Fishing Forum

First of all, this is not an April Fools joke!  This just happened to me.

I am sitting in my vehicle out on the Bear River with two poles out in rod holders and bell indicators on them.  Slow fishing with no bites. Just browsing BFT on my phone with the windows down so I can hear a bite.  One bell starts to ring and then goes nuts.  I jump out and my pole is bent like a monster is on.  Huge splash down the river where I had pitched my bait. I get to the edge where my pole is at and I I grab the pole out of the holder, look down river, and my heart sinks.  That isn't a fish thrashing on the end of my line, it's a pelican. My mind races through several scenarios.  Did it eat my bait? I doubt that since it was on the bottom.  Did it try and eat a fish that had eaten my bait? It was thrash around with its mouth open like it was gagging so I am super nervous at this point.  Have I just killed a pelican by it swallowing my hook? All I can do is reel it in if I can and find out.  As it nears me it is still acting like it is gagging, but notice that the line is wrapped around one of the wings.  I get it up to the bank and cannot see any line coming out of its mouth.  Whew, that was a relief!  But the line is obviously wrapped around its neck about 1/2 way between the head and body.  As I reach down to unwrap the line from the wing and neck, it takes a big snap at me with its bill.  Missed! As it pulls back its head I grab it by the bill and hold it tight, bringing the bird part way up out of the water.  It must have subdued it at that point because it didn't fight back after that. The line was not tight on the wing and one unwrap and it was off that part, but it was very tight around the neck.  Somehow the line had wrapped around it like a noose and pulled tighter as I tried to loosen it.  Thus the gagging from the bird.  I had my fillet knife with me and finally was able to slip it under the line on the neck and cut the line.  I did a quick inspection to make sure no other line was left around the neck and placed the bird back in the water.  It swam off, then flew off. 

Holy smokes, what a scary thing to happen.  I'm just glad it turned out alright.  I still don't know how it happened, but I guess there is a first for everything.

As I was keying this in, my bell goes off again on the same pole.  I jump out and the rod is not moving at all.  I look down to where the bait was and a grebe pops up near where the bait was at.  WHAT IS UP TODAY?  I can't catch a fish and the only bites I am getting are from birds!  

Anyone else have some weird catches they want to share?

Wow Paul ! 
 Glad you were able to free up that Pelican with no damage.  
Been several years, but when my kids were a bunch younger, we would go fishing at the Roy Community Pond.  My youngest son cast out a line with a Lil Smokie on the hook.  It got caught in mid air by a seagull. 
We were able to reel it up on the bank and unhook the small bait hook out of the gull's beak.  That bird squawked and crapped all over, but once it was unhooked, it flew off no worse for wear.

An epic battle...the old man and the bird.  Used to have a lot of problems with grebes when fishing the mouth of the Jordan River in the spring.  The walleyes came in for the small fishy food items floating by on the way downstream and so did the grebes.  More than a few of those red-eyed monsters chomped our jigs and had to be brought in for a release.  They are vicious...going for the eyes. 

During the times I worked as a deckhand on So. Cal fishing boats the gulls would often be a real pain.  When we were "fly-lining" live anchovies for yellowtail, bonito or barracuda the gulls would often beat the fish to the chovy...and the fight was on.  They are nasty too.  One method we had of a temporary solution was to bring in one of the gulls and tie a partially inflated pink balloon to one of its legs.  As it flew off, all the other birds thought the ballooned one was flying away with something good to eat...and they would follow.  Usually worked for at least a short while. 

The absolute worst were the sea lions.  They would be attracted by the sound of the boat engines shutting down for a drift and swim in to await dinner being served.  It was often difficult to bring in any fish you hooked without having to do battle with something much larger...and that much larger creature usually got away with your fish and your rig.  But if you just wanted to bend your stick on something big, they would play the game with you.  There were days when a whole group of those nasty suckers would follow the boat around wherever it moved and you would not have a good day.

