Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Humerous things that happened fishing

Being an old fart & having put in many 100 trip per year days on the water more than a few humorous events come to mind. I was fishing a local tournament & my partner & club member met me at a nearby greasy spoon for a early breakfast. He couldn't wait to show me his new expensive rod & reel. He was so excited that he brought it into the restaurant & just before our food was served ran back & put his gear in my boat during the dark, of course. After launching & blast off he searched for his gear & new rod & reel only to discover he put them into the wrong boat.

My bass club decided to spend a weekend fishing a bay near the coast so we all trailered over Friday to another state. We stopped near the bay at a bait shop to buy NR licenses, beer & what not. When we looked at our licenses under EYES all indicated the number 2. I carried the license until it finally fell apart.

Share some humorous or not so humorous fishing stories.

Three of us fishing small lake. Joe in the front seat, points and says look at the big moccasin , lets get him. I'm in the middle seat, Rich in the back. We put our paddles in and pull hard.

No matter how hard we're pulling we don't move. I look back and Rich is pulling furiously in the opposite direction.

A buddy I were fishing when he hung the anchor in the fork of a huge old submerged tree. One leg of the fork had to have been sticking out of the water 30 feet and was about 30 inches in diameter. The tree must have been huge because we were in 20 foot deep water. This was in a lake that was only about ten years old and still had a bunch of standing timber. The wind was blowing pretty hard and we decided to shelter in a little cove we could see. He cranked the boat and gunned it. The middle of the boat swung into the tree because of the opposing force of the anchor line as the anchor was still hanging in the tree and he had the engine banked hard. I do not know if it was the stress from the boat running into the tree, the high winds, or the anchor rope pulling against the dead tree but the tree snapped about a foot above the water line. Luckily it was one of those crappie boats with 2 seats down the center aisle with stick steering from the front seat. Because if one of us had been in the center of the boat when the tree fell it would have pancaked us. Instead the aluminum boat folded and submerged almost instantly. My crankbait box floated long enough for me to grab it but I lost my worm bag and 3 rods and reels and all my crappie gear including two new B&M jig poles with reels. My buddy lost his boat and all his gear. It was a tragedy to us at the time, but we sure laugh about it now. When we got out of the truck after dragging an empty boat trailer seventy miles the giggling hit us pretty hard. I am not sure if we were laughing so hard because it was funny or we were relieved to have lived through the ordeal.
I forgot to mention that we had to swim for the shore opposite of the boat ramp and it was in early march. That three or four mile trip walking back to the truck was one of the most miserable walks of my young life. When we tell the story now, we always stress that alcohol was involved, even though I recollect that we were both stone cold sober. I guess my buddy hates to admit he did something so stupid while sober.

My son and I really got into walleyes in a steady rain. We were too busy to bail out the water collecting in the boat, even though I had ripped the sole loose on my ankle boot and standing in three inches of cold water wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world. My mind was somewhat taken away from this by the fact that my ass was getting increasingly wet and cold as well due to the fact that I had not zipped the rear pocket shut to seal it up, and the rain was running down my back and invading my inner clothing through it. Eventually, I caught a walleye that I felt deserved to be measured on the decal tape on the middle seat. I left my rod with the jig hanging over the edge of the boat (no, you're wrong - that's not what happened, and no, that wasn't it either). Naturally I dropped the bugger and he decided that the name of the game was to elude my attempts to capture him. I had him in hand twice, losing my grip and dropping him back into the water at the bottom of the boat, where he merrily continued the rodeo. When I got him controlled the third time, I decided t'ell wit measuring him and tossed him over the side, directly onto the jig that I had left hanging. My son managed to keep catching fish through his laughter at each stage of this production.

Not so funny, but unforgettable for me, My grandmother caught the back of my head casting with a plug.
My father cut the treble hook off with a Diamond pliers, then a long boat ride to a doctor. Once the Novocain kicked in, the pain left.
It could have been worse, of course.

Great stories folks...enjoyed them all!!!
Thanks for sharing!!!

Roland

Dang...Ouch!
Glad it worked out OK for you!!!

Roland

fishing the Minnesota river with 2 brothers , 1 yr age difference. mike says tom watch my rod I gotta get a beer, he no sooner stands up and starts walkin away theres a loud splash, mikes rod is gone. mike; you threw that in tom; no I didn't mike; ya ya did no I didn't pretty soon their rollin around on the ground knockin hell outta each other. Im about 30 yards down stream laughin my azz off, notice my rods actin like I got a bite. reel up a little slack, set the hook strangest feeling fish on the other end not a lot of fight but a lot of drag. pulled the smallest carp ive ever seen on mikes line tangled on mine. tom ; told ya I didn't throw it in.

Years ago my brother went to the lake and caught a bunch of relatively small bluegills.
Young and naive we got back late so we started cleaning fish right at dark. Fish is what we brought to eat for the weekend.
Did I mention that neither remembered the lantern.

