Best Fishing Pranks

[Lund_Dude]

On another related forum, there was a good discussion of the best fishing pranks you have played or have had played on you. One recurring theme was to add a dead minnow to a buddy's pop can. To add to the pop can trick, I like putting a live shiner in one of those clear plastic soda bottles (7up or Sprite works best) so that when the buddy tastes something funny, they see the minnow.

Another trick is the famous "Perch in the pocket of the GoreTex". I pulled this trick on a buddy as he packed up to go home after a week in Canada. He put his GoreTex in a small duffle bag and put it behind the seat of his Yukon. All the way home, they couldn't figure out what stunk. This may seem a bit harsh, but it was a follow-up to the trick he played on me. The morning of our last day, he poked his head into our tent and poured my buddy and I each a cup of coffee and then left. We were still fuzzy-eyed and layed there a few minutes drinking the coffee, when nature called. Seems that when he came into the tent, he "borrowed" my buddy's Leatherman and used it to wire the tent flap shut. We spent an hour trying to get out, to the amusement of the group who ate breakfast and went fishing.

Lets hear your best ones!

[foreyes]

A guy I know was taking out a guy he knew- ice fishing for the first time. The first timer was from Texas and he had never been on ice before. They got out there and they drilled through about 16 inches of ice. Getting ready to fish and the ice pops-making some noise. The first timer looked a little "iffy" and my buddy jumped up and screamed "RUN"- and there was this 6'4 Texan runnin' like ##### for shore.
-- foreyes
"NaNa NaNa NaNa NaNa--FISHING"

[waterfowler]

A simple yet effective prank is to slide the lead "depth finder", used for ice fishing, down a buddies line when he is outside the shack emptying his bladder.

[Jerry]

I don't ice fish much. One time we were out, I propped up my rod up and walked away. When I came back, the rod was bent over and bobbing up and down. I grabbed it and started reeling - man I thought I had a monster. Turned out to be an ice-cold Pabst Blue Ribbon my brother-in-law had hooked on my line. The look on my face must have been worth a million dollars when I saw what it was. That full beer can sure felt like a fish. I've yet to live it down or to get him back properly.

[FJH1]

ROTFLMAO! :-)

Thanks for the laugh.

Best Regards,

FJH

[gilly8000]

Another good one is when your buddy falls asleep, to slowly pull down the line so the rattle reel starts making noise. It's always funny to watch them wake up real fast with the anticipation of a fish.

[Blazeorange]

Another trick when backtrolling is to grab the guy running the tiller's line as he turns inward. He invariably is always watching behind him running the motor and one good yank will usually scare them into thinking Moby Dick put the strike on. Blaze.

[OrangeBarrel]

Was ice fishing with a bunch of friends. We had separate portable shanties. A couple guys we were fishing with had tip-ups out and me and another buddy would sneak out of our shanty and throw snow-balls at their tip-ups to set the flag. Soon after we set the flag, we here a shuffle in their shanty rushing to get their zipper on their door open to rush out to get the "fish" on the tip-up. They would get out to the tip-up and the "elusive" fish would be gone. After a couple trips to the same tip-up I here one guy say, "I can't figure out why it's not hooking good". I was rolling in our shanty. He still doesn't know what was really going on. I'm laughing my butt off right now just thinking about that day.

[Gilligan]

Sorta going along with Gillys post, my son was famous for falling asleep on me when night trolling. One night when he nodded off I reached over and cut his line with the scissors. He never seemed to realize that the line was broke off just above the reel. I told him he must have hooked up with one of the huge muskies the lake was famous for. He grabbed the back up rod and stayed awake the rest of the night anticipating that huge muskies return.

[Gilligan]

Lance, I found your closing line of slowing down in work zones interesting.. I just lost my cousin to a runaway truck in a work zone. That really gave me a new found respect for the safety of our road workers, along with a bit more patience in work areas.

[Gary Gray, the MWC Days]

Nice to see good clean fun.

Back in the MWC days, Billy and I where fishing Spring Valley. It was cold, and Billy was all pumped for the tournament. After putting the boat in the water, he said he was going to get us a cup of coffee. As you know, most spots on the river have a lot of the tournament boats fishing it. Well, while he was up getting coffee, I cut each of his 6 jig rod lines at the 3rd eye down, and then tied each end to the eye. Well, needless to say, by the time we took off, 3/4's of the field knew about this, and could not wait to see him fish. We stopped at the first spot, Bill grabed his rod, hooked a minnow on, and tried to drop the jig down. After about 2-3 minutes of trying, he finally asked me if I could get his line untangled, I obliged, then broke the line, and told him to use another rod. Everyone around us was busting a gut, when Bill said," This one is tangled too". He tried the 3rd rod, then he cracked me along side the head and said " that cost us 2 fish already. I could do nothing but laugh with all the rest.

