Bill H and I had a few the other day and came up with the idea for a humor article based on the truly dumb things we have all done while fishing. We wanted to have a top ten but are stuck at about six. How about some ideas of rooky mistakess we can use in a funny way..

As an example there is the common one of driving along with a river running parallel to you. Soon the river is out of sight, but you figure it can't be that far to the river and start hiking in. I think we have all done that and have often had disasterous results. Any ideas?

Just two weeks or so ago I laid my rod against a tree to re-tie. Got everything rigged, grabbed my rod, and began walking back to the river. The only problem was I rigged my gear to the line hanging from the tree and not the line attached to my rod.

Todd and Ike where very understanding!

Tieing up a new leader and sinker assembly and tossing it over the side of the boat before tieing it onto your mainline.

How about getting a whole flasher and squid setup tied up & ready to troll and tossing it overboard to pay it out and put in the DR clip, only to find you didn't tie it to your mainline? ...Um, I didn't do that, no really, it was just someone else on my boat one day

or....

Beat ya to it, bro.

ok you win.

I'll have to think of some other's.

.......Another would be taking a moment to steer the boat, turn with an oar, or fiddle with something while playing a fish, and losing it because you were'nt F'n paying attention.

A few more.

Leaving the keys to the turn around rig at the take-out on the dash board of the car at the put-in.

Forgetting your raincoat.

Stting the hook on a plug take-down too soon (Stam).

Convincing your wife that steelheading is "fun" and bringing her along.

Becoming well known (or infamous) on an internet fishing board.

WINNER...WINNER........

I learned at an early age to always break down your rod before hiking through the woods or the trees will break it down for you and not in a nice way.

Leaving bait in your pocket, car/truck/boat, etc to be found a week later. Your friends car/truck/boat is OK as you probably won't be doing the finding part.

Getting to the river only to realize you left your rod at home.

Hooking a branch on your back cast creating a birds nest so nasty that your day is done.

Hitting the whistle and coughing before taking your lips off and blowing your buddies expensive brown-bomber bud out into the wind and water (Stam).

The following happened to a buddy of mine who doesnt fish but decided to give it a shot a couple of weeks ago:

Wade out to boulder and stand up to fish. Put the rod ends together ever so gingerly like youre handling paperthin glass ( I had told him this rod was super sensitive - he obviously miscontrued the term). Open bail, get ready to cast. Line wraps around rod tip. (bail still open) Grab rod near tip to untangle. Bottom half slips out, drops 3 feet off boulder and into water. Bottom rod half with attached reel gets pinned upstream side of boulder in 5 feet of water (bail still open) Spend next 30 minutes using sticks, shoe, and arm (up to shoulder) to retrieve out of 38 degree water. At some point he had pulled hand over hand on the mainline to try and loosen the wedged reel/rod and ended up with a tangle that ate up at least 50yds of line. When he finally got it back it was all I could do not to flop on the gorund and pi$$ myself as I asked him what happened. This was witnessed by 30 other fishermen and most of them stopped fishing at one point to watch the show. I think a few of them pi$$ed themselves from the look of things.

Driving all night to get to your favorite trout lake at dawn only to find out that it had been "rehabilitated" the week before.

Beezer

That's up there on the chart. Catching a rebright in April and calling it a summer run.

I must have had a sticky bag that day.

Neighbor drove his boat to the local ramp with rods rigged and ready, riding high in the rod holders. He snagged a tree by his house leaving the driveway and pulled up to the ramp with an empty spool and mono running clear back home 4 blocks away.

I've definitely left bait in places other that in the water. Nasty mess.

Here's a couple.

Wearing too little or too much clothing for any particular outing.

Bringing the wrong gear and trying to fish anyway.

Going out to fish during an off time and getting a friendly boarding by the Marine Patrol who has nothing better to do.

Buying the wrong lures and tackle because it's shiny.

KK, it could have been worse...you could have committed the "most rookie" of mistakes, one that unfortunately is committed thousands of times every fall by many anglers who ought to know much, much better...

After stepping on your buddy's rod while fighting a boot chum, you then bonk the boot chum, saying "It'll smoke up fine!".

The sheer volume of nasty ugly stinky dirty dead squishy butt-ugly scabby covered in bugs carcasses that I see heading back to the trucks at the end of the day during the fall salmon season is appalling...

...and what's worse, you should see the fish they are carrying.

Fish on...

Todd

Taking two nephews fishing. They got tired so went back up to camper. At noon when i got hungery and went back to the camper just to open door to cloud of pot smoke, and find the clowns had eaten everything in the camper.

Always bring the waders AND the wading boots.

Always connect the boat to the trailer before making your way up the ramp. Similarly, always keep it connected to the trailer before backing down the ramp (still one of the funniest things I've ever seen at Sekiu).

Showing a guy that you thought was cool a hot spot, then going back a week later to find him and a couple of his friends there.

Leaving your $1200 sage/tibor combo on the roof of your truck, drive for 45 minutes then realize your rod is not in the vehicle. That hurt!

I beleive that I have done the flasher/fly into the drink as well, good way to spend 15bucks.

Oh yeah, forgot. When letting a buddy hook up a boat that you borrowed, always make sure he attached the trailer to the ball securely and that the safety chains are hooked up.

In high school I loaded up my boat and gear and took it with me to school...and my buddy and I headed out right after class for a little steelhead fishing on the Snocrummy.

Got to the put-in, and realized that I had brought the butt section from one rod, and the tip section from another...lame. I couldn't even tie them together, and believe you me, I tried.

Pulled plugs with his one rod, and he went two for two while I rowed.

Yeah...that was sure fun.

Fish on...

Todd