy that lake is.

Back in March, I was fishing the local large lake when I lost my best spinnerbait right at the bank. The next day I got hung up in the same spot, catching my line from the day before and my spinnerbait!

At this same cove, there was a bald eagle flying around, which is a rare site around here.

Log Catcher reply :

Several years ago I was fishing a lake I really like. I had just caught a fish when I heard a splash next to the bank. I didn't think it was a fish so I didn't throw over there. Then I heard it again. I sat there and waited a minute and a water snake came out on the bank with with a small catfish in its mouth. I had never seen that before.

N Florida Mike reply :

I hope y’all don’t mind a few more. These are wildlife stories...

I was out with my g. Daughter a few years ago, and we were fishing the home lake by the island. She has real good vision and said “ I see an owl in that tree over there “ I looked and saw it too , and cut loose my owl call. He immediately flew over to a limb right over us and started checking us out , probably thinking we were the strangest looking other owls he had ever seen.It was a fun experience to share with her.

Another time I was fishing with my best friends teenage son. He made a comment out of the blue “ I’m scared of bats “ I don’t think I’ve ever heard another fisherman say that. 5 minutes after he said that, a bat was flying by and when he went to cast the bat got stuck between his line and rod. Never seen that happen before or since. Since he was entent on watching his bait in the water, he did not notice the bat. I kept telling him but he acted like he didn’t hear me and the bat finally got free. I think David thought I was pulling his chain...????

WVU-SCPA reply :

Lost the same chatterbait two times to the same submerged log over two different Tuesday night tournaments. I caught it the next week after losing it the first time and my partner caught it 2 weeks after losing it the 2nd time.

I might have to tie it on tomorrow and see if the third time is the charm.

Rip_lipz reply :

My home town has a boat launch that goes into the CT river. Last week a fishermen called in that he saw a body floating down river. First responders took off to recover it, it was half of a manikin floating.

TnRiver46 reply :

On 6/18/2019 at 4:15 AM, Rip_lipz said:

My home town has a boat launch that goes into the CT river. Last week a fishermen called in that he saw a body floating down river. First responders took off to recover it, it was half of a manikin floating.

I found a guy in the water that I kept hoping was a manikin or scarecrow. Unfortunately it wasn't

MartinTheFisherman reply :

On 6/18/2019 at 4:39 AM, TnRiver46 said:

I found a guy in the water that I kept hoping was a manikin or scarecrow. Unfortunately it wasn't

oh my god, are you serious? what happened?

TnRiver46 reply :

On 6/18/2019 at 5:06 AM, MartinTheFisherman said:

oh my god, are you serious? what happened?

I don’t think they ever found out what happened as far as I know. He was deceased floating vertically in the river. It was about 10 feet deep and the current was moving but he wasn’t. 29 years old, they found his car in Roanoke, VA I believe and he was last seen at a bus station in downtown Knoxville

haggard reply :

On 6/16/2019 at 6:05 AM, jbmaine said:

comes a huge bull moose swimming right at me. I just froze, didn't know what to do. He saw me and changed course just enough to miss me.

I don't know why I did it, but as he swam past me, His big eye staring at me, I moved my hand just enough so I could touch his antlers as he went by.

Jim... the title is "strangest" not "scariest" :smile1:

I was in the yak on a pond using ultralight gear for panfish. Got a fish, unhooked it and laid the rod across the yak while I released the fish. I didn't realize it but the lure was dangling a few inches below the surface. Released the fish, picked up the rod to make another cast, and there was a fish on it.

Jigfishn10 reply :

On 6/18/2019 at 4:39 AM, TnRiver46 said:

I found a guy in the water that I kept hoping was a manikin or scarecrow. Unfortunately it wasn't

That must have been awful?

Not to mention a thread killer.

TnRiver46 reply :

On 6/18/2019 at 8:05 PM, Jigfishn10 said:

That must have been awful?

Not to mention a thread killer.

It was slightly creepy but luckily I wasn't involved with any of the awful parts. I try to stay out of bus stations and train stations.

https://www.wvlt.tv/home/headlines/Body-found-in-Fort-Loudon-Lake-198389671.html

Troy85 reply :

These are some great stories. Nothing to crazy but I got a few.

1. Trolling down a grassy flat pitching a worm into holes in the grass. Come up to a small isolated tree stump, I look back to my brother and called the shot. I tell him, there has to be a fish next to this stump. I pitch my worm next to the log, and sure enough. There was a bass there, but instead of eating the worm like he should, the fish spooks and jumps about 3' out of the water. We both got a good laugh. Came back about an hour later, 2nd time he acted right and took the bait.

2. I was cat fishing a few years back. Only caught 1 that day but I didn't actually hook the fish. I hooked the eye of a hook that was already in the fishes mouth.

