I would like to hear a few funny short fishing stories! - I will start with a true one.- Back in my fulltime guiding days I would have to occassionlly fish in extreme conditions if fish were biting. One freezing January day I met a pair of new clients by Tillamook's Wilson R. The Steelhead were concentrated in the middle high banked area of the river. There are a couple of very steep long wooden driftboat launches there. The "Siskyville" launch had about a 1/4" buildup of ice on the launch rails. We carefully positioned my driftboat on the upper flat part. I told the client to hold it there while I slacked about 5' to 7' of winch rope. Then I nudged it over the edge (we both thought the other had hold of it). Well that boat did 0 to 60 mph in that few feet of slack, snapped the ropeknot like it was twine, & did 60 to 90? down the ramp with the rail side uprights holding it on the ramp. When that rocket hit the water the splash reminded me of the old loggin' flumes! And it, honest to goodness, did a triple skip across the river like a hard thrown skipper rock!... I just starred, dropmouth stunned, at my boat for a moment. Then I turned to the new clients & said "so, how do you like me so far? WAIT 'TILL YA SEE ME ROW", had to start yelling as they were already running back to their truck (jk). Actually, the boat drifted downriver a few holes. Fortunately, another boater arrived. He declined our offer to help him launch. They found & secured my boat though. We did get into some fish that day, but I got no tip. - Steve Hanson (RT)

[ 10-29-2001: Message edited by: RT unleeshed ]

I have a short one. A friend of mine landed a big king on light line. 25lb fish, 10 main, on a 6'6" trout rod! After finally landing the fish he was shaking so bad his brother had to light his smoke for him. He still insists on using that little pole. But he only really fishes for silvers. Had to be there for best effect.

------------------
Just because I look big, dumb, and ugly, doesn't mean I am. It means I can stomp you for calling me it!

I had a retired football player and his wife from Texas out chinook fishing. I anchored up and passed out he cured salmon eggs for bait. He put his eggs on his hook and began to fish. I looked down to rig up and when I looked up she was eating hers! I felt bad, she didn't see her husband put his on his hook and thought I was passing out a treat. That borax in the cure must have been awful!

While fishing the Yellowstone river near Buffalo Ford many years ago, I witnessed a funny fishing situation. An Eddie Bauer type dude waded next to me, lit up a big cigar and began fishing. He had all new and spendy equipment, in fact the cork on his fly rod still had the plastic wrapper on it. He was loud and full of bravado. A hatch came on and the cutthroat were really on the bite. Most of us had nearly nonstop action, except for the dude. After about an hour of fishless effort and many fly changes the dude starts cussing and yelling about how stupid the cutthroats are. He breaks off his fly tosses it in the river and begins to turn to shore only to look back and see his fly be gulped down by a big cutthroat. He goes ballistic and breaks his rod over his knee and heaves it into the middle of the Yellowstone. I tried to snag it but never did.

Once while fishing a lake here on Orcas I noticed a woodpecker knocking away at a snag right at the waterline. I could see little pieces of wood fluttering down into the water, about a foot off of the steep rock bank. A fish rose right where that stuff was landing, and then rose again. I hurredly tied on a black ant and crept the canoe as close as I dared, then sat that fly right where the rises had been. No hesitation there--an immediate take and a fine series of jumps before I boated and released a spunky 16" cutt. Now I'm always looking and listening for woodpeckers...

Last October I was summer Steelhead fishing with my very competitive Brother-in-law. It was just starting to get light as we were walking down to the drift. As we got close to the water, he starts picking up the pace so he would get first cast in the hole. I yelled to him that I'd just simply cast over him. We were both using a bobber/jig outfit. He cast to the top of the drift and I cast about 10 feet further down. Almost immediately my bobber went down. Fish on. The look on his face was priceless. I almost felt sorry for him. Two seconds later his bobber went down. We had a double-header. His fish started down river and mine went up. As we crossed each other I went to high five him but he wouldn't let go of the pole. It was his first Steelhead and he didn't want to take any chances. I landed and released my fish and a few minutes later he belly slid his up on shore, threw down his pole and pounced on it like a cat. He pinned the hatchery hen to the ground and wouldn't let it move. If I only had a video camera.
Mark

