Fishing Forum

One of the things that I enjoy about BFT not only is the fish pictures but the stories behind the catch. Have you ever been telling a story to your buddies and the story is the God Honest Truth but the circumstances around the catch are so incredible that your friends have that your full of crap look on their faces and sometimes they even say it out loud? Well I would like to start a thread dedicated to your unbelievable, yet truthful stories.

So here is a couple of examples.

One evening right before dark I was fishing a pond on the edge of St. George, Ut., when I saw a coyote come out of the brush about 50 feet from me, go get a drink and disappear. No moon so I lit my lantern and then went out into the dark to start casting. First cast a monster large mouth hits my surface plug. After a extended battle I landed THE biggest bass I have ever caught. I would estimate at 8 to 9 lbs. My first wall hanger! I bonked him on the head and went and layed him by my lantern. Back to the dark in the same spot, first cast, wham, bass on again. After about two or three minutes he spit the hook. The day before I had just sharpened the treble hooks and the plug hit me in the side of the head. As I tightened up the loose line I realized the the treble was sticking out the back of my ear. As I moved over to the lantern I saw that my hand was completely covered in blood and it was oozing down my neck, ears bleed something fierce! I finally worked the hook loose when I looked down at my lantern. Coyote tracks came right up to it and my bass was gone. Bleeep......Bleepty.....Bleep. God honest truth, believe it or not.

One other. I fish downtown Idaho Falls regularly with my fly rod. I let my fly drift under pockets of foam where the fish are sitting. One day it drifted under the foam I felt a nudge and set the hook. It didn't quite fight like a normal fish but I could tell I had something on. As I pulled my fish out of the foam guess what I had? A half drowned SQUIRREL! I was worried he would bite me, I put my shoe lightly on his head and removed my renegade from his back. I backed away about five feet and sat down on a rock and watched. It took about five minutes, he finally got up and into the bushes he went. He must have been in the limbs overhanging the river and fell. But what a story.

I would love to read your most unbelievable true stories. Lets blow this thread out.
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About eight years ago I was waterfowl hunting on the Boise River with my black lab Lakota, in early October. It was midmorning and we were making our way upstream, jump shooting a narrow windy little section. We were angling across the river at an area that is very shallow. In the middle of the river, where it was about ankle deep, there was a large pile of leafy braches. We were within about 50 feet of the brush pile when a small critter quickly appeared and then dove off the backside. Having only a quick glance, I’m unsure if it was a river otter or a muskrat.

Lakota, whom had been walking at heel, suddenly took off and dove into the brush pile. It was so dense I was unable to see exactly what he was doing. After rummaging around for a minute he jumped out and came bounding back. To my surprise he had a whitefish in his mouth. As he dropped it at my feet, I could see a large semicircular chunk was bitten out of its midsection. He held his head high, quite proud of his retrieve.

Not exactly MY fishing story, but I don’t think Lakota would mind if I shared it for him.
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If you can get your dog to retrieve fish as well as ducks...you got a real winner there!
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Not sure if this qualifies as incredible or not, but it's one of my favorite stories. Sorry, it's kind of long:

