Things you've caught - Other than fish

[Mudpuppy]

crash ,you got me thinking about everything I've brought to the boat other than fish . (Bored , weather sucks ) .

1. Snapping Turtle
2. Leatherback Turtle
3. Painted Turtle
4. Mallard Duck
5. Gull
6. Mop (thought it was human head at first!)
7. T-Shirt
8. Shoe
9. Beet Can
10. The elusive Mudpuppy

[SnellTier]

1. Crayfish (on a 1/16th ounce jig in 25 feet of water, too! I guess I was indeed on the bottom,huh???). (This has happened a number of times to my wife and me ... talk about thinking the "walleye" bite was "light"!)

2. 1 baitcasting reel still attached to a 6 foot muskie rod with some darn stout line on it. I thought I hooked the Mother of All Smallies.

3. 20 pound anchor. My buddy "played it" for nearly an hour. Because of its wedge shape and its loose attachment to its frame,it would glide and move just like a fish. He thought he had the Mother of ALL Pike.

4. A mussel. See #1 above.

5. A garfish. Did not even know we had them in Wisconsin.

6. Two perch at the same time on the same 3-hook 1-crawler bottom bouncer. My wife takes the honors for this one. She said she did not like to waste crawlers. Cute!

[Sarge]

My girlfriend! LOL

I took her out with me shorefishing throwing rapalas, I didn't notice that she had decided to walk right behind me, went to cast and hooked her on top of the head.

She did real good, no tears as I pulled the treble hooks out of her scalp. She stays and good distance away when we go fishing now.

[Bob G2]

Animate objects:
1)wife
2)snapping turtle...see wife
3)octopus
4)seagull
5)sponge
6)bullfrog
7)loon...that wasn't pretty
8)jetskier...really, he obviously didn't see us, so how did he expect us to see him??? <grin>

Inanimate objects:
1)boat(s)
2)boot
3)rocks and treebranches
4)shingle (actually fought like a laker)
5)plastic bags (many)
6)fishing lures (lots and lots)
7)3 rod and reel outfits

[JasonMN]

I didn't actually catch and land it but while trolling a Lake Minnetonka channel a couple falls ago we snagged a pretty new looking Yamaha motorcycle (crotch rocket) on the channel bottom. We shined a spotlight down to see what is we snagged and there she sat. Someone must have dumped it over the bridge somehow.

[BlackSilver]

Just one word......

MUSKRAT!

[tly]

Very depressing. Lake Wissota (Chippewa Falls WI) casting a little cleo and snagged a fairly recently dead springer spaniel with a cement block tied to it. It took some coaxing to get all of it close to the boat to see what it was. Then we slowly went to shore and untangled it.

The guy with the cement block deserves to be there, not the pup.
As for garfish, we see all too many of those in Wisconsin. They are
fun in Hudson to cast for them under the lights on the old toll bridge. They come in feeding at night and are pretty easy pickin's.
This is not a case of catch & release though.

Each cast is a challenge!

TLY

[T-Mac]

I caught a filleted walleye one time. The whole fish with hide was there...except for the fillet meat gone from both sides. It was probably about a 4 pounder before it was cleaned. The sides (skin) were still hooked on ,even. I snagged it in the mouth, too.
Was guiding a launch trip on Big Winnie, at the time. Boy did we have a laugh!

[Mudd]

One really nice St. Croix rod with Shimano reel. In fact, it was the only thing I got in the boat all day. By the way, if you think it is yours, get in line. Hmmmmm. Maybe a guy should take up scuba diving with all the high quality tackle reportedly lost in our lakes and rivers, don't ya think? Just a thought..............

[Red]

1970 crabs off mama san.

[SRP]

You won't believe it, but jigging the Detroit in the spring over the last two years we have caught:

1. Floor Mat from vehicle.
2. Sanitary Napkin (still giving the guy a hard time)
3. Condom (same guy, must be bad luck).


Good eating, huh?

[skipjack]

1,a lawn chair,good battle
2.2x3 sheet of fiberglass hull,really good fight
3at least 3 fishing rods
412lb anchor with rope,got several lures off of it
5 a cool whip jar,most fish like award.

[Gumbo]

Grebe

www.climbing-guides.com/fish/bird.jpg

[punch1]

Last year I caught a ice fishing rod/reel combo while trolling Mille Lacs. The reel was shot even after half a can of WD-40. The rod is now in my ice fishing arsenal.

Last spring, I brought in a red 26" beat up Schwinn 10-speed bike from below the bridge on the Menominee River in Menominee/Marinette.

