Unbelievable Fishing Stories?

"Did you catch anything?" My dad and I had been cruising around the local lakes after spending the morning on Shawano Lake. We had caught about a dozen crappie and a dozen gills. We decided to stop by the little local lake 'White Clay Lake'. By then it was afternoon and we were going to fish again. As we pulled into the parking lot there must have been a dozen vehicles! I have never seen more than one! When we got there and older gentlemen was taking out his boat. We asked him,"Did you catch anything?". He replied with, "I'm tired of catching fish." I couldn't believe my ears my father asked him again and again he replied "I'm tired of catching fish." Within minutes we were out on the little lake trying our best. We never had a bite. Do you have any unbelievable stories?

Exactly what I was thinking Beanbag...LOL

One word....SHROOMS.

Spooky story CB .

Sure Upland,it may be the same story. I was known under a different handle back when I first posted the story in '09 or so. It was the summer of 2003. The class of 1998 was having it's five year reunion at Camp Rotamer just North of Janesville. We had a good time,everyone was drunk and reminiscing and whatnot. The deal with the camp people was that if we had barrels of beer on site we had to lock the gates by ten p.m,anyone there at that time stayed. Well everyone was camping anyhow so that was no big deal(the campground was open only to the reunion this particular weekend). The morning after the party I woke up at about dawn to take care of business and once finished walked down to the fairly large pond inside the camp ground. When I got to the 20 yard long beach I noticed a very thick fog over the pond. I mean a fog as thick as I have ever seen. On top of that there were small northern,largemouth and a couple perch and gills,probably ten or twelve fish in total literally beaching themselves and flopping around on the sand. I picked up a small pike and released him into the water and he shot back onto shore like a rocket. At this point I decide to get my best bud who was still crashed out in my tent. I woke him up and we went back to the pond to see the Fish still doing the same thing so we hauled down a canoe off the rack and launched into the fog,wanting to check out the rest of the pond. About five minutes down the east shore,out of a wall of fog comes the bow of a wooden canoe,about three foot off our right side,gliding straight past us. It seemed like the canoe was revealing itself an inch at a time through the fog and even when I could see the front seat of the canoe the paddler wasn't visible yet. What emerges out of the fog was an old man dressed in what I would guess to forties era outdoor clothes,paddling silently,wearing suspenders over a wool plaid shirt and an old blue duck hunting cap. At this point I should mention that he looked real,not see through or anything but the fog was literally so intense that we couldn't make out any small details about his face. I looked square at him and said "What is going on with this place,the fish are beaching themselves?" He looked right at me and said "It happened once before in the thirties." He turned back to the bow of his canoe and with one stroke vanished into the fog. I distinctly remember turning around behind me to see the the old man already gone in the fog as the end of his canoe was even with the end of ours. Within sixty seconds or so the sun was bright and the fog had completely vanished along with the old man and his canoe. We circled the rest of the pond without saying a word and once we got back to the beach,that had no fish lying on it now,did we discuss what had happened. The discussion went something like "What the hell just happened,was that a ghost?" Still to this day I have no explanation of who the old guy was. No one else was up yet at the campground and it was still locked up. I would love to know any history about the place if anyone knows any. If it was a "spirit" or "ghost" or whatever you want to call it,we didn't feel that he meant any harm and neither of us felt scared at the time. It seemed like everything happened in slow motion and was just very,very odd.

chuck e was that the canoe story. If it was that was freaky. I would say tell it again but I will spare you.

Earlier this spring, I launched at sun-up on Geneva and slowly motored to my favorite starting point to make a few casts. Well, as I creeped up on my spot with the trolling motor, I saw {in the semi-darkness} what I thought were some fish at or near the surface feeding {I was hoping for a topwater smallie bite }. After making a few casts toward the swirling water without result, I crept up on the disturbance. What I saw was this. A giant bullhead 12"+ had a smaller maybe 9" bullhead in it's mouth. I watched them struggle for a minute before it dawned on me to net them. As I raised the net, both the fish spooked and separated. Both swam away strong. Does this mean that one bullhead was trying to eat the other, or were two fish fighting while gearing up for spawning? I tend to think it was the second choice.

When my son was 9, we were fishing and he was using a expensive cobo of mine. Me on the bow and him on the back casting deck. At that age he was already doing a great job of landing, releasing, and dealing with his own tangles. I hear a big splash from the back of the boat and turn to see him holding nothing and saying sorry dad. I see the line still floating, cast out and snag it on the 1st try. Reel it in, hand line it in up to his jig. Stand in back and pull up the rod after emptying the entire spool onto the floor of the boat. Told him to stop punishing himself, it was ok we got it back. During the entire time it was not in y he boat, I was silent. Reeled the line back onto the spool without a single tangle, twist, or not. Hand him the pole and said, "please don't do that again, my heart won't make if I have to deal with that again. To this day we still talk about it and laugh.

This didnt happen to me but a friend of mine. He was with a group, trolling for Kokanee on Flaming Gorge.They usually troll prettty deep, like in lake michigan. They had a fish on and broke the line off. A short while later they had another strike. I turned out that they had caught the leader of the fish that broke off the line. They could tell because it was the same lure. The strange part was that the hook of the trolled lure was directly through the eyelet. Impossible odds of the hook going through the eyelet like that and they did land the fish.

A few years ago (October) I was fishing skein in the Milwaukee harbor. One rod rigged with a float, one set up for bottom bouncing skein. After a period without action from my bottom bouncer, I put the rod down for a split second to grab my bobber rod from the back deck, It was a little outta reach and just then, my bottom bouncer shoots off the deck into the drink...dang! The next spring I'm in the Kenosha harbor talking to a guy I know from IL who fishes Milwaukee on occasion. He goes on to tell me about the one trip he made last fall...and the rod/reel combo he "caught". "No friggin way" I think.....impossible, right? Yup, it was mine. I described it and he just laughed, and brought it to me the next week...still in good working order. Still got that combo! Who'da thunk?

Had a real life ghost encounter on a small pond in Rock Co. I once told the story here on LL and all it got was a bunch of b.s responses tho.