Happy Holidays to All, stay safe

Gary Gray

[Eyesrfn]

last year i took a friend who had never been ice fishing before, we went to Nelson reservoir in n. central MT, is search of slimers and eyes. we set our tip-ups and went perching for a couple of hours. When we came back we had a couple of flags up so i took one and he took the other one, i felt the line and was rewarded with a nice tug from the hooked fish. I started to pull in the fish and my buddy yelled thathis fish was taking line and for me to get other there and help him. I realized that the lines were crossed and we both had the same fish! Well I started to pull harder and watched his reaction, he became very tense, yelled louder, and said he had a monster but was still losing line. I let him regain a little line then pulled even harder, he had a fit, screaming at me to help him with the biggest fish he ever caught. All I could do to keep a straight face. I let this happens two or three more times then i just let go and ran over to him. He pulled in that 3# northern and I started to kid him about the biggest fish he ever caught. I let him in on it after i couldn't keep my laughter in any longer.

[Smoke]

A Bunch of us Guys, (15-20) used to get together and go fishing, up around the Georgian Bay area, ( Early June) The Suckers were spawning, and we would catch a few (8-10 lbs.) wrap them up in clear plastic, and put them in the freezer, and mark Save for Mounting, then put a fellows name on the package( Someone who already may have 1 or 2 large walleye to mount) and let them take it home with them,.
Many a knowitall, pain in the rump,loudmouth fisherman took home sucker fillets, so if your like the above, and in a camp with me, I'm GONNA GET YOU!

[brian1895]

Last year in Canada, there were 6 of us in a cabin and one of the guys caught a nice muskie and was bragging about it all trip. He even drenched one of his buddies in the boat with a big jug of water the same day. So, on the last day while everyone was packing up, me and another guy got some "Chompers" plastic bass fishing worms that smelled like garlic...very putrid to say the least, and we put a bunch of them in his suitcase after he was all packed. Needless to say after 15 hours of driving home, he found a nice surprise in his suitcase which smelled to high heavens.

[brw]

I've found that an alewife fits quite nicely into a 7 inch Rapala box and looks an awful lot like a Rapala too. Very similar to the "perch in the gore tex" trick. and nothing beats yanking the ##### out of a Canada first timer's line while trolling at night while making a sharp turn, and have him tell the story back at the cabin of the big one that got away.

[JBL]

One of my best is the "10 turns" story. My uncle, who is responsible for making me into a fishing junky from a young age, and I, headed out on Erie from of the (e185th) Wildwood ramp. I assured him I had the pattern down and we would have a great day. The method was to run dipsys back a certain distance using spoons. Since at the time we didn't have line counter reels, the method of measuring line out was to count the amount of times the bail moved back n forth when releasing the line. My instructions were to let it out 10 turns, and one turn equaled all the way from one side back to the other. He counted one half turn as one, which meant his line was only one-half as far back as it needed to be. After I had 10 fish to his none, he got desperate and would steal my spoon off my rod while I was putting my fish in the live well, so I'd pick up the spoon he couldn't catch anything on and quickly pop another. I had both our limits before I showed him what was wrong. To this day, all I have to do is say "10 turns" and his immediate reaction cannot be printed on here!

[ryan the poor college kid]

my buddy and i were driving on some "iffy" ice on Waubauy and he thought it would be funny to give me a little, "oh @#$% we're breakin!" so i immediatly acted like a rookie ice fisherman and was out faster than a fat girl in dodge ball. he thought it was pretty funny and i still get ##### today over that one.

[KC]

This happened while hunting, not fishing, but its too good not to share:

A bunch of us were hunting at a ranch in WY. One of the guys flew in from London to join us. On the last day, as we were packing up to leave, our host took a ziploc bag and filled it with dryed horse manure and a few odd shaped rocks and buried it in our our London friend's carry-on bag. Naturally, the rocks showed up on the airport security x-ray and when they opened his carry-on the horse crap looked an awful lot like contraband. When the security people took our friend aside, opened the baggie and caught a wiff, he had some serious explaining to do. I later heard he missed his flight and was mad as #####. This guy is very clever so I can't wait to see what he cooks up for payback.

[Backwater Eddy]

(Take a new friend ice fishing, just for fun.)

Once apron a frozen lake two other cronies and me was set up ice fishing a very cold New Years eve night.

