Unintended Catches

[Paul Arden]

I was having a conversation with Nick tonight about unintentional hookups.

In no particular order, I’ve hooked swans, grebes, housemartins (had a housemartin and a trout on the same cast), swifts, ducks, bats, beavers, cormorants, seagulls (they just love floating fry patterns) and quite a few people. I managed to hook Billy Quarton on the nose and Trevor Wood in the lip - both with low flying muddlers. Basically I’m fuckihg dangerous with a rod.

How about you? Any interesting catches?

Cheers, Paul

[Boisker]

A Frenchman when I was about 11 yrs old... I’d bought a 4m whip to catch small bait sized fish in a harbour near where we were staying in Brittany.. I will always remember it, I swung the float, caught his trousers and he started hopping about saying ‘big fish’... other than that just a few ducks..
I nearly had a kingfisher use the end of my fly rod as a fishing perch when the rod was tucked under my arm tying a new fly on... unfortunately I moved the rod just a tiny bit and he aborted at the last moment and shot off up stream..

[James9118]

Californian sea-lion.

[nicholasfmoore]

Haha! Very interesting catches

I've hooked (i think this is in order);

1. Duck
2. Canada goose
3. Greylag goose
4. A bat whilst sea trout fishing
5. Many trees/snags
6. Myself
7. A sheep
8. A cow (bull!)
9. Overhead power lines
10. Electric fence
11. A horse
12. last but not least, a car!

I managed to hook Billy Quarton on the nose and Trevor Wood in the lip

I'm sure there is more but i can't remember. I've come very close to hooking a train at a Staffordshire fishery!

All the best

[Graeme H]

• Mutton birds
• Sea turtles
• Sea cucumber
• Manta ray
• A golden trevally (it was in a school of bonefish. )

One of my most unusual catches was a snapper with my recently lost fly still in its mouth. I broke the fish off when my line wrapped around the fighting butt (rookie error) but 10 minutes later I got the fly back when I hooked the same fish again. In a school of dozens of fish, the chances of that happening are pretty slim.

Cheers,
Graeme

[steelehead]

I generally catch everything I am not intending to catch... on seatrout mission I caught a starfish and a lumpfish. My first trout was a grayling, followed by a motherless minnow and every odd micro-fish to be found in trout streams. On chub mission I caught pike, perch and and eel - plus a bat and a martin in flight.
Biggest catch so far was a whole tree, that I oversaw coming downstream when executing a nice single-handed spey...

Cheers,
Christian

[Will]

I once hooked a motor boat, but that was on bait (does that count), oh and I had a good run off a scuba diver on the same day but he got off...

W.

[Carol]

The lists are fantastically entertaining! Besides myself? A snake. Fortunately non-venomous.

[nicholasfmoore]

Great stuff! Incidentally, i like your dog, Carol. What's his/her name?

All the best

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Two memorable unintended "catches":

First... a pickup truck... Ford F150 I think. We have a unique fishery on what is called the Tamiami Trail. It is the southernmost road that crosses the state from coast to coast, built in the late 1920s (I think) It connects Tampa to Miami... thus the name. It so happens that it crosses the Everglades right above where the sawgrass dominated freshwater marsh changes into the mangrove estuaries. As such, primarily during the winter, the fishing for snook and small tarpon can be very good in the parallel canal that was dug for material to build the road upon.

No boat is necessary... but you really got to be careful about your backcast that stretches out across the two lanes of traffic.

You guessed it... I really did not catch the vehicle that was probably traveling around 60 mph... it spooled me... and so fast I didn't even have time to palm the spool to break it off.

The other was a true catch... a bonefish (my largest by a long shot). I was camping at a State Park in the Keys called Long Key. I had been there for a few days and the original excitement had burned off slightly. It was the middle of the day and I decided I would wade out and test a new 7 foot 5 weight glass flyrod that I had just built but never fished. This was back when glass rods were not special... they just meant you could not afford graphite.

I tied on a small Crazy Charlie and went out off the campsite to test it. Sure enough, a tail popped up right in front of me... so I did what anyone would do. Mind you, I had fished out there every morning and evening without anything to show for it.

The fish ate and went on an impressive run. I took off after it, then worked it part way in, but the tiny reel I was using was made of something like graphite and the spool spread to where I could not reel anymore, so after the next runs I had to baby it. After running around on the flat like a lunatic for a very long time, I finally brought it to hand. But it was so big I could not get my hands around it to lift it. I unhooked it in the water and revived it.

Right after it swam off a voice from behind scared me. It was a local retired guide who had watched the entire thing and had waded out to photograph it. He saw it in my hands from a distance. We both estimated the fish was well over 10#... by far the largest bone I have ever caught.

Hows that for the first fish on a rod!