Taken for a ride!!!
07-08-2004, 07:43 AM
#26
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Indiana
Posts: 32
RE: Taken for a ride!!!
Another story...
A good friend of ours goes to canada once a year to go Pike/Muskie fishing in EchoBay Ontario, usually around ice off (memorial day). We have made a few trips with him. On our last trip with him in 2000 the water levels were terrible. It had been a warm winter for canada with little snow and less rain. We would normally lauch at the lake, run the river out to the bay to fish...this year the mouth of the river was walkable...about 6-8 inches deep. The water was down nearly 3 feet. We had fished the lake several times, but the fishing was not as good in the lake at this time of year. The fish move out to the bay early in the year to spawn in the flats then back to the cooler waters of the lake as temps rise. So at any rate we were on the hunt for a new fishing hole. The down water, inability to get in the bay, and the Indians from the reservation across the lake dragging the river with nets gave us two days in a row of bad fishing. In the mid morning of the third day...frustrated and discouraged...we were ready to call it quits and just drink beer when something happened...
We were coasting along in this little 14 foot steel boat from the resort...my wife and I in front casting out...bass fishing (we had given up on the pike at this point)...Dave, our friend, in back, trolling/dragging a surface lure rather unethusiastically while he was telling us the story how he and his family had first found this resort while lost in a bad storm...when there was a SPLASH...and Dave's reel started whirring as the drag spun out. We were all shocked and just stared at each other for a second or two...and the the yelling started. My wife and I ripped in our lines and I got on the trolling motor and started steering on the direction of the fish who was moving out towards the deep ledge we had been fishing along earlier in the day. Dave just kept saying..."Oh S**T" over and over. As we started moving out towards the ledge the fish suddenly changed direction and raced back towards shore. Dave took the opportuity to get some line on the beasty. As the fish raced back and along side the boat we saw this huge shadow in the water. I couldnt tell you how big it was...but it was a darn big fish. My wife started jumping around in the boat yelling over and over "Did you see that? Did you see that?" Just as Dave turned in the boat, swinging his line from one side to the other as the fish raced by...as he got to other side of the boat and the fish started to take line again...he pulled back on the rod to gain some control...and the rod snapped right at the handle...in a manuver I would never had thought humanly possible...in one sweet and fast movement Dave jumped from the boat and snatched up the remainder of his rod just as it started to go under water. Standing chest deep in icey cold water....there Dave holding this broken rod...but just holding it...there was no longer a lure OR a fish on the other end.
A good friend of ours goes to canada once a year to go Pike/Muskie fishing in EchoBay Ontario, usually around ice off (memorial day). We have made a few trips with him. On our last trip with him in 2000 the water levels were terrible. It had been a warm winter for canada with little snow and less rain. We would normally lauch at the lake, run the river out to the bay to fish...this year the mouth of the river was walkable...about 6-8 inches deep. The water was down nearly 3 feet. We had fished the lake several times, but the fishing was not as good in the lake at this time of year. The fish move out to the bay early in the year to spawn in the flats then back to the cooler waters of the lake as temps rise. So at any rate we were on the hunt for a new fishing hole. The down water, inability to get in the bay, and the Indians from the reservation across the lake dragging the river with nets gave us two days in a row of bad fishing. In the mid morning of the third day...frustrated and discouraged...we were ready to call it quits and just drink beer when something happened...
We were coasting along in this little 14 foot steel boat from the resort...my wife and I in front casting out...bass fishing (we had given up on the pike at this point)...Dave, our friend, in back, trolling/dragging a surface lure rather unethusiastically while he was telling us the story how he and his family had first found this resort while lost in a bad storm...when there was a SPLASH...and Dave's reel started whirring as the drag spun out. We were all shocked and just stared at each other for a second or two...and the the yelling started. My wife and I ripped in our lines and I got on the trolling motor and started steering on the direction of the fish who was moving out towards the deep ledge we had been fishing along earlier in the day. Dave just kept saying..."Oh S**T" over and over. As we started moving out towards the ledge the fish suddenly changed direction and raced back towards shore. Dave took the opportuity to get some line on the beasty. As the fish raced back and along side the boat we saw this huge shadow in the water. I couldnt tell you how big it was...but it was a darn big fish. My wife started jumping around in the boat yelling over and over "Did you see that? Did you see that?" Just as Dave turned in the boat, swinging his line from one side to the other as the fish raced by...as he got to other side of the boat and the fish started to take line again...he pulled back on the rod to gain some control...and the rod snapped right at the handle...in a manuver I would never had thought humanly possible...in one sweet and fast movement Dave jumped from the boat and snatched up the remainder of his rod just as it started to go under water. Standing chest deep in icey cold water....there Dave holding this broken rod...but just holding it...there was no longer a lure OR a fish on the other end.
07-08-2004, 08:42 PM
#28
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Hudson NY USA
Posts: 163
RE: Taken for a ride!!!
For years in Northern NY my grandfather told me of a water dwelling creature.....a Swamphogger.......these things are not as docile as their landlubber cousins the.......mountaingoochie. Now...I've never seen a swamphogger but from what my grandpa told me if you hook one they'd act just about like that. Don't worry though, from what he told me they are vegitarian (swamphoggers that is...mountaingoochies eat only little boys who are up past bedtime).
Good luck, and for christs sakes be careful.
Good luck, and for christs sakes be careful.
07-10-2004, 02:23 PM
#29
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fredericksburg Virginia USA
Posts: 13,672
RE: Taken for a ride!!!
The only time I have experienced something like that was salt water fishing, I had a heavy salt water rod with 35 pound test line on it, what ever this fish was it was HUGE, I really do not think it knew it was hooked, instead of that normal frenzy you feel a fish in when you hook them all I felt was what appeared to be the pulsation of a normaly swimming fish. This joker took off at least 3/4 of the line on my spool and decided to hang a right around a piling.....PLINK!!! He was gone! I am convinced to this day that it had to have been a LARGE shark. The feel of sheer power I felt through that rod was something I will never forget.
It does my heart good to hear other folks having that kind of experience, yes maybe you didn't get that monster, but you will never forget the experience.
It does my heart good to hear other folks having that kind of experience, yes maybe you didn't get that monster, but you will never forget the experience.
07-11-2004, 06:59 AM
#30
Boone & Crockett
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location:
Posts: 11,472
RE: Taken for a ride!!!
If you've evr been too drunk to fish ...
yes maybe you didn't get that monster, but you will never forget the experience.