Hey guys, Yahoo here. I got a good one that just happens to be about my wife. We live out on the beach at Point No Point and we have a line of bouys out about 75 yards off the beach. The silvers were running real thick, so we were rowing out in seperate small dingies and tying up to different bouys right next to each other. Well to say the least the fishing was fantastic. Now im sitting in my boat watching my wife reel a nice silver in and having a hell of a time getting it in the boat, well she finally gets it in the boat, mind you the boat is a dingy with hardly any room, so to deal with the fish she sets her pole down with her buzz bomb just hanging in the water when low and behold a silver comes up and grabs her buzz bomb and pole and just takes off. It was quite a site to see. Well now my wife is just a little pissed, but then we notice the butt of her pole is floating, it looked like something off of jaws just cruising around with only about 4 inches of the pole sticking up. So now the wife is on a mission, she unhooks from the bouy and starts rowing after her pole, what a site, I will tell you one thing my wife is a trooper. Well, she finally gets the pole in her hands and guess what, theirs a 7lb. silver still hanging on to that buzz bomb, you go girl!!!!!

[This message has been edited by Yahoo (edited 03-09-2000).]

Sorry this is a Bass story but hope you get at least a giggle! I was fishing Toledo bend in Texas with a buddy of mine. I was right at the end of a cast and had 11" of line out (yes inches not feet) and looked up to spot a new target to cast at. All of a sudden WHAM, just as as was lifting my lure a three pounder hit it. With lightning reflexes I set the hook, and HARD! I didnt even have time to think about it.So this poor fish flys straight up in the air to my right at about a 45 degree. The momentum carries the fish all the way around me and the fish slaps my buddy right in the back of neck with smack loud enuff to hear for a good 100' feet away. It was the funniest thing I ever saw(and heard) in my life time of fishing.

Last weekend my fishing partner, Gary and I, went fishing and decided to leave the drift boat at home and bank it. We thought a little exploration would do us good for some later date.

We did do quite well, hooking 7, landing 2, almost landing, 2 and well the others got the best of us.

The funny part of the story starts here, I had just missed a fish, when my partner casts and solidly hooked one. He plays it and I get in the water on a precarious clay bank and tail his fish. Of course, we were expecting to be normally catching only natives in this river in March so I was about to unhook it and let it go, when I noticed that the fish had no adipose! My partner yells out, "We Eat Tonight" and we put her on the bank. My buddy pulls this homemade device out of his vest and puts it through the gills of the fish. It had a nice wood handle on it for carrying the fish through the woods.

We left this hole after losing another fish and proceeded downriver to a long stretch of "nice water" on a long bar. Gary leaves the steelie in about an inch of water and heads downstream, while I decide to cross the river and fish the other side of the hole upriver. I can barely see my buddie doing some peculiar antics downstream. After about a half hour, I see him coming back up to meet me, and I meet him half-way. He tells me that he just lost two fish at the same time, and I said "What"?

He had hooked a large nate (High Teens) and chased it and finally got it to his knees near a big boulder and the line hit the rock and snapped. He had the fish in his grasp, so I told him, oh well, we are C/R anyway. Then he told me how he lost the other fish, after losing that fish he came back to tell me to join him downstream and to retrieve his Hatchery Steelie. He was about 25 feet from where he had put his steelhead and saw the darndest thing. Some silly otter was dragging his fish into the depths and to make it even funnier was that he had the "wood handle" of Gary's fish carrier in his mouth.
First words out of my mouth were....."OTTER EATS TONIGHT"!

------------------
Steve Ng....The FishNg1
99 F-350 Powerstroke 4x4 , 18ft Alumaweld Formula Vee Sled, 115 Yamaha.