Myself and one of the other anglers were old ice ranger's so the constant banging and teeth rattling tremors sent through the ice shack didn't bother us at all, not our friend though, he was from Virginia Beach Virginia. This was a first for him and only recently seen snow let alone a frozen lake. So every bang, crack, rattle, and groan sent him into a mild to moderate panic attack.

Being New Years Eve we were indulging to excess and in time our friend became less and less nervous, this will never do I thought. We did our best to share every tragic ice experience we have ever experienced, or heard of, along with a health dose of lies in hopes to spook him. But by now the nights debauchery was taking it's toll on him and possibly on us a little too.

As the evening grew late our friend from the South crawled up on the top bunk on the back wall completely at ease with the whole ice fishing experience and soon started to saw logs. We quickly started to plot, plotting is cool, drunks plot very well.

First we filled 2 pails with water and slush from the ice holes and placed then precariously on the ledge near the back wall near the bottom bunk. Next we placed a chopping bar under the rear of the fish house and another under the front edge. Still our Southern friend was sawing logs, with no clue.

I remained on the ice stationed at my pry bar at the rear of the shack under the bunks while my fellow prankster took up his post in the fish house. Time to rock!

First a few hard bumps to stir up our friend and then ROCK & ROLL! As I rocked the shack violently the slush pails tipped over and ice and water ran to the other side of the shack, as out buddy hits the floor falling from the top bunk. We scream, "MY GOD WE ARE GOING DOWN, RUN!"

This was my accomplice’s cue to run out of the house and lock the outer latch. I am rattling the shack and my friend begins to do the same with the other ice bar, it was the Titanic all over again. The screams emitting from the icehouse were hideous, it was very cool!

This was his last ice-fishing trip.

Some people just can't take a joke I guess?

Tee-Heee!

:D

Backwater Eddy....><, ,>

[Hawgeye]

Sounds familiar. I have a place where my 8 year old son and I go night fishing. Often, on warm summer nights when the bugs aren't too bad, when fishing is a little slow, my son tends to doze on the floor of the boat. It is fun to see how fast he jumps up when I grab his line and yank hard causing the clicker on the drag to whiz like a 10lb walleye was on the end! All he can muster is "DAA-AAD!"

He is on to me now and the last time we were out in August, I was working on my tackle box and guess what, you guessed, he did it to me and got me good! Chip off the old block I guess. It was more gratifying to see him lying on the floor laughing at getting his ole man on the same practical joke that was played on him...:)

[wyosteve]

After the trolling bite slows for a while, my buddy says "A buck on the next fish", stupid me takes the bet whereupon he immediately starts to reel in about a 10" walleye which he's been dragging for 20 mins. waiting to get me. Now I only take the bet if we start with both lines out of the water.

[Joe]

A potatoe gun and 10# of spuds on a lake full of fish houses is a riot.

[dkooser]

I pulled this on quite a few friends, most recently Scott Golden, Dennis Kraus and Scott’s brother-in-law. While boating beside your intended target (preferably another boat although it would work for someone on a dock) back your boat to within 5 feet or so of the target. Trim your motor up so that the prop is almost breaking the surface, HAMMER the motor into forward and give it gas like you are yanking two fat skiers out of the water. We call it the Evenrude Shower.

Toss the target boat a bar of soap and a hand towel just before the shower, just to get their intrigue up.

[Schmitty]

A friend of mine did this to Ripper an I once at a tournament.
It was summer and very warm out then.
He learned that it is not near as funny when it gets cold out.

[Waz]

Take a whole fish (gills or perch) or two and slip it in your friends toilet tank not bowl. After a few days it gets ripe. This happened to me once. I cleaned the washroom from top to bottom, used desinfectant, deodorizers, and anything I could think of just couldn't get ride of the stink. Then by chance I checked the tank, OOOOOH-BOY I found the source. It took me awhile to figure out how the fish got there. About a week earlier my fishing "buddy" was over and slipped it in. Great gag and the toilet water stays clean.

[Backwater Eddy]

Eh, I like that one!

Kinda like a few frogs in the crisper drawer of the fridge.

:D

[vetspet(ind)]

the funiest thing to ever happen to me was when a group of us guys were in crooked lake in the bwca and don surber...a trusted friend asked me to get him a worm from our styrofoam cooler which we portaged in for smallmouth fishing...unknown to me he found a huge 2-3 ft garter snake and placed it inside...i reached into the cooler w/o even looking and could not find a worm...so i looked inside and jumped probably an olympic record when i saw the huge snake...everyone had a great laugh at fooling the #1 jokester of all time...never did pay them back and that was probably in the 70's...steve

[Chuck Pederson MN]

I packed a pair of left behind womens panties from the hotel in my buddies bag. He let me know that he found them before his wife did or I'd have some explaining to do. I'm always double checking my bag now before I get home.

