Wierd and rare catches

[Fish On]

ive hooked into huge snappers cutbaiting also got a hen mallard bass fishing and i heard frozen smelt works real good for gulls

[vern]

Hey Toad, I've caught snappers, softshell & painted turtles on cut-bait. I hate hooking turtles, but it happens quite a bit on some rivers. How about being caught yourself? A few years ago I was fishing below the dam in Red Wing when a guy snagged my jacket with a Rapala! Most of the boats were drifting & jigging but these guys were anchored and casting Rapalas. As most of you know it's like fishing out of bumper boats in the spring. There's usually about 100+ boats below the dam on a nice spring day. We were drifting downstream when all of a sudden something hits my arm & starts tugging. This guy sets the hook into my jacket! That was pretty ridiculous, but he was an older guy & I just laughed it off. Not a good idea to be casting baits in that crowd. Vern

[Lunker]

I got a big snapper up north, had to cut the line, I wanted my fingers!

As a child my mother sent a treble on a flatfish lure through my earlobe, ow.

But I got her back two years ago, put a hook into her neck!

All accidents of course. Thats what happens with three people in a 14ft alum boat.

[JP Z]

When I would get bored muskie fishing on Leech I would start pitching a floating Rap with the hooks cut off for the Gulls. Caught a handful of different feathered "fish." Had an Osprey drop on a Tiny Torpedo once...........WOW! that will wake you fast.

[This message has been edited by jpz (edited 03-17-2003).]

[deadeye]

I too have caught a couple ducks, they do put up quite a fight! I think the strangest thing that I have ever caught was a mink. I got it a few years ago while I was fishing at a little farm river down in southern minnesota. I was fishing from a bridge and i saw something moving in the water so I put my hook in front of it and it latched on. I can tell you now that minks are very mean nasty animals. It chased me all over the bridge before the hook came out and then it took the dive right back into the water. I think it would have been hilarious to see if someone would have been there to tape it.
><>deadeye

[Guest]

I also had an interesting catch one time. We were catfishing off a bridge one night (it was pitch black out) with beef liver. I felt something light hit my line as I was reeling in, and lo and behold it was a bat! I screamed like a 12 year old girl and ran away. It calmly flew away, apparently unharmed. The regulations didn't list the limit on bats, so I'm not sure if I could've kept it.

meatballsinatra

[vern]

Oh yeah, bats! Whenever I flathead fish on the Minnesota at night, the bats are everywhere. I've had a few hit my line or rod over the years, but never hooked one. They just swarm over your head. Entertaining, but a little too close for comfort sometimes. Vern

[Aquaman01]

When I was kid we used to hunt bats by standing near a street light where the were feeding on mosquitoes and throw a golfball wrapped in a kerchief up into the swarm. They would follow ti down and we'd try to hit 'em with badmitton rackets. Only ever saw one get nailed, but spent a lot of nights under there. Must have looked pretty silly to an onlooker! Six kids throwing a kerchief up ion the air and then trying to swat it when it came down.

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Aquaman
< )/////><{
"I think we're gonna need a bigger boat."

[deadeye]

When I was younger my freinds and i hunted bats with super-soakers. The bats didn't like it to much when they got blasted out of the sky with a jet of water. I think doing that did help out my shooting percentage when I go hunting though, thoose things are a real challenge to hit. ><>
deadeye

[Lunker]

Ive been told if you throw a ball of tinfoil in the air it screws up their senses, "radar", or whatever, and theyll run into things.

[deadeye]

LOL, that would be kind of funny to see!!!

[brian6715]

The best bat hunting technique that i have found is to just take a broom in an area where there are a few of them flying around. swing the broom around your head like an one-who-thinks-I-am-silly and watch for the bats to move towards it, and when they do, WHABAM!!! It works pretty good. HAHAHA
Thats just my strategy though.
Brian

[Walleye_GFA]

Actually if you use a big mouthed fishing net and are gentile, you can catch them alive... They used to swoop by the streetlight in mass...

