Fish Stories

 Anyone got a great fish story?  Here is one of mine.
 
I was fishing the other day with a friend who told me the story of fishing with another friend.  They were over a great pile of fish, the kind of fishing where you really do catch them one after the other until your arms hurt.  Anyway, right in the middle of this most excellent opportunity, the other guy quit fishing, sat back and relaxed, and said, "You've got to learn to savor the moment."
 
I know not everyone is, but I happen to be a believer in God.  I turned 50 recently, and in that story I really felt like God was speaking to me (I know, "I'm old, duud").
 
Last trip up, it was one of those days where everything was going right.  Even though the fish were still biting, I sat down on the bank and said to my friend, "I think I'm done.  I'm just going to savor the moment."
 
And I did.
 
 
 

Sometime back in the summer of 1993 I was fishing San Luis Pass beach in Galveston TX.
I was working a huge redfish school up and down the beach all morning. In my way back to the truck a family from Arkansas approached me and asked me if I was catching anything. I told them about how eventful my morning was.
 
The little boy (about 9 at the time) looked up at his dad and told him "see dad I knew I should have brought my fishing pole"!
 
I reached into my truck and pulled out a rod and handed it to him. This kids mom and dad sat down on their chairs and I took this kid out a few feet into the surf.
I tied him up to a mirrolure 51mr and showed him how to cast and retrieve it. After about 10 cast with nothing to show this kid was asking me where all the fish went!
 
Not 10 seconds later....BAM!! Fish on!!! His rod doubled over and the reel started to screem!!!
Being that I was right behind him I instructed this kid on what to do!
 
This kid fought this fish like he had caught 100 that morning. His rod held high and perfect tension being kept and managed to beach this fish in after about a 40-45 minute fight.
 
This red weighed close to 30 lbs and measured about 40 inches. During the fight his parents were on the beach just cheering up a storm. I can stil remember the smile on all of their faces....PRICELESS!!
 
After we got the fish ready for a release I grabbed my "throw away" camera from my truck and took a nice pic of him holding (well, he was trying to hold it up..lol) with his mom and dad by his side!
 
After a few hand shakes and some convincing to him by his parents it was time for them to go. I told them that I would send the picture to them by mail as soon as I had them developed.
 
Weeks past and that camera ended up being lost!  4 Years later I was digging through some old tackle boxs and low and behold I found that camera and the address of my new fishin' buddy! I developed the picture and sent it to them with a letter explaining what happend.
 
After a week or so I got a return letter with a recent pic of Chris (the now 13 year old boy) and his dad holding up some really nice trout they caught back home.
 
The letter explained to me that he and his dad never really fished together because of the lack of interest from his dad, but after seeing how much fun it was with me that day, his dad took up the sport and now they fish every week together!
 
Needless to say that letter brought a tear to my eyes...Knowing that I was responsible for introducing the enjoyment of fishing to this kid and his father. Bringing their relationship closer in the process!
 
The thought of that morning on the beach comes to mind ever so ofter and reminds me of the true reasons we fish and to share as much of the passion to as many others as possible!

Good Story!!!!!You done good hoss!! That is worth a millon bucks.I did the same thing a few years ago up Erie. Turns out the dad owned a sporting good store. I got the biggest box of fishing equipment you ever saw in the mail and a very touching letter from the dad. Brought a few tears to my eyes also.

Well, here's my story. Fishing a high mountain lake in the Sierra's with my cousin and his uncle. Crushed the native brookies there with every fly in the box. Was alone for awhile and then a family showed up with a few 5 or so year old kids with big ol' cowboy hats.
 
 They were using huge hooks with massive amounts of power bait and weren't catching anything. The dad and I were talking about fishin' and I insisted on helpin them out. Rigged a Mega Prince under a bobber and the kid caught a beautiful 9 inch high mountain brookie, how's that for your first fish caught?! I could barely make out what he was saying but it went something like "Is so beauty!". I couldn't stop smiling.

Great stories. Thanks!
 
MikeG, here is my redfish story.  It is not in the same class as yours, to be sure, but I think you might appreciate it none the less.

We were drifting Sebastian Inlet  in Florida with "winkies" (live pinfish) for snook.  The reds were so think we couldn't get through them to the snook underneath.  Hook up a bait, drop it down, and "wham", fish on.  These were all big reds, and in the current they were a handful.
 
Anyhow, we told a friend we'd probably caught five hundred pounds of redfish the night before (all released, of course; I think we did manage one snook).  He didn't believe us.  So we went out the next night, weighed fish (almost all were over 20 pounds, and some were will into the 30s), and actually kept track of how much we caught.  When we were well over 600 lbs--and still catching them-- we stopped counting.  What a night!

I WAS FISHING THE SPRING RUN ON THE BETSY RIVER MICH. WITH MY BUDDY DAVE. WE WERE IN A HIKE IN SECTION AND WERE ALONE EXCEPT FOR ONE GUY WE COULD SEE WAY UPSTREAM. EVENTUALLY THIS GUY CAME DOWN PLAYING A GOOD FISH WHICH WE HELPED HIM LAND.WE TALKED FOR A WHILE AND TOLD HIM WE WERE FROM N.Y.  HE SAID HE WAS FROM INDIANNA. DAVE SAID HIS MOM WENT TO COLLEGE IN INDIANA. TURNS OUT HE WENT TO THE SAME COLLEGE AND HE AND DAVE'S MOTHER HAD BEEN ENGAGED TO MARRY BUT IT DIDN'T WORK OUT.
   SMALL WORLD                GLEN

December '97, Cascade. I spot a guy watching me from shore. I'm not doing anything special, just working a bugger. Eventually he works his way out towards me and I notice his gear is all brand spanking new (including the tag on his Orvis Tackle-Pac vest....same vest I wear, by the way) As he's chatting me up, he mentions that he's never fished with anything but spinning tackle. I hand him my rig, which he held like a bachelor holding a baby, grab his rig, slap a leader, sucker spawn, shot and indicator on it....pay out some line, make a quick roll cast and....BANG, I hook this beast on his rig. While I'm trying to act cool, I realize his reel has no drag, what I didnt notice was that his reel had NO backing on it!!!! You guessed it, the fish lines me, and just to make it even funnier (in hindsight) the flyline was not tied to the arbor.....As he's standing there speechless with my rig, and I'm watching his line, fish still attached, charge downstream, he says,
"That was awsome!!!!!"....
We retrieved his line, and landed the fish with the help of a guy downstream of us chuckin' metal who netted what turned out to be then, and still is now, the biggest Steelie I've ever caught. The guy retrieved the backing from his car, (he told me he thought it was 'sinking' line)
we re-rigged him, and spent the rest of the day laughing our asses off....Mike has moved to Germany since then, but he has become a pretty fair fly-fisherman from what I can tell and we still talk occasionally. Good times.......good times.

i remember many years back my friend and i were fishing the second day of trout on an early sunday morn. i was using a spinning rod fishing in a hole of a slow country stream. there were people on the other side of the bank fishing there also. we were prtty much hungover from the night before and were resting on the ground. i was half dozing off when i felt my line and rod move like a biting trout. i yanked my pole hard to set the hook and let's just say the little girl, on the other side of the stream, almost lost her fishing rod and almost fell into the water. my friend laughed cause he knew i was half asleep.
heck, that's the only fishing story i can come up with.