Accidental Catch Stories??

[united jigsticker]

I fish Crappies. That's about it.

But there are the occasions, in which we all experience in a given trip, where I run into a species that I am not targeting to catch.

A Rockbass here and there, a Bluegill, the ever present Toothy Pike, a friendly Largemouth, Perch of course, maybe a Bullhead, or even a Dogfish, or the real pleasant bonus, a Walldawg.

I fish with 4 pound test line, so anything other then a panfish, is, to say the least, a bit of a battle.

I've got the 10 pound Walleye on the wall here, caught from 17 FOW while vertical jigging Crappies on a rock bar in August. That was a great fight.

I've got a picture of a 5.5 LB Largemouth Bass, caught in July while casting a weedline for olive green Crappies. That, was a great fight.

I've got a scar from a 13 pound Pike while jigging the Papermouths in 12 feet of water on a hot summers day. That, of course, was a great fight.

Oh and who can forget the numerous battles with large Dogfish during the spring months in the shallows angling for Crappies with small lead head jigs. These are always, certainly, a great fight.

It's an almost immediate realization, that is, what I have hooked isn't a Crappie, but something of size, and a bit more muscle and even torque!

A bit of a loosen on the drag, some patience, persistance, and a skilled netman all greatly assist me in my successful landing of the larger game fish on my 4 pound test line.

The fish may make a few runs, perhaps get tied in the weeds a bit, or cruise away with my offering for a few moments while I attempt to tire him/her enough to make a successful catch and release.

But the fish I tied into this time was having none of that. It was by far thee GREATEST battle put up by any fish I have ever tied into.

Infact, the longer I battled, the harder it faught.

The bobber tipped up, slowly, as to indicate a Crappie nibbling my flu-flu and minnow. I waited, reeled the slack, and wham-O!!! I set the hook.

It's a good one, I new right away. But the fish started east in direction, and I knew I had to loosen my drag.

The fish headed west so steadily and consistently, that I knew I had hooked a substantial fish. I let her run for about 2 minutes, awaiting the slowing swim to tighten the drag a bit, and start to make headway.

And so I did. The fish made an abrubt turn though, and headed south, into deeper water. Past the boat it went, into about 7 feet of water.

I started to imagine in my mind what kind of fish this could be, and what size it may measure once put against the ruler. I thought to myself, perhaps I should have brought the yardstick, for this fish is far better then the 16 inch ruler I had on board.

The fish came back north, towards the shore, and then headed east. I was waiting the fish to tire, but it seemed to never end.

5 minutes had elapsed, and the fish seemed to only gain more vigor in this fight.

I now started to think, forget the yardstick, I may need the 25' Stanley to measure this brute out!

The fish headed west again, upon minute 7, and I started to grow impatient. I tighted the drag to what I figure my 4 pound line could withstand.

I started to horse this fish to the boat. Only, it didn't want to come to the boat. It had other plans.

The fish headed north, this time with more speed and persistence then I have ever experienced in battling a fish.

I pulled back hard, and reeled fast. Finally, I was making a bit of headway.

Minute 9 passed, and I was growing tired. My arms ached, and my forhead had a bit of sweat.

Now I cared less of landing the fish, but more of just seeing it. What is it? How big?

I got the fish to within 12 feet of the boat. But in this dark river backwater stained lake, I would almost surely need to get it to the surface to sight the pattern and identify the monster.

I yanked back harder yet, expecting the line to snap. The fish came closer to the surface, but all I saw was a giant swirl on the waters top.

The fish headed east again, and north a bit. Minute 11 had passed, and I was tired and anxious. I tightened the drag one last time, expecting the fish to break off.

I pulled back and reeled hard, and started gaining ground with the fish. I thought I had her beat.

All I could see was a yellowish white body, about 4-5 feet in length, a foot under the surface, pausing for a moment, as if it had lost the battle.

This fish is a MONSTER. And I am going to land it, as I have tired it, and will bring it to the boat.

I pulled the heavy log towards the boat. But the log had once last breath apparantly, and I was about to find out.

Northward it went at minute 13, and stop it did not. It went into the brush where I was yanking the Crappies, and then took a left hand turn.

NO! NO! NO! I yelled, and then, as expected...SNAP!!!!!

The fish was gone. My line was stretched. My drag was fried. My arms were tired.

And I had nothing to show.

I don't know what specie of fish it was.

But I know it was strong. It was large. And it was FUN!

Anyone else have a story like this to share?