This isn't a fishing story, but somewhat related. A friend of mine rents his cabin on South Whidbey's Deer Lagoon during the summer. After meeting the out-of-towners to leave them a key, he suggests they might try some sight-seeing, relating several vistas and perhaps try some clamming at Double Bluff There were shovels and buckets in the shed. After several days stay he returned for his fee and chatted with his guests. They replied they had a most pleasant stay. The Island and scenery was very beautiful. They had also took his suggestion and dug some clams. One replied, "On our way back from clamming we strolled on the mud/sand flats and added to our bounty! The clams were delicious, but those sand shimp didn't have much meat on them."

Was fishing with my brother on a contest day. (Which can be very competitive). He was fishing his way down a small stream looking for hatchery fish and lost his rigging on the bottom. I came along behind him and snagged his gear off the bottom. I then proceeded to tie it on everytime I was fishing next to him....hehe
Well you can probably guess what happened next. I caught a fish laying right at his feet with his gear. Nearly got him wet when it rolled after getting hooked. Made for a great story at the Club that night.

I know I got mine coming....justly deserved

------------------
Marty
www.steelheader.net
marty@steelheader.net

Before I could afford a real jetsled with a real jetpump back in the 70's, I purchased the "poorman's" version. It was an extremely light 15' Koffler experimental flatbottom sled (a forerunner of the Koffler Lite Kenai R. sled). On the raised transom I mounted a 20 hp Merc.with a Riffle Runner. These were a large strong tunnel housing attached to the cavitation plate so the sled could run 6" shallower. I had installed a different prop pitch so that it's "out of the hole jump" was strong. I had run it a couple times just fine with a friend in the front.- I parked it at his cabin on the Clackamas R. & I invited my brother & another friend to Steelhead fish the next morning. Before starting I told them to wait while I run a couple laps around the large hole to warm up the motor; while secretly planning to impress them how quick it got on plane with only one aboard. I definitely impressed them! I slowly built up my circling speed until I had a pretty good sized wake going. As I approached it I slowed then gunned it right as I hit the wave. I knew this would bounce the front end up a little, but I'm at a loss to describe the feeling that would follow! Right as the front end started up I hit full throttle. At the same time the Riffle Runner's front lip scooped water, tilting the prop outward & upward, which with no weight in the front of the boat caused it to do a near vertical "wheelstand" right out in the middle of the Slab Hole!! At it's zenith I thought it was going to do a running backflip! Because I had left my my tackle box open I sat there as stunned Steve with a couple spinners hanging on the brim of my cap. Wow! I putted over to the cracked up pair & just said "ready?". NO... When I added a real jetsled to my driftboat a few years later for fulltime guiding, I remember thinking to myself that it would have made a great Candid Camera stunt if I had kept that boat, perfected the one man wheelstand trick, & meet new clients at the boatramp to watch my "warmup act"; then come back to them & say something like "dang, it's a little jumpy this morning but I think we'll be alright". - Steve Hanson

Great stuff R.T.~~ Speaking of wakes, I'm a very large guy so picture this. I was wading out into a drift in view of my buddy on a SW Wash. stream. As i was wading out I turned to say something and stepped into a deep dropoff. My friend said it sent a big wake all the way across the river. Not funny to me then but I can laugh about it now. Anybody got a good pancake recipe? HG

First, just a note. About 12 years ago, on my first trip down to the Kalama, a buddy who took me caught a steelhead and when we got home, he gave it to me. When I was cleaning it, I saw that its stomach was really distended. I cut it open and it had in it one of those little grey birds that you see dunking themselves into the water on the river edges. I've never really tried to match that hatch and I don't see those birds for sale in any of the bait shops I've been to.

Last year a buddy and I went up to Rivers Inlet Resort for kings in mid-August. After a couple fish, we thought we were getting the hang of things. We were motor mooching with 4 rods out and I'm on the motor at the stern when I get an absolute hammer strike on the rod off the stern, just on the other side of the motor from my seat. I jumped to reach it and just as I pulled it out of the rod holder, my feet go out from under me towards the bow and I end up on my knees and elbows on the bottom of the skiff. I've dropped the rod and in what looks like slow motion, it starts to head out of the boat, over the transom, the single action just screaming its ratchett off. As luck would have it, it caught up for just a second by the reel on the transome and I was just able to grab the rod butt and struggle up to my knees.

