Getting your blood pumping

[USMC]

What fishing event in the last year or so got your blood pumping more than any other ?
I will start with mine . It still wakes me in the middle of a dead sleep . I was fishing the Ohio River (no cuurent last year due to the drought ) for Blue Cats in my boat in 26 ft of water in August . 20 to 40 lb fish are the norm Blue or Flatheads . I had a 8 inch live shad on 2 Cabelas trolling rods the heavy one with the depthmaster reel . Spooled with 30lb fireline in the rod holder .
I didn't see the fish hit but I heard a noise and turned to see my rod holder with the rod in it bent until it touched the surface of my boat . The clicker on the reel was screaming and the rod looked like it was about to break . I struggled to get the rod out of the holder , the reel never stopped screaming until I tighten the drag down as far as it could go (30lb fireline) strong stuff . This lasted a nano second he continue his run never slowed for a second , pow my line broke . My rod holders are mounted on stainless tubes with 4 bolt and nut . I had to loosen the nuts with my socket set to put the rod holder back where it should be . The rod has a tit that sticks out on the bottom this put a spot on my boat from hitting it so hard . Man what a big fish , I haven't had my blood pumping like that since the 15lb 3 oz waLLeye came to the net on Erie .
I now have 80lb power pro spooled on the reels , I don't know how that is going to affect my trolling on Erie for walleye .

[Pooch]

A couple of years ago while fishing in Canada we were slow back trolling in the early evening. I picked up a fish and kicked the motor into neutral. While bringing a decent fish in the line stopped. I figured that the fish had entangled a tree limb. You guys know that feeling. Lift hard then it sinks back down. This was a big limb. After a few minutes I was gaining on it and when it was about to break the surface I saw what my first impression was a huge sturgeon. Then I realize that an absolutely huge northern pike had my walleye sideways in it's mouth with only the tail and head sticking out. The northern was not fighting me for the fish. He was just hanging onto his lunch and apparently not going to give it up. He just kept trying to use his weight to sink back down into deep water. After a moment next to the boat the northern let go and just slowly sank taking his sweet a** time to ever so gracefully swim off into the depths.

I was absolutely dumbfounded by the sheer size of this fish. The walleye he had in his mouth was between three and four pounds. (See my photo gallery as I posted a photo of the walleye there.) Like I said there was only the tail and head of the walleye sticking out the sides of this northerns mouth. I estimated the width of that fishes head to be about twelve inches wide. Body length absolutely no less than sixty inches and fat.

Yes we've all had northerns grab our fish at the boat. Happens almost daily. This fish was something few people will probably ever get to witness. Of all the great fishing memories through out my life this is the fish I will never be able to forget.

Fishing story you may say? Maybe to none believers but not to me. We all have a few rare moments in our lives that are forever branded into our memories. Some are good while others are not so good. This one is a fine and wonderful memory.

I hope all of you folks also get a chance to witness such a magnificent fish one day. Again, "dumbfounded" best describes my reaction.

Pooch

[KSmithy72]

In 2006, we while fishing in NW Quebec, my boat partner hooked a beauty. Here's the story: Fishing was pretty slow all day...very warm, with little wind or clouds, up til then. In the afternoon the wind came up briefly and some clouds rolled over and I put us on a spot in between an island and a point about 40 yards from shore in 4-7 fow. Current and wind are whipping around this point and making it tough to control the boat, when my partner tells me he’s ‘Snagged’ as I get my line in and the boat turned around. 30 seconds later I hear ‘Uh…it’s a fish’. I start barking out orders like ‘keep your tip up’ or ‘let em run’ as my lucky unsnagged friend brings a beauty 7 lb eye to the boat, but he forgot to adjust his drag! She sees the boat and turns tail and SNAP! Lines broke….bummer! but we are on big fish so we start drifting back to the same spot again, my friend with less line than a minute ago... Not 10 minutes later ‘I’m snagged again’ he says to me…I start bringing in my line AGAIN and moving us off a tough rockpile with the trolling motor when I hear a familiar phrase from him again ‘Uh…I think it’s a fish!’ AGAIN!! I’ve never been able to experience this type of SNAG once in my 6 year in QC and this guy gets it twice in ten minutes!! This one is a whopper! Based on what we know about fish reacting to being caught, we’ve ruled out a Laker b/c it never ran; we never saw a flash of anger like you do with a big Pike, so we think it was a Big Ol Eye…likely 10-12 lbs. My partner fought her tough on his ultralight 5’ ugly stick and jigging reel complete with probably 70 yards of 6lb test PLine. Not a good spot to be in with a big fish! Fight lasted for about 8 minutes and we never got the fish within 40 or 50 feet of the boat…she just swam where she wanted, staying down, and never seemed to get stressed.

I told my partner to start taking line when she began to move towards some boulders, and she shook her tail a few times and snapped his line with ease. It was a blast watching my buddy fight a fish this big with a jigging rod, but we were bummed to see her go. I just wish we had seen her, but what a fishing story!

Great thread...thanks for sharing.

Kevin

[ShadBuster UL]

Pretty cool. That is why I like fishing for stripers. The average size caught so far on my boat this year is 10+ lbs, with the biggest a 19. Last year I came within 2 feet of getting spooled with a 30#er on the line. I had to turn the boat to chase. There is nothing like the adrenaline rush of a fish stripping 100 feet off with tight drag.

Last weekend we thought that we had the big one since we were running a 12" gizzard shad. It was only an ll lber :)

When you have a big one on you want to baby it and tire it out before it makes it to the boat.

[ShadBuster UL]

And then there is marlin fishing, the ultimate adrenaline rush!

[Glenman12]

This isnt a fish of a lifetime story but it was an experience of a lifetime. Me and my long time partner were fishing on Cedar Lake in Perrault Falls in June of 2006..we were trolling for walleyes in a bay on the south end of the lake..we were catching fish but mostly just eater sized..we moved out of the bay to two islands outside the entrance to the bay and we knew the bigger of the two islands had rock reefs going from shore out into deeper water..I was trolling a Rapala SR5 in Canadian Pearl color..we hit the big island first and there was a strong SE wind blowing into the island..I hooked a fish and knew it was bigger than what we had been getting..after about 10 mins I boated what turned out to be a 42" northern which was my biggest yet...nothing great but it was still fun...after releasing the northern we continued on down the big island and no sooner had we started trolling again, I had another fish on..this one was bigger yet...in the confusion, somehow our lines got tangled..I told him I would give him $50 to cut his line cause I knew I had a huge fish on..he was able to untangle us..after about 15 mins I finally got it to about 20ft from the boat and I could see it was a muskie..my biggest up til then was about 36"..we were able to land it and it turned out to be 48"..all this time the wind had blown us away from the big island to the smaller island..we started up again and no sooner had me started trolling I had another fish on..this turned out to be a 26" walleye..so in a matter of about 45 mins I had caught a 42" northern, a 48" muskie and a 26" walleye..Ill never forget that day..I can still close my eyes and remember every detail if it was yesterday..again, no monster fish but topping my best with two of the three species was great

[Dave B unlogged]

Getting spooled is an experience all fishermen should experience at least once.

I was bass fishing on lake Clinton in Illinois with livebait under a bobber with 12 pound test magnathin. Had to be a big cat...it never slowed down. It was like I hooked another boat that was full throttle.

All I could do was laugh...and swear a lot!! I just wish I could have seen the fish once.

[Gilligan]

This one went beyond getting the blood pumping. Down on hands and knees sneaking up on a pool full of native brook trout in the north central hills of PA and snuck right up on a rattle snake! Had several close encounters with them over the years but that was the first and closest.

Come fish with me!
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