[Skitterpop]

I can't top that story but I did catch a fishing rod last week jigging for walleye on the Red River. That is sickening when you fight something that long but never get to identify it. I hope you can still sleep. The color of your fish makes me think of a huge carp or a flathead catfish. By the length I'm thinkin catfish. Maybe it was Nellie's offspring from Scotland.

[Matt Johnson]

Awesome story UJ!! Maybe you had yourself a monster catfish? Sounds to me like quite the experience! Sorry it had to end the way it did. This just means you have an excuse to tell the wife as to why you need to hit the water again in the near future ... "Honey, I'm telling the truth, this thing was huge! And, if I don't go back tomorrow it might be gone!"

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[bassman186]

Quote:

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"Honey, I'm telling the truth, this thing was huge! And, if I don't go back tomorrow it might be gone!"

---

How come no matter how many times I use this excuse she doesn't believe me?

Excellent story UJ, Sometimes the battles end that way, but just think how big it will bw next time you hook into it

~Matt Jung

[kslipsinker]

Two 36"+ muskies in two days of crappie fishing. Caught both in the same spot a day apart. I was telling a guy in the next boat about the first one when the second one hit. He thought it was pretty cool because he had never seen a muskie. Both were on a 5' ultra lite with 4# test and a Fluflu.

[Moose-Hunter]

Quote:

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Two 36"+ muskies in two days of crappie fishing. Caught both in the same spot a day apart. I was telling a guy in the next boat about the first one when the second one hit. He thought it was pretty cool because he had never seen a muskie. Both were on a 5' ultra lite with 4# test and a Fluflu.

---

I think we may have stumbled on to a new "hot" muskie bait... The flu-flu.

My first trip to open water, in fact my VERY first cast was nailed by something I can only assume was a rather large muskie. Fishing a first break area close to one of my spring crappie hotspots, my lil' jig never reached the bottom before I felt that telltale tap. A brief pause and small snap of the wrist and 3lb line started melting off my little Tica ultralight. Nearly half the spool was gone before I started to gain back some precious inches. 20 minutes later, my line was pointing straight down next to the boat. I thought... HEY!!! I'm winning!!! Whatever it was, was on it's way to the surface!! Slowly pumping and reeling. Foot by foot.... Then, without warning, the "whatever" took off like it was shot from a cannon.... POP!! But not the pop you'd expect. It was my rod!! My 6' ultra light gave up, right above the last guide turning my one piece Legend into a two piece. And the line went slack. All I reeled in was my little blue flu-flu and the top section of my broken rod.

Kind of an interesting way to start off the open water season. However, it would have been nice to see whatever it was I had on.... I've landed pike in the upper teens on 4lb line and they didn't burn line off like this fish did. So I'll say it was.... hmmm...... How about a mid to upper 40" class muskie. How does that sound?

[CrappieJohn]

Matt.....You are talking about a fish, right?

[Matt Johnson]

I was waiting for someone to say something, and sure enough, Tom comes through

Maybe I could have used different wording...

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[buzzsaw]

Ba da boom boom! We'll call this the Tom & Matt show! Funny guys!

My story goes like this: I was casting with a Rapala outside of Grandpa's bay (Near Arcola Bridge) on Lake Minnetonka when all of the sudden whammo!! I had this flimsey cheap 3 piece Fenwick pole and 6 lb test mono... this thing is running like nuts.... We were like ten minutes into this epic battle (cue the NFL films music) and my arms were seriously getting fatigued. Both me and my buddy Clay were excited as you could imagine to find out what in the world this fish was... our thinking was big muskie or pike.... an outside chance that it was a huge Bass (but most likely not since it never surfaced) Finally after approximately twenty minutes I get the lunker next to the boat and what do you suppose it was....................................

I had snagged a freegin' carp with my treble hook on top of the fish behind it's fin!! It ripped this behemoth bottom sucking piggy all the way down to near his tail and stayed hooked!! It looked like I took a knife to his back and cut str8 down from it's top fin to it's tail! We guesstimated that it weighed in the 15 lb range.... I've caught big carp when I was younger and let me tell you that they fight hard enough when you have them hooked by the mouth and can kinda control what there doing, try lassoing one with a treble hook on the back.... it's game on!

[lars0926]

This isn't a funny story, but would definately qualify as an "accidental catch story". My friend Kevin and I were fishing down at the Lock&Dam down in St.Paul last year. We were fly fishing with 8' rods with short tipits and heavy poppers. I won't say what we were catching in the river, but I can tell you what he caught OUT OF THE RIVER.