By this time my buddy had one rod in, but the fish completely ran around the other two and as I got a little line back, the other lines were just knots around my line. The fish must have taken 50 yards of line and as my friend tried frantically to surgically remove the knots without cutting my line, my line went slack. What a pair of Keystone Cops! I was shaking and just sick. I thought for a moment to just cut my line and be done with the whole mess, but I had too much line out and decided to try and get it back on the reel.

I worked for a full 5 minutes unraveling the knots that were jammed in my tip-top. When I finally got free, I began to reel in the slack. I reeled and reeled, when I felt tension, I assumed that I was just caught on the bottom. I was just pissed !! and I gave the long rod a huge jerk -- and then the rod gave a huge jerk back. The fish was still there and just took off on another scalding run.

We chased it around and finally boated it. A 47 lb. King. I can't believe the fish sat still for all of that with a hook in its jaw and a 5 oz. lead hang from it. It has reinforced a theory that I have that some fish are just meant to be caught, no matter what, and others are destined not to be caught, no matter what.

This happened to a friend of mine a few years back, he had guests on his boat doubled up on what he was sure were 2 decent sized halibut and after a short fight the fish started going seperate directions, well, fearing being spooled and being a long range capt. out of San Diego where they do this alot he decided to tie a buoy to 1 rod and finish fighting the other fish, after landing a nice sized butt he retrieved the buoyed rod and the guest proceeded in fighting and landing a 62 lb. king, true story.

It was a warm August evening and I was trolling off the caves in Sekiu. My two sons were along for the trip this time,as I wanted them to experience the thrill of fighting a large chinook. At the time ,they were 11 and 7. The evening bite was a non event. As we watched the sun starting to set on the horizon,the starboard side rod went crazy. I scrambled to the rod holder,removed the rod and handed it to my oldest son Jason. The big king started to head for Canada.Boats were gathering around,but being polite enough to stay clear.After about 10 min fighting the fish my son said he was getting tired and wanted me to take up the battle.Not wanting to lose this magnificent king, I agreed. (figured this a great time to impress) . As I fought this fish, I was giving my son directions on steering the boat. I could finally feel as though I was gaining the upper hand on this very large king.It would only be a matter of minutes now and the fish would be on the deck of the boat. With pole in one hand ,I reached for the landing net.I instructed my son to take it out of gear. I pulled back with the rod and couldn't seem to get the fish close enough to net. We chased again. Again I hollered to take it out of gear and again I couldn't get the fish close enough to net. Was the tide that strong, I thought.Finally on the third attemp
t to net the large king,that I estimated to be well over 40lbs,it came unbuttoned.
As a glorious sunset was in its midst, I watched as this magnificent salmon slowly swam away. Dejected, I went back to take over the motor from Jason and immediately sat down on the styrafoam cooler. It was filled with 10 dozen herring that I had brined and dyed to perfection. Along with 3 gallons of salt water, I and the herring sat on the deck of the boat. What a glorious sunset.
When I finally made it to my proper seat by the motor,it became clear why I couldn't net the largest king I had ever hooked in the salt. Everytime I told my son to kick the motor out of gear,he was putting it in reverse. In all my excitement I didn't even notice.
Oh well, I guess I really impressed them. To this day we still laugh about that evening. And that was 15 years ago. How I miss Sekiu!

Hey T Dodge, good story but I gotta ask; that's such a profound statemant that fish are either destined to be caught or not, is there a third option? (jk) Big Butt

