solost, I’m glad to hear that you are giving fishing another chance.
I lost the red bobber in a tree. I tried to tease it out, pulled this way and that, nope, not coming out. Finally just gave it a good yank (the branch looked dead, maybe it’d snap…) and broke my line. There’s my red bobber, glowing in the tree. My boyfriend and I stared a moment, then simultaneously, “O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree…” Good times.
Malthus, When I was little, I was fishing in a campground and snagged something immovable. Couldn’t free my line, and we only had so many hooks. We could tell by where the line came out of the water that it was only about 8’ off the bank. My brother and sister waded in to pull it out.
I caught a bicycle!!
mistymage, I’ve heard that carp are only edible if you smoke them. Recipe, please!
Tibby or Not Tibby, your poor Uncle Jack!! Yuck, I can’t say I’d have been able to have that much fun with fish gut encrusted pants. Ew.
Was the manatee actually trying to get in the boat?
kopek, I am officially jealous. Please tell me about “the one that got away.”
I was waterskiing (and driving the boat for others) one day and while picking up a skier, saw the biggest trout I’ve ever seen, lazily swimming at the surface of the water. I loaded the skier and went back to the fish. A fucking monster! Probably close to 10 pounds. Easily two feet long. Picked it up right out of the water. Must have been old or sick, because it died right in my hands. I put it back in the lake.
All we do is scale them, gut them, cut the head off and soak them in salty water. Then smoke them for about 4-8 hours depending on how big of a fish. You could add garlic/pepper/hot peppers to the soak, I suppose.
I have dozens and dozens of stories I can add to this thread.
I will be on Kentucky Lake soon doing some deep water ledge fishing for largemouth. I hope to have a story to add after that trip…
Anyways, years ago, when I was probably 11 or 12 I would fish for goldfish in a local retention pond. The thing is, those goldfish would only school up shallow in the very early Spring. I was there one morning in early March and it was snowing like hell and the wind was blowing something fierce. I quickly learned I had to stand absolutely still or the school would scatter and take a long time to reform. I also learned I had to cast my bobber and Niblets sweet corn past the school of fish. Then I would let my bobber gently drift into the group of fish. As the hours passed I caught plenty of beautifully colored fish and I noticed that I was covered in an inch or two of snow.
As I walked home, a man came out of his house to tell me that he had watched me all morning and was impressed with me for sticking it out in those snowy,windy conditions. I told him I had not noticed and was not cold at all. He responded that I will be a fisherman for life. I had no idea what he meant 40 years ago, but I understand him now.
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I have fished all my life and can’t think of too many exceptional things that may have happened. I guess I mush have been about 12. After my paper rout I used to swing by a local park for some fishing. Mostly blue gill and catfish and the occasional bass. Anyway I caught a 4 1/4 pound large mouth bass on a plug my dad carved out for me the night before.
I felt like a hero! Everyone in the park was coming to see my fish. My dad bragged about his jig now and then for the rest of his life. I think it was the only jig he had ever carved.
After thinking about my fish story for a few minutes it all came flooding back from over 50 years ago. When I left that park on my bicycle my head was in the clouds, just spinning. I waited for my dad to come home from work so I could show him and he wanted to hear every detail about how he was caught, how far from shore, did I let it sink like he told me, how did I work it, the fight, the landing. This was the first time I felt I had actually carried on a conversation with my dad. He seemed to be just as proud as i was and everyday when he got home from work he wanted to hear about my fishing. It was really a big day for me.
The problem is that my first two reactions to that request would be clients/business things. I could have gone on a trip to Argentina and been paid $200 a day plus expenses for it but I was already booked for those weeks. I also had a chance to be a secondary adviser/trainer for a film but no one seemed willing to pick days or decide what the hell they wanted so I backed out really fast smelling a worse disaster than some of the history films I had been involved with from doing Living History. As a result I never met Robert Redford. :smack:
One fish I’ll always remember that got away I put back. I was teaching a couple beginners down along the Yough. Now I was always one of those who stressed catch and release in anything other than super-sustainable fisheries or your basic put-and-take waters. I was also one of those who stressed putting the big ones back and limiting keeps to more average “pan” sized examples.
I was showing how to do the three-point casting technique for fishing bigger waters - using the same simple fly upstream, across with mending, and downstream to show three different types of “food”. And my fly got took by this monster smallmouth bass. It was tooth and nail and one of the few times I was really glad to have more backing than most on the reel. And heavier tippet than I would usually use since I wasn’t really “fishing” so much as “teaching”. But I got it in in good shape and grabbed the lip.
I can tell you now that I measured it and so did the two folks with me. I could swear by all that is holy what the size was and even if the folks with me had been the Pope and President Reagan it wouldn’t have made a difference. I was standing in the middle of frikking no-where a mile from my car and I had what I KNEW would have been a new state record ------ and I put it back. This being 1985 and me not expecting anything really that day I didn’t even have a camera to take a picture with. :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
I still sometimes go back and forth – it would have been nice to know for sure and have my name in a record book. But it was really nice practicing what I preached as well. So I got my rep for being able to catch SOMETHING no matter where you put me down. But I’ll never be known for that one big fish we all know we want.
I’ve heard that carp are only edible if you smoke them. Recipe, please!