[Smokin J]

Ditto Red, a couple of times. I am a slow learner!
Smokin J

[THUMPER]

A stringer with 5 beautifull Walleye on them. Obviously broke off some guys boat. We resued them and invited them for lunch:)

[Troutaholic]

Last year, in the same day, my dad and I caught:
1) A small Snapper
2) A Blandings Turtle (very rare, had to look it up when we got home)
3) A water snake
4) A Muskrat


But the person who has taken the wildest item out of the Mississippi River has to be the gentleman from the Winona area last year. He hooked into a set of ancient Elk Horns!!! They estimated that the rack was 800 to 900 years old (if I remember correctly. It was a heck of nice looking rack also...the picture was in the Winona Daily News.

[crash]

You'll like this story....

Last summer under the Montauk Lighthouse I was fishing for Stripers. I was fishing a bowl in the rocks and there was 2-3 foot waves and a nasty left to right current.

I was powercasting a 3 oz needle fish, a sinking lure, to the outside of the bowl. One cast went haywire, I backlashed, eh excuse me "professional overrun". SNAP, there goes my plug into the wild blue yonder...*&^% $20 a piece you don't wanna do that. Depressed but still in the game, I tied on another one and went back at it.

About a hour later I'm bouncing the lure through the rocks and I feel weight on it. I set the hook, nothing, just dead wieght....ahhh crabs, mussles, clams...something right?

Here comes my lure, with my other lure that I had lost, attached to the rear trebles. Quite feat since we're talking about the friggn OCEAN here..

Needless to say I ended up loosing both plugs the next day....

[Fishoil]

Trolling on Lake Winnebago at dusk one time I snagged up and lost a crankbait. As it was nearly completely dark we decided to call it a day. As we reeled in the last board, I noticed something wierd on it. When I got it to the boat I got my crank back, it was hanging on the flag of the board by one hook on the back treble.

[carrocr]

A couple years ago, out at night, a hungry bat mis-took my father's crawler harness for a misquito as it flew through the air. It took us a couple minutes to figure out why the end of the harness was seen dangling in and out of the water about 50 feet from the boat.

Other than that, a couple rod/reels, two anchors (12 and 18) caught on back to back trips with the same lure, a whole bunch of rocks, clams, and crawfish, a coffee can, and a couple tie-down straps.

At least we all seem to be concerned with cleaning up the lakes!?

[Could it be]

Hey Thumper were you riding a launch on Mille Lacs up near the sand in Malmo when you caught these. My buddy lost his stringer like thse maybe 5-7 years ago, and watched a guy on a launch reel them in.

[Peanut]

Animate Objects:

1. Crayfish (several)
2. Clams (several - the live ones will take a hook)
3. My own head (don't ask)
4. Trees while casting from boat to shoreline

Inanimate Objects:

1. Anchor rope (my own)
2. Anchor rope (someone else's that got away- lots of hooks on that one)
3. Gunwhale carpeting in buddies boat (had a little bombing war with spoons one night when things were slow - we're not always the brightest)
4. Pickeral rig
5. Tons of loose tangled line with and withour hooks attached
6. Sunken tree branch - a few jigs on that one too
7. Trolling motor (my own, while running)

Great Question!

derrek.

CANADIAN WALLEYE OPEN UP AND SAY "EH"!

[bobco]

my trophy catch while spin fishing from the Shore of Spinny Mt. res. was dead sheep, it stunk and I still here about it on select fishing trips, should I have had it mounted?

[Eyecrosser]

I cought a northern one time that had a nice new cardinal reel following it! Threw the pike back and keep the reel. It works wonders on my ice rig.

[tj1n]

Wow did these posts bring back memories of the crazy items that I've either witnessed or caught myself. This was a great post! I think at some time or another I've witnessed almost all that have been posted, but the most memorable was:

When I was 5 or 6 (a few years back) and yes I'd forgotten until this post, My Grandfather from Chicago was up visiting us in ND and a great fisherman (Chuck Wagner from Bismarck) took my dad, grandfather and I to the sunken bridge at Devils Lake back in the hay days. I was catching beauties (eyes and perch) all day standing next to my grampa in water up to our waist. Gramps was getting a little disturbed so he decided to pull out the arsenal, he wasn't the fisherman he claimed to be. He pulled out some huge muskie lure and the very first cast, a loon swooped down and caught it. I seen it immediately, but gramps didn't and thought he had finally hooked the whopper of all whoppers. Man did I laugh my but off! What a fight it was. We did somehow get that crazy bird free, but what a mess it was.

Thanks for the post!

Travis J.

[Cangl]

A fishing buddy caught a pair of "abused" Fuit of The Looms out of the deep six with one of his favorite lures......

Two of us almost died laughing well he "fryed"

[Chad]

A pair of underwear.
My cousins fishing rod which was lost 2 years earlier.
My grandfathers sun glasses. As you can see my family fished the sa
A mud puppie
A smallie with 3" of snake sticking out its mouth.