It just wasn't my day.  I moved to a different location, walked out to a spot, set up my rods again, and a few minutes later one of my rods went super bendo. Heavy throbs indicating a big cat. I got the rod out of the holder and fought it for a minute or so. Big fish know the rivers well and this one knew where a big snag or tree was.  It bee-lined into whatever was there and I couldn't stop it, nor could I get it out. Ended up breaking my 20lb test off.  It has been a while since I have lost a big fish and I'm still smarting. I ended up catching a teener then lost another right at the bank that was mid-twenty size.  Hook just popped out. What a weird day.

Quite the adventure! Never caught a bird myself, but years ago my dad had a bat take his fly in a back cast. You just never know what will take the bait.

It was fairly common in Florida to have a brown pelican or gull get "lured" in and caught. Both are vicious when or if you managed to get them to you. The best option was to get a towel or something wrapped over their head to blind them. They'd stop fighting immediately that way. Get the hooks out the best way you could and then stand BEHIND the bird when you pull off the towel.

We were ice fishing perch south of cemetery point and fish and game was out on the ice checking my license. Pole bent over and I brought up a 4 lb rainbow. That dwr officer commented “I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it”

(04-02-2022, 06:28 PM)RockyRaab2 Wrote: [ -> ]It was fairly common in Florida to have a brown pelican or gull get "lured" in and caught. Both are vicious when or if you managed to get them to you. The best option was to get a towel or something wrapped over their head to blind them. They'd stop fighting immediately that way. Get the hooks out the best way you could and then stand BEHIND the bird when you pull off the towel.

Yes, most of the piers have big hoop nets that they use to bring the pelican up for hook or line extraction, they are pretty good at grabbing them, getting them calmed down and released.
Now the Dolphins...yeah, like flipper.  They are fast and accurate.  Seems like no matter how fast you retrieve a mackerel or croaker, they are on it and with precise precision they can cut that fish in half just behind the head leaving you with not much.

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(04-02-2022, 06:28 PM)RockyRaab2 Wrote: [ -> ]It was fairly common in Florida to have a brown pelican or gull get "lured" in and caught. Both are vicious when or if you managed to get them to you. The best option was to get a towel or something wrapped over their head to blind them. They'd stop fighting immediately that way. Get the hooks out the best way you could and then stand BEHIND the bird when you pull off the towel.

Yes, most of the piers have big hoop nets that they use to bring the pelican up for hook or line extraction, they are pretty good at grabbing them, getting them calmed down and released.
Now the Dolphins...yeah, like flipper.  They are fast and accurate.  Seems like no matter how fast you retrieve a mackerel or croaker, they are on it and with precise precision they can cut that fish in half just behind the head leaving you with not much.

Hey Paul, can't say you didn't get some action on the river... Sorry it wasn't what you were hoping for...

Made it out myself and we found some cats, but I also lost the only big one that hit mine, except it hit, surfaced and spit it out before I could tighten up the line... It was a really big fish, but then again we didn't have anything over 25" to compare it to, so might have been 28 and looked big, but as wide as it's head was I expected something a little more impressive.... Anyway don't believe Greg when he says I made him lose his 30"er, it was 27" at best... oops netting error.... didn't get down underneath it's nose far enough...

We had a fun trip 21 cats between the three of us... once we found them anyway... Talked to some guys on the bank at Cache Junction and he said they had two 6 lbers... Not sure how long they would have been but probably 25-26"... Lot of guys fishing down there by the ramp... but sounded like they were catching a few... We put the new to me boat through it's first fishing shake down trip and I think I'm going to really like this boat... I still need to figure out how to keep it organized and replace the weather rotted coverings, but i really like the window, it kept us out of the wind and let us fish in the 15 mph winds.. without jackets... Motor ran well on that trip, so that's always a good thing... Big high sides definitely are better for windy days... Little splash when motoring back to the ramp, but nothing compared to the old trihull... Sorry didn't mean to high jack the post... Later J