[Brad]

Here's one.

Was driving an Uncle and a cousin of mine to fish salmon off the Port Washington break wall. Jeff (uncle) promptly falls asleep and starts to snore a snore that a chain saw would have been proud of. Just as we pull into Port, with the ever so irritating noises still erupting from the backseat, I slowed down and opened the my door as wide as I could. Then I hit the gas and slammed the door as hard as physically possible. He awoke screaming with a deer in the headlights look that I will never forget. Laughed so hard that I had to pull the car over to recover.

Same uncle had some "friends" of his take a 12 point buck out of his barn and let him think someone stole it. Then they watched his moods change from anger to disbelief to looking like he was going to puke and pass out. The anger came back soon after realizing the buck wasn't stolen.

[water_wolf]

I once took all the Plano 360 containers filled with his stick baits, jigs, spinners, ect.out of my buddy's tackle bag and replaced them with some extra 360's I had filled with rocks & sticks. I could hear him clear down the lake F-E-R-G-U-S-S-O-O-O-N!

One on me....While hunting with my friends. We were putting on drives one morning and I shot a nice 9 pointer. We went back to my buddy's shop hung the deer and broke for lunch. Upon my return to his shop I saw that my nice 9 pointer turned into a 6 point Delta 3D archery target....Nice clean fun.

Rich Ferguson

[T-Mac]

Here's a couple:
I have a friend who gets really serious about things, especially when he is at a tourney. I like to take and swap all his spinning reel handles over to the wrong side (Shimanos) the night before day 1.
Heh heh heh.

Then there is my ice fishing buddy. We always have a contest going as we icefish for perch. Most, biggest, etc. You know how perch are... a school moves in, and with our 6 pole law..it gets really aerobic for a short while.....then pause, and wait for the next flurry.
So.. during a pause..he has walked over a hundred yards or so and shooting the bull with some other guys and mooching off their schnapps bottle. I pulled up all 6 of his lines and cut his hooks off, and put his lines and sinkers back down the holes.
The next school of perch that moved in seemed to like my rigs a whole lot better than his. He did not catch on until I had an insurmountable lead.
Heh heh heh.

Then there was the time I had a Charter party of 6. They were all good friends. They were catching fish faster than I could net them and winning money off me on the side bet at the same time. Suddenly all 6 get a fish on at the same time.... I netted all 6 in the net at the same time... and dumped them all on the floor at the same time..and then the flopping ensued. Really tangled them up.
While they were cussing me and laughing and straightening things out...I caught enough "lifters" (little enough to lift over the side) to get back to "even" on the side bet.
Heh heh heh.

[205]

Next time your buddy is watching a BIG water snake cruising along the bank, Jerk your belt off real quick and start shaking it and holler Ooooh Snake! And throw it at him when he turns around. Worked on me.:-) Happy Holidays! Russell

[Gilligan]

Gary...what about feeding your fishing partner some of those famous garlic buffalo wings from Dunkirk just several hours before the biggest tournament of the season?

Actually, I just cooked up 15# of them a for Christmas party tomorrow.. I could save a few out for you..LOL

Have a great Christmas and full livewells for '02.

[Suzuki]

Backwater-convincing a person they are about to die is not funny. You may as well have told your "friend" you were going to shoot him then put an unloaded gun to his head and pulled the trigger. It's the same thing. Your joke disgusts me.

[yknot]

Besides the usual dead minnows down the butt crack, about the best thing to do while perch fishing is to slide a live seven or eight inch perch head first down the front pocket of your Levi wearing partners pants. It isn't coming out without total removal of the pants. Beware of quick retaliation.

[tx_basser]

I used to carry rubber snakes in the boat for 1st time night fishermen. Place them in the rod lockers, bilge area, etc.

You really see how people react when their spotlight hits it just right.

[Backwater Eddy]

Ah well, you may be right, but you needed to be there I guess?

But I do remember waking up in just my long johns all blue and very-very cold stranded in a outer unheated walkway of a motel in -20 weather at DL once.

He was the instigator on that one, I guess I snored too loudly that night?

He is a prankster himself, what goo's around comes around in my crowd.

In younger days we may have acted a bit impetuously from time to time, maybe?