[CJHughes@Norstan.com]

Freshwater eel out of the Ohio River about 3 in the morning about 2ft long ,strong and slimey with two teeth in the roof of it's mouth, gave a heck of a fight. I let my buddy grab him when I got it next to the boat, it pulled it's head straight up out of his hand and bit him on the wrist but he didn't let go until after he cut the head off of it. The head and body flopped around for a good hour afterwards .

[1fife]

once jigging in the detroit river i thought i had a dead body. When i got it in it was a screen door full of zebra mussels.

also on time got a big plastic grocery bag by the handles, it was heavy. Our one buddy who rarely fished caught it and said it was fighting , its a fish, a big one.

The quote on our boat now is
"that walleye fought good-but its no plastic bag"

[CarpetBagger]

best catch for me was a daiwa SG47LC on an Erie Series rod. Full spool of fireline dipsy diver and worm harness attached to it also...

CB

[Skillz]

mud puppie
crayfish
countless turtles (catfishing the minnesota river)
hooked a duck once by accident, but he got off....
my father----many, many times... he and I are apparently both learning disabled....
an ice fishing weight
12 lb anchor, with rope still attached
clams or muscles, whatever you call them...
a very dead, very big, and VERY bloated dog- I would just as soon forget about this outing- NASTY!!!

And the best of the best.... while out on the lake with my friend and his dad, his dad casted for distance (it was a slow day) and a heron managed to fly under his line while it was in the air. His line kinda wrapped around the entire body, almost teatherball style--- well, you have seen how big a heron is, and believe me, they make quite a splash with folded wings. It reminded me of a B-2 bomber hitting the water. We got to it, cut the line and it flew off- pissed at us, but none the less healthy.

skz

[THUMPER]

These were caught in a NW Ontario lake close to Atikokan. Nice stringer. I still use it. Looks like the guy forgot to attach it to the boat. Makes me smile every time I hook a fish up.:)

[Matches]

For all of you that have caught turtles, how nasty is it trying to remove the hook, or what do you do??

[mudpuppy]

>For all of you that have caught turtles, how nasty is it
>trying to remove the hook, or what do you do??
If you get a snapping turtle , cut your line as close to the lure as you dare . Be grateful that all you lose is your lure . A big one can remove a finger & you definitely dont want him in the boat with you .The leatherbacks are more snake than turtle . They've got an extremely long neck , but a soft fleshy snout that you can get your hook (fly)out of with a pair of needle noses . The painters are small enough to handle with a little care . Getting a lot of laughs out of this post .

[nosnoots]

1. a porch screen
2. a contriceptive(friend got it on the Illinois River)
3. mud puppie with only 3 legs
4. tree branch with 5 cranks attached(jackpot!!)
5. the ice fishin rod that got pulled down the hole the day before with the 5 pound snoot that took it from me still attached(darn pesky snoots)
6. old fishing rod and reel(very old and rusty)
7. turtles
8. snake
9. crayfish
10. shirt
11. walleye with jig and twister undigested in stomach. (barbless hook type jig caught on the Winnipeg River, looked like it was eaten same day).
12. walleye with belly full of frogs(not too uncommon but interesting none the less)

nosnoots

[Dinky]

Seagulls (many)
Browning Presentation Grade Rod,Diawa Long Cast Reel,Bill Norman lure with 2# walleye attached
Bass Pro Shop Bionic Blade rod,Diawa Millionare reel, count down Rapala
I left the best for last: A pair of Levi's (didn't fit) with two $20.00 bills in a front pocket

[Eldon]

I only heard about this "catch" but know the story is true...
About 20 years ago my grandma and grandpa were carp fishing at a small city lake here in southeast NE. Neither one could get around very well but with combined ages of over 160 years, not bad! They never missed a day at the city pond and would be tickled to death to tell me about the 2-pounders they would get. My grandpa showed me how to score the bones of carp and convinced me that they were really good to eat, now I prefer crappie and some walleye fillets...Anyway...my mom called me one evening and told me that I would never guess what her mom had caught at the pond that day. My curiosity was high so I bit and asked her what did grandma catch?? She told me that her catch made my grandpa very upset. While grandpa was bending over to get some carp bait(his favorite doughball recipe) grandma brought her rod back behind her head to make a cast (she never looked back!! arthritis!!!) and can you believe it, hooked one of his hearing aides!!!! Yes, she completed her cast and kersplooosh, the hearing aide hit the water, never to be seen or heard again. True story, may God bless their souls and what an inspiration to all who think that they are too old to enjoy the great outdoors!!!
Eldon