I’m not going to lie to you: I honestly don’t like steelhead fishing, and that’s the truth. Most of the time its freezing cold, rain and snow are common tag-alongs, and usually I fish all day hoping for maybe a bite or two. This is problematic because I have the attention span of a four year old – any longer than 15 minutes without a bite and I’m miserable. One fish per day is good for me, anything more than that is an exceptional day. In fact, depending on the time of year, big smelly skunks are sometimes all I catch! I have however made peace with this reality because I’ve realized that you have to smell the skunk every once in a while to be able to appreciate those magical days when the stars align and you really get into the fish.
In the fall of 2011 the stars, planets, sun, and moon must have been in a perfect row because suddenly steelhead fishing became almost predictably easy.
I was a grad student at the U of I at the time and two of my buddies from the office and I started making weekly trips down there to fish for two or three hours every Tuesday morning before going in to work. Over the course of the first few weeks we each caught some fish but fishing was anything but hot.
Then one Tuesday I happened to go down by myself. When I got there (at O’-dark-thirty) I expected to be early enough that I could get the good spot, but not so that day. There were two fly fishermen right in my favorite spot, already standing out in the water waiting for it to get light. I decided to set up upstream from them and began casting. 15 minutes went by and I hadn’t had any bites, so I was restless, and the fact that I wasn’t sure if I was even in a good spot at this point made my uneasiness worse. So, 15.5 minutes after I began fishing I decided that it was no good and reeled in to try my luck downstream of the fly-guys. They eyed me as I walked past them for the second time that morning as if to say, “Wow dude, you have the attention span of a four year old!” I just politely nodded and continued on.
I got to a promising looking spot where my buddy had caught one a week before and began casting. I had to adjust the retrieve of my spoon to keep from getting snagged, but it worked! I almost dropped my rod out of surprise when I hooked up on my second cast! I reeled it in – all the while making sure the fly-guys saw - and quickly released the bright A-run fish once I got it to shore. I retied my knot and began casting again thinking that it was probably a fluke. But sure enough about five minutes later (well shy of the 15 minute requirement) I hooked up again!
After landing the second fish of the morning, I again retied and proceeded to push my luck. On the very next cast I hooked what felt like a massive fish! I was almost giddy by this point – in a manly, beard sporting, mountain-man sort of way of course.
This fish didn’t really do much at first, but I couldn’t budge him. He drifted downstream while giving powerful but deliberate head shakes for about 75 yards. Finally he stopped and soon I started gaining line. This whole time I had been searching for any clues as to what sort of creature I had tied in to. I had heard of people catching big fall Chinook salmon at that time of year, and that was the only thing that I could think of that would be as big as this fish felt.
I managed to pull him within about 20 yards. He still hadn’t done anything really drastic yet, he just felt big and strong. I guess the fish decided that 20 yards was close enough and what had been a fairly calm fight - powerful and intimidating - but calm nevertheless, turned into a scrappy dogfight. He rolled at the surface, showing me some pink on a very wide flank, and then took off on the fastest reel-screaming run I’ve experienced in fresh water, and he didn’t stop for over 100 yards!
This scenario played out a few more times, but each time the runs got a little shorter and I could sense that he was finally tiring. The fact that I had seen pink when he rolled was eating at me. Most of the fall Chinook I had seen were dark grey in color, sometimes with reddish tints – but not pink. This led me to think that maybe it was just a big steelhead, but I still wasn’t sure.
When I finally got it close enough to see it clearly, I realized that it was it wasn’t a steelhead or a Chinook; it was a coho! This was a dream come true. I love catching new species, which this was, and to do so by catching such a specimen was incredible. I finally pulled him into the shallows and got a good look at him. He was about 12 lbs, just starting to turn pink, and had the beginnings of the trademark coho “Gonzo” nose.
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I snapped a couple of quick pictures then watched satisfied as he swam out of view. I didn’t really know what to do after that. I thought about taking a nap, going home, buying a lottery ticket etc. but I just stuck to what was working; I retied and continued casting. I quickly caught one last steelhead before I had to leave, but I honestly don’t remember anything about it other than the fact that it came after my coho. I decided to be a good responsible student and head to school at 8:30 having landed 5 fish in 2 hours. My arms hurt so good.
Two days later I couldn’t stand it any longer and I had to see if it was a fluke, so at 0’-dark-thirty Thursday morning I headed back down and hit the river again. Sure enough I had two fish to the shore in no time. I continued casting. I got a bite and missed, so the next cast I put the spoon right back in the same spot and almost immediately I hooked up. This one felt equally as big as the coho but the style of the fight was different this time. The coho fought with what seemed like a deliberate and methodical pace with some crazy runs mixed in, this fish just seemed frantic and mad the whole time, but equally as powerful as the coho. Could this be my big fall Chinook?
He made some huge runs, not as fast as the coho but this fish just didn’t stop. I had to chase him down river two hundred yards as he bull-dogged me. I slowly worked him closer gaining five feet then loosing 4 (sometimes loosing 50). I finally saw the beast, and it wasn’t a Chinook after all, it was however, the biggest steelhead I had ever seen – and that’s saying something since I’ve seen probably two or three thousand of them at work! I finally landed him after what seemed like forever and being sure my line would break at any moment. I didn’t have my camera or my tape measure like usual but I measured lengths of fishing line, one for his length and one for his girth and took them home to measure later. I took two quick pictures with my cell phone (neither of which turned out very good at all) then released him.
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Apparently my juju was used up for that day because after I resumed casting, 15 fruitless minutes went by, so I got bored and headed to the office for the day.
The first thing I did when I got back was measure the line and figure out how big my fish was. The official tally was 39 inches long with 19 inches of girth! You can plug that in to your favorite formula to come up with a weight if you want, I won't tell you what I got since somebody's bound to not buy it...
I squeaked one more fish out on a quick Saturday night trip, then tried to continue the trend the following Tuesday, but apparently by that time the stars had gone back out of line and I didn’t catch any, I missed one, but couldn’t hang on to it and got to smell the skunk again. The streak, ly, was over. But it sure was sure fun while it lasted. The final stats were 9 fish landed that week in 4 total hours fished for an average of just under 27 minutes of fishing per fish landed! I don’t know about you but that’s pretty good for this Idaho boy!

Hey I warned you it was a long story! []
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Nothing feels better than the being the guy with the magic juju. Usually its the guy steelheading right next to me. Would love to hook into a coho, never have, awesome story.
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