So we decide to cook the fish to potato chips so we could cook and eat in the dark.

Part way through the meal (second meal of the day)I start spitting coughing and gagging.

I bit into one we forgot to scale or clean.

This is yet one of the reasons why McManus will never run out of tales to write about enjoying the outdoors

There's a small lake near here named Cottonwood. Back when I was in grade school Uncle Jack heard that Cottonwood was hot Hot HOT. So Jack talked my dad into driving up Friday after work for a weekend fishing trip, about 170 miles. Turned out Jack had only vague directions and around midnight we gave up and stopped in either a farmer's field or a public area at the lake, nobody was sure, and slept in the car.

The next morning Jack was grumpier than usual so I ducked out to do some casting. After getting organized which included coffee and slamming a car door on my dad's favorite rod Jack made it to the shore. After about three casts he declared, "No fish in this lake, let's go home." Jack being Jack that's what we did. Dad was a little pissed as you might imagine. Not too surprised though, something always went wrong when you took a trip with Uncle Jack.

Decades later I end up living not very far from Cottonwood. One pleasant sunny day Dad and I decide to take the little boat to Cottonwood in memory of dear departed Jack. For starters the boat mysteriously rolls off the trailer way sooner than expected and the prop breaks. Nuts, but it's a small lake, a beautiful calm day, and we have the electric motor.

We find a promising spot and get settled. About the third cast for the first time ever the two piece rod comes apart and the recoil jerks the rod out of my hand. Yup, big splash. So after dragging the river-type anchor for what seemed too long I snag the line and get my rod back after pulling in a couple hundred yards of line. By then the battery was down and it was time to go.

Cottonwood was re-christened, and shall ever remain, Jack's Lake.

Glad at least you survived.

Many years ago my brother & I were fishing at Lake Gaston in NC. We stopped at a local store with a gas dock back in a creek for lunch & fuel. I tied my bass boat up to the dock after filling up the tanks. My brother had a weak stomach & was prone to throw up after eating. The family that owned the store had a very attractive & available daughter my brothers age. She obviously had the hots for a big city guy. On this day she was sunbathing on the dock with her girl friends & wearing a skimpy bikini. As we walked back to the boat she made it a point to stretch very suggestively & say hello to my brother. Just as we cast off he puked hotdogs & greasy fries into the lake & the chum floated under the dock where the girls were sunbathing. The girls grabbed their towels & scampered off the dock. For some reason she seemed to lose interest in my brother.

Not very humorus but very true. About 10 years or more ago I fished a club tourney with a guy named Joe as a non boater. We fished about 5 miles below the launch site. he caught a largemouth with a huge black spot on its back and it had red eyes and its spine was croocked like it had been broken. We put it in the livewell and continue fishing. He weighs the fish in at the end of the tournament and releases it at the ramp. A couple of days latter I go down to the ramp below my house which is about midway where the tournament blasted off and where joe caught that fish. I skip a weightless bluegill colored 5" grub up under a wad of brush and overhanging limbs. I got a strike and set the hook. I reeled the fish in and I swear to jesus it was that red eyed crooked backed black spotted largemouth bass. God strike me down if I'm lyin! It blew my mind. I called joe and told him and I got the impression he thought I was full of $hit. true story

Pulled up to the dock after an afternoon of fishing. A guy with an ancient fiberglass 16 foot boat on rollers with a 25 hp Evinrude of the same era is backing down the boat, attached to a mid-70s Ford pickup. As he's coming down, the motor drops into running position and starts skipping on the ramp. I wave my arms and yell at him to stop. He stops, puts it in drive, and the motor hangs up on the ramp, dumps the boat right there. Old fella with a big hunk of tobacco in one cheek slowly walks back, looks at his boat and shrugs. Hops back in the pickup and parks. Walks back and looks at me and says, "Happens that way about half the time. Now it's a bitch to get in the water - can you help?" I move to help him and we start trying to slowly lift and nudge the boat down the ramp. I about threw my back out with the first try. I look down and see SIX deep-cycle marine batteries in the boat right in front of me. There are three more near the stern. I see that he has the whole boat jerry-rigged with wires and lighting. I asked him about it, "That's so I can stay out fishin' all night. Don't have to put up with my wife again until tomorrow morning. It'll be a good night." He says all this with a big grin. We get the boat in the water and he takes off with hardly any freeboard on a 6000 acre lake...

Just set at the boat dock a few hours during a holdiday weekend. It can get entertaining. Fights, drunker, men not understanding why its not easy for they're wife to back a trailer for the first time. Saw a guy mess the boat trailer and put his rig beside his pick-up while never dropping his beer.

Bought a new rod BIG $$ last week. 6 year old slammed it in the door of the pick-up. I had thinking about the purchase for couple months. Guess I didn't need it.