Kevin and I were spread about twenty feet apart from each other. It was just the two of us casting from the beach, with no one else in sight. We had to fish from the beach because of the size of our tackle we needed a rather deep backcast (sometimes 20-25 feet) to drop the poppers into specific pool swirls we were targeting. Since we'd been casting and catching for about an hour, our attention was always focused on the water in front of us.

Then, all of a sudden, a heard a cry from behind me. On one of his back casts, Kevin had hooked a small jewish boy in the arm. We later learned that the orthodox jews come down there to pray from time to time. We felt horrible about it, but it was a "catch" that I'm sure we, and the boy, will always remember.

[Deitz Dittrich]

My best awesome oops was this..

Fishing with a friend, catching smallies with 8 lb test and spinning gear, On lake Vermilion. Throwing a rapala husky jerk. I cast and jerk it twice and the line starts moving. SO, I give her the ole hook set. Rot tip never moved, line just went to deep water. Both my buddie and I were sure I had hooked into one of Lake Vermills Muskies. After about 15 mins, the fish came back to the surface about 50 feet from the baot and all I saw was the tail.. I looked at my buddie and asked if he saw that?.. A rounded tail, not pointed like a muskie... A Pike...

28 mins battle.. a bunch of pictures, buddies bleeding hand, a witness boat and a released 50" Northern Pike.

[ABASSER]

A few years back my brother and I were fishing Bald Eagle for crappies in late spring. It was a cold,windy,drizzling day and we decided to pull into an area out of the wind to eat lunch. We dropped the anchor, baited our hooks with crappie nibbles, casted our baits and began to eat. A few seconds later my bobber started moving slowly, I picked up the rod, reeled in the slack and pulled up to set the hook. I knew instantly it was not a crappie. The fish never made any breathtaking runs it just slowly and steadily lumberd around the shallow water, I'm not sure it knew it was hooked! Having not seen the fish yet, my first thought was it must be a bass. After pulling up the anchor and following the fish with the trolling motor for about 10 minutes I finally worked close enough to get a glimpse, but it was much bigger than a bass would be, so then I thought it must be a walleye or pike. There were no acrobatics or charges, just a steady pull as the fish just lazily swam around. Finally after about 30 minutes of gaining line by following the mystery fish, we managed to net what turned out to be a 42" muskie, caught with a 5 foot ultralight rod, 4lb test line and a 1/32 oz jig.

[Riverratpete]

Biggest Bass of my life I caught last year, day before opener fishing Crappies on a small unnamed lake by Emily. Guys that were with me were filipin out - I was also but had to put her back, didn't measure it, no camera, just memories and knowing it's the biggest that I had ever caught...so far.

[TNFL]

about 15 years ago using bobbers and suckers fishing for pike in the St Francis river my buddy hooked something huge... I can still picture him standing on the 3 foot high bank rod bent with a snapping turtle as big as your arms can make a circle....I never swam in that stream again.

[Walleye Guy]

UJ,

I have a similiar story. In 1992 I upgraded my outboard at the boat show. The new motor was installed and I just had to run it. A buddy and I ran down to Red Wing to try out the motor and drown a few fatheads.

The motor worked great and we sttled into fishing. We were jigging fuzzy grubs, fatheads on 4 lb. test. We landed a few small walleyes and saugers and then I became snagged. Slowly the snag started moving and the battele was on. I had many boats come by and say "You got a big one on eh" Yep I replied.

We followed the fish up and down the area. A couple times we had to fire up the big motor to stay close. I really never made much progress on the fish. I probably got it 4-5 feet off the bottom a few times. I justed wanted to see what it was. I never had that chance.

The battled came to an end when the fish made a very strong run and got out from my boat aways (maybe 30 yards). An angler who wasn't paying close attention to anything but his own fishing, backtrolled over my line and broke it.

That ended the 1 hour and 18.5 minute battle. My arms were sore for a week.

[fishingmike0770]

Fishing for sunfish, 2lb test, 5' ultra light rod and hooked into a 12lb dogfish with a hook in its mouth!

[MNmikew]

Was ice fishing on Coon lake after walleye/pike close for crappies. Had one line down and was putting other line down about 2 feet from hole 1. I had on a clip on weight (we call em carps) to set depth. Suddenly the "carp" wouldnt go down, weird as I was in 20ft of water. I started to pull it up and man the fight was on. A 7 pound northern had hit my day-glow orange carp and I hooked him in the very tip of his lip with a tear-drop on 4 lb test. Of course I didnt have the camera with.