W_GFA

[MNRiverRat]

I always wanted to try a fly rod for bats... they'd have to come in and smack it. I too have caught gulls, clams, crayfish, rocks, almost every fish imaginable... but the weirdest and most discusting was a haf rotten femur off a cow while carp fishing on the mighty MN down by Henderson... What a suprise that was to pull up.... EEWWWHHH......

And I'm not squemish about things, Oh I've also caught a wierd fish called a cucmber fish in Alaska while commercial salmon fishing, Smelled just like a cucumber.

Andy

[Guest]

One time I was flyfishing and three bats started flying around me, I dont know if they were chasing the fly or what, but I managed to hit one of them with the rod somehow........

[EBass]

This is a great topic. So I need to share.

On Twin Lake in Crystal I caught a sock full of sand and a cow rib. Not ribs, just one. Weird!!

I never tried swooping after bats, but I used to hit the heck outa june bugs with a tennis racket. Ah, childhood memories

[Lunker]

My mom pulled out a mans dress sock out of a north woods lake, i thought that as strange.

[hydro]

Here's one to add to the bird list. When I was a kid I was casting a bobber and worm for sunfish and snared a tern in mid flight. That was one unhappy bird to untangle!

[CornPirateKiller]

This is a great topic! I've caught blackbirds, ducks, and gulls before too. The best fun I had one day was fishing for frogs. Was on a shallow lake in Northern Wisc. Slid a canoe into a bay to fly fish for sunnies and started noticing huge bullfrogs everywhere. Found if I'd dance my fly in front of them, they'd try to zap it like a bug. Ended up with a fishing basket full and had a frogleg feast for supper!

Also caught a 12" brown trout once that had a perfect round hole in its back. Really wierd. Got checked by a CO later and showed him the fish. He told me it was a wound from a heron. Really strange looking!

I always like fishing the Zumbro in SE MN because I never know what I'm gonna catch. One day I was tossing spinners for bass on a small section and out of one hole, I caught a black bass, largemouth bass, walleye, sauger, rainbow trout, crappie, and one small northern! What an assortment!!

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Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

[Guest]

caught a blue northern a couple years ago....i mean blue.....metalic blue....big eyes...bigger then a regular northern...and smaller scales...fish was about 3 pounds...never came across another one since...and probably never will...sure a neat fish...caught it in a "secret lake" of course.......lol

[Guest]

I have also caught a blue northeren before it was when i was icefishing on boyer lake near Detroit Lakes MN.......it was very strange
CC

[Sturgeon46]

I'll bet those blue pike were actually what's known as a silver pike - rare strain of common northern only found on some lakes. Were these pretty far up north?

BBass and MNRiverRat - - are you sure those were cow parts and not human? yuk!

[Guest]

sturgeon....the blue northern i caught was from a small lake (about 100 acres) just a few miles north of hibbing up here on the "range"...i did a little home work on the net and yes...they are a subspecies of a regular northern by themselves and yes...not that common...correctly named the "silver northern"...since they exist in this small lake and reproduce with there own kind...i just might have a "shot" at another one...thanks ...jon

[Guest]

had to search my "memory banks' but i caught another northern years ago (deer lake up by effie-togo area of mn.)while trolling for walleyes that was like something out of "starwars'...lol...i got a good "hit"..set the hook...and a pretty good fight was on....it fought like a northern..not a walleye...i knew right away that the northern wasn't a bigger one, maybe a couple two three pounds or so...i finally got the northern up to the boat...as soon as i netted it ,i was surprised to see this northen with a massive head(about the size of a 6-7 pound northen attached to the body of a 1 1/2 pound northern...weirdist thing i ever saw! the northen had what looked like a sever case of malnutrition from the head back but the head itself was huge!it appeared healthy ...it hit my bait aggresively...so it wasn't "sick"as far as i could tell....anyone ever had or seen anything similar to this northern?...i let that northern go of course...anything that ugly deserves to live......lol!...sixmile jon

[Lunker]

I've read of pike like that, but not quite that extreme. In lakes where the fish become over populated, they become kind of stunted like gills. Except the difference is that they'l have a small body, but the head will be bigger then it should be. I guess the head grows even if the body isn't.