:D

Backwater Eddy....><, ,>

[John in MN]

While icefishing for walleyes many years ago, my buddy's dad, who is very excitable when fishing, went out to talk to the nearby houses to see if they'd caught anything. My buddie, his brother-in-law and myself strung his line from one hole to another. One of us held onto the hook with a pair of pliers. About 5 minutes after he came back the person slowly pulled his bobber under the ice. We were all coaching him on how long to let it go and the big ones usually take it so slowly. He finally set the hook and felt the immense resistance and said it was a huge. He would pull up a couple feet of line and immediately the person with the pliers would pull it back down. I was on the other side of the house and it looked like a teeter totter, one end up, the other end down and vice versa. I almost wet my pants laughing so hard.

[moreyes]

A group of us from work went to Millacs lake ice fishing a couple of years ago, we where fishing out of portables, I was fishing away all of sudden the zipper flew open and I was staring a Eel Pout in the face uhg. Well we where packing up and someone had the bright idea to stick it in one guys fish house being end of the season figured he would smell it about mid spring, well for some reason he borrowed his fish house to his dad and they found it. Well he thought we where a bunch comedians and we denied any knowledge, well it just happen to show up in one the guys tool boxes at work, all was quiet for a while a couple of these guys went to night school together, well one night they left school and the one guys truck had a terrible front end shimy after he left he drove home 30 miles at 20mph when he got home he looked at the front and the hub cap had finger prints on it poped it off and there was the pout again, well the guy who had it last said he got rid of it but he likes to smoke meat and he brought us some smoked jerky one day?

Merry Christmas,moreyes

[tx_basser]

I have to say, you guys are the sorriest bunch of bastages I have ever seen.

These are some of the most hilarious jokes I have ever read.

[waterfowler]

Great stuff here to try on my buddies... Brings back a memory of a prank that has nothing to do with fishing.

Back in high school the town cop used be known for taking naps in his car during the wee hours of the night. Well, some over-energetic teeens liked to mess with Buzz on occasion. The best one, putting a couple rocks in each hub cap. The worst, the night one kid actually stole his hand gun. He put it back realizing the consequences if he was caught. Buzz slept very hard!!!

[Walizz 1]

Back when I was about 10-12 I ice fished a lot with my dad and his buddy. Sometimes this guy they worked with would tag along. I spent most of my time skating and they would sit in the station wagon. It seemed that when it came time to check the tipups this guy had an excuse not to go out into the cold. He would usually ask us to skim the holes etc. One day my dad told me they had a plan to break him of this and told me ahead of time not to touch the guys tipups, that my dad would do it. You should have seen the look on the guys face at the end of the day when all three of his rigs had a smoked chub hooked to them. He always checked them himself after that. I thought we were going soil our shorts on that one.

[Pitts]

Yeah I have found a few odd baits on the end of my line when ice fishing and the minnow bucket is on the other side of the house and I ask for someone to bait my hook. Hotdog, balogna, ketchup top, stickleback minnow, beef jerky, so on just a joke waiting to happen in that bunch of guys.

Pitts

[JCarp]

Not fishing but - a friend was putting air in his tire, a second guy stood behind him making a hissing sound. The 1st guy kept trying to find the leak...

[GBGuy]

2 years ago me and my buddy were in a tourney and we spent our first morning fishing a breakline along an island in Door County that was extremely overpopulated with Seagulls. Later in the morning, a couple of friends that we team up with pulled up a couple hundred yards away, put out 6 boards, and started trolling the same break right towards us. This soon turned into a game of chicken and me and my bud turned out and kindly let the intruders through. The next morning on the way to the launch, we picked up a loaf of bread from the store and stowed it in the storage for later use. A couple of hours into the morning, our friendy intruders show up again and put out their boards and proceed to troll right at us again. While they were still 100 yards away, we took a couple of pieces of bread and tossed them into the water behind the boat. If you have ever had the opportunity to see what happens when seagulls start fighting for bread.....it doesnt take long for everyone to get involved. What happened next was priceless.....we started to turn out and politely let our friends have the preferred pass. My buddy then grabbed the whole loaf of bread, soaked it in the water, packed it into a big dough ball, and launched it out 30 yards in front of our friends boat. By this time, the seagulls were already excited, and the presence of this bread ball fueled the fury. We had our friends boxed in between ourselves and the island and they had nowhere to go but foreward through a flock of about 100 seagulls all fighting, screaming, hovering, sh+iting, and trying to get their share of a breadball that kept falling apart into more pieces everytime one tried to pick it up all the while oblivious to the presence of an approaching boat. All our friends could do was pin the kicker as fast as possible, put the hoods up on their rain gear and shake their heads as me and my bud lay in the bottom of our rig laughing our as+++ off with tears steaming down our face. Merry X-mas everyone!! Mike

[ryche run]

how do