I hope crappy stories are OK on here. - I was fisin' out of Depot Bay for silvers one summer in my former large open V-sled. Along with several other sport boats we had followed the Charter boats out to the hot spot, so there were a lot of people around. As nature would have it 'ol number 2 pulled into the station (or should I say the staging area). I had one of those aluminum framed plastic toilet seat camping potty chairs & a 2 gallon vinyl bucket for the cause. The problem was that we were in a hot bite, so I held off as long as possible. That turned out to be a mistake because- how can I put this delicately- it sort of packs things in the staging area & makes things harder to work out (was that OK?). We finally had to reel em up and I ran out a ways to where I'd feel comfortable. The adventure began when my buddy Chris let out his plugcut & began a wide circle back toward the bite. I chirped about it but he just said to hurry up. I was trying. Wouldn't ya know it..2 charter boats had made wide turns & were headed our way. It's hard to talk my buddy away from a fishbite so he just kept trolling straight- laughing all the way. I tried harder; while leaning forward to coverup the best I could. The "golden Kodak moment" came right between the 2 charters. We hit a wake such that the rocking bent the dang weak potty legs & I crumbled down on top of it all. Yes, most of about 30 peole saw this. Chris was cracking up so hard he couldn't talk, as were many of the charter fishers. I'll leave the rest of the story to your imagination. - Steve

Me and a buddy were fishing a local river early in the winter season a couple of years ago and had got down to the hole a little before light. We were fishing floats and jigs and standing around waiting for it to get light I had my jig hanging in the water with the float about a foot off the surface and the rod tucked under my arm. All of the sudden the rod about gets jerked out from under my arm so I set the hook. Turns out an 8 pound chum couldn't stand that jig hanging down there and came up and smacked it.

THIS STORY WAS NOT FUNNY AT THE TIME BUT WHEN I THINK BACK ITS KIND OF FUNNY. I WAS ON THE COWLITZ WITH 2 GOOD FRIENDS WE FISH HARD ALL DAY IN HIGH WATER AT BLUE CREEK(ABOUT WHERE THE POINT USED TO BE)ONE OF MY FRIENDS WALKED BACK TO THE PARKING LOT TO GET THE TRUCK,SO WE STARTED TO FLOAT DOWN TO MISSION BAR TO TAKE OUT.ERIK BACKED THE TRUCK DOWN THE RAMP JIM AND I GOT OUT OF THE BOAT AND STARTED LOADING ALL THR GEAR INTO THE BACK OF THE TRUCK.JIM WAS STRADDLINGTHE TRAILER WHEN i TOLD HIM I THOUGHT IT WASNT A GOOD IDEA TO DO THAT ,ALL OF A SUDDEN I HEARD A LOUD CLUNK AS I WAS LOADING THE LAST ROD IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK,THE NEXT THING I KNEW THE TRUCK HAD KNOCKED ME DOWN AND WAS HEADED DOWN THE RAMP AND INTO THE WATER WITH THE BOAT ATTACHED,ALL I COULD DO WAS WATCH AS IT FLOATED DOWN THE RIVER IT FINALLY STOP ON SOME BIG BOULDERS UNDER THE WATER AND ALL YOU COULD SEE WAS THE MARKER LIGHTS ON TOP OF THE CAB!!WHEN IT STOPPED ALL I COULD THINK ABOUT WAS TO GET HELP SO I RAN ALL THE WAY TO MARYS CORNER TO CALL FOR HELP!!!! BUT I COULDNT GET AHOLD OF ANYONE WHO COULD HELP SO I CALLED ERIKS WIFE TO COME PICK ME UP AND TAKE ME BACK TO THE RIVER. ERIK HAD A FRIEND AT THE TOLEDO AIRPORT SO WE STOPPED BY TO SEE IF HE COULD HELP, HIS NAME WAS MATT.MATT SAID HE COULD HELP BUT IT WILL TAKE TILL MORNING TO GET EVERYTHING TOGETHER SO WE CAN GET THE TRUCK OUT OF THE RIVER.WE WENT BACK TO THE TRUCK AND I STRIPPED DOWN TO MY UNDER WARE AND SWAMOUT TO THE BOAT AND CUT IT LOOSE FROM THE TRAILER THEN WE PUT IT IN THE BACK OF MATTS TRUCK AND TOOK IT TO THE AIRPORT. IN THE MORNING WHEN WE MADE IT BACK TO MISSION BAR THERE WAS A CROWD LOOKING AT MY TRUCK AND RIGHT BE HIND IT WAS A BUCK JUMPING.EVERYBODY CHEERED WHEN WE GOT IT OUT!!!!!!