Mike

[Tonka Boy]

I was trolling shad raps on Eagle lake in Maple Grove over 10 years ago. We expected to catch eyes or pike, but for some reason the crappies were going nuts. Any how, we made a pass and I hooked into what I thought was another crappie...it didn't fight very hard, but it still seemed like it was "swimming". Low and behold it comes to the surface and my friend (just cracking up) yells, "YOU GOT PANTIES!!!" "What?" I say. Sure enough on the end of my line is a pair of panties.

To this day he has not let me live that one down. Although I only have to bring up the Lamphree he caught on the Croix and he usually shuts up. LOL

[Corey Bechtold]

Your buddy probably wouldn't give you a hard time if you wouldn't have kept the panties and still have them in your top dresser drawer.

Funny story!

Corey Bechtold

[mr wizard]

I was fishing below Red Wing dam for spring eyes when I hooked something huge. The guy I'm fishing with said "cut the line, it's a sturgeon". I said " I like catching sturgeon"!!. Down the river we go about 1/4 mile then back up to the dam. Started gaining line on it and up comes a huge, for me, paddle fish (48" tip to tail) with 15 jigs in her snout! I hooked her on one of the jigs that was embedded. I got out the pliers, she swam away jig free. Great battle. Biggest fish I've caught. I don't invite the guy who said "cut the line" anymore.

[Riverratpete]

My brother and I were just putting down our lines for an afternoon of icefishing, he of course was having technical issues, starts to reel up his line that was down the hole with a red clip on depth weigth on it, sure enough big fish is on it, 36 inch Muskie.

[cheektowaga]

I had casted my favorite broken shad and heard that terrible sound of spinning gear barfing up a rat's nest into the eyes of the rod. So I'm working on untagling the mess and all of a sudden the tip of my rod bends hard. My quick goat thinking reverted me to ice fishing times because my reel was still out of commission. So I set the hook and start pulling the beast in hand over hand. Then it jumps about 3 feet clear out of the water and we see it's a big smallmouth. It jumped like that a total of 4 times, and it's a different feeling having the line in the end of your hands and an airborne fish on the other! Like flying a wicked kite! Finally got it in and it was a 20.5 inch smallie shaped like a football, my biggest smallie yet!

[uffdapete]

A couple come to mind. Growing up in SW MN as a 13 yr old I'd never caught or seen a smallmouth. So we're up in the BWCA and I wander across a small lake to a quiet bay and start throwing something I'd come across in a Herter's book. It was a jitterbug tied with a 12" trailer to a crappie size popper in front. (A couple years later and smarter I realize the set up is illegal!) Anyway I did catch a few smallmouth with it and then on another cast catch on the popper which takes it under and has the jitterbug spinning and hook another on that. So I bring in 2 14-15" smallies on the same cast.

The second was about 5 years ago. My bro, another FM'er and I were fishing smallies below the dam in the Rainy River in I Falls. Fishing with 6 lb line, a medium light rod and a jig and I get snagged on the bottom. As I pull it feels like a branch. I can get it off the bottom about a foot and then it sinks again. After a minute or so the "branch" starts going upstream and then realize branches don't go upstream. Bro says it's a sturgeon and you're not getting it in with that set up. We were planning to go to a hs football game that night until he said that. We even had a spectator - a mill worker on a forklift on the backside of the mill noticed the fight was on and after 70 minutes and some very good boat manuevering by bro we finally work it to a shallow bank. 53" and 30.5 lbs. Thinking I might have a chance at a line class record I later found out it wasn't even close - the record on 6 lb line was well over 60 lbs.

[Hooked On a Feeling]

Leech Lake, few years back, opening weekend, dragging a leech on a #6 hook, beer in one hand, pole in the other, "hey Brian back the boat up, I have a snag" I feel "the snag" moving, seconds later, fish breaks surface and trys to shake hook, Brian says,"that ain't no snag". said fish is a big muskie, fight it for 20 some minutes, Brian says,"you'll never get it to the boat" some drama later, said fish is boatside, we look at each other, "get the net", net is to small, "take some pictures", out of film. "O.K. release it I guess" fish swims off.

48 inch. muskie caught on #6 test line, #6 hook w/leech, most exciting catch of my life.

Hooked

[LOTWKIng]

Jigging for walleyes, thought I felt a hit so I set the hook. Start reeling and relize the fish is good. I figured a really good walleye. Fish starts to surface and I relize that it isn't a wallaye buts a a nice size sturgan. land it and the reason for the great fight- I had snagged it through the tail w/ my 1/4 jig, I was reeling it in while it was swimming away with all its force. best catch ever