3. Fishing around a bunch of lay downs. I see this log, that just looks like it has to have a bass. It just looks perfect, how could a fish not be sitting there. On the log is a baby turtle out catching some sun. I make my pitch, as my lizard is in the air it spooks the turtle into the water. As soon as the the turtle makes contact with the surface, the largest topwater explosion I have ever seen, turtle just vanishes. My lizard lands in that same spot about a half second later...if only I had beat the turtle to that spot.

Don Harris reply :

Not necessarily strange or weird but a rare sighting nonetheless. I once saw a bass eat a duckling at Shelby Forest in Tennessee. Mom was leading them in a line. Suddenly there was a huge boil in the water and one of the ducklings vanished.

A buddy of mine and I were fishing a creek WAY back in the sticks. This is the kind of place you hear banjos playing. There was an old man named Whited that lived nearby. We heard splashing around off in the distance and low and behold, Mr. Whited comes walking out of the lily pads with a rifle. My buddy asked him what he was doing. Mr. Whited said, "Deer hunting." This was the middle of summer. My friend asked what kind of rifle it was and he said a .22. I asked him if he was worried about getting in trouble with the Game Warden and he replied, "Ain't no Game Warden gonna mess with an old man out walking around in a swamp with a .22 deer hunting." Crazy old man.

The same friend and I were at the same creek fishing in his 2-man scamp. Suddenly we had a ricocheted bullet go right between our heads. Scared us both to death. We kinda laughed nervously and said it must have been Mr. Whited deer hunting again.

Once I was fishing a private 300 acre lake. I kept hearing something thrashing in the water on the other side of the cove. After a few times, I went across to see what it was. When I got over there it stopped completely. I went back across and started fishing again. The huge explosions started back again. I couldn't stand it. I had to see what it was. I went back across. This time it continued. It was a huge bass with a large bluegill stuck in its throat/mouth. I lipped the bass and forced the bluegill out, released both and they swam off.

Hyrule Bass reply :

I once "lassoed" a catfish

Dirtyeggroll reply :

This happened last Friday.

Jig fishing a rock pile I get a bite and set the hook. I had definitely hooked into something but it felt more like something inanimate like a small twig or bag. Reeled it back to the boat and it was a ~4 lb bass. Dead. Not sure if the hookset was too much stress for it or if the hook had somehow hit an important nervous system structure but the fish was dead. It definitely tugged on my line prior to the hookset.

N Florida Mike reply :

Here’s some more.

I was rowing a jon boat once and facing backwards I saw a fish swimming all around erratically. I went back and when he came by I scooped him up. I put him back in and he wasn’t any better. I reckon I konked him with the oar while rowing. Happily, he was not wasted.

Another time I was cast netting bait in a tidal creek and when I pulled it up there was a redfish skeleton in it.

Recently I hooked a bass , reeled it in, and saw The bait had gone all the way through the gills and out and the fish was hooked in the side. No gill damage either.

I told this one before awhile back. My wife asked me what I wanted for Father’s Day one year, and I told her a new baitcasting combo. She didn’t reply, which generally means NO. So the next day she took the kids fishing, had what she thought was a bite, reeled it in , and there was a baitcasting combo on her line.

I got my Father’s Day present...????

OCdockskipper reply :

I was skipping some docks during the middle of the day when I came across this in about 2 feet of water. It took me about 30 seconds to figure out what it was, I kept thinking it was an otter or something else that you would never find in Southern California.

Troy85 reply :

On 6/19/2019 at 11:16 AM, Dirtyeggroll said:

This happened last Friday.

Jig fishing a rock pile I get a bite and set the hook. I had definitely hooked into something but it felt more like something inanimate like a small twig or bag. Reeled it back to the boat and it was a ~4 lb bass. Dead. Not sure if the hookset was too much stress for it or if the hook had somehow hit an important nervous system structure but the fish was dead. It definitely tugged on my line prior to the hookset.

You weren't fishing from a bridge were you??!?!? When I was 3 or so, fishing from a bridge. My uncle snuck down under the bridge and very carefully hooked a dead speckled trout on my line that he had caught an hour or so earlier. I found out years later when I was looking at some photos and my dad said "hey, theres that dead fish that your uncle hooked on your line". ????

TnRiver46 reply :

Another one last night..... I had to drive in-between the police boat and the fire department boat in pitch black dark and fog to get back to the ramp. Luckily my buddy had sent me this screenshot 30 minutes prior so I was expecting it. Honestly this isnt too out of the ordinary, I live next to a small airport and they crash land pretty often

BigSkyBasser reply :

On 6/18/2019 at 8:29 PM, TnRiver46 said:

It was slightly creepy but luckily I wasn't involved with any of the awful parts. I try to stay out of bus stations and train stations.

https://www.wvlt.tv/home/headlines/Body-found-in-Fort-Loudon-Lake-198389671.html

I remember you telling me about this. Still sounds horrible!!!

11335

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