.....Was fishing the Mckees Rocks area of the Ohio river, A buddy and I were trolling for eyes/sauger when we got bored and started throwing plastic worms for smallies. I had a few live bluegil with me from a previous trip for cats. I decided to throw a gil out under a float behind the boat and let it cruise through some submerged grass behind our drift. My buddy was laughing his @ss off saying there was not a chance in the world I was going to catch anything, I joked back and said just wait. About 45 seconds after that my float shot under the water like something fierce. I grabbed the rod set the hook and a good fight later I landed this bad boy (attached). By far the biggest With in city limits River Large Mouth I've ever caught!!

. . . decided that after 10 years of living less than 20 miles from Lake Arthur, it was time to fish it for the first time.  Got a lot of good info here through PM's from a couple of the Lake Arthur Legends of fisherie.com and took my 9 year old son to try to catch some channel cats and whatever else we could find.
 
We threw out some different baits on a couple different rods - some cut bluegill, some chicken livers, and a chunk of hot dog.
 
The hot dog line was the first to get some action, so my son grabbed it and set the hook.  Could tell it was a decent fish, but was shocked when he pulled in about a 22" pike! 
 
I'm 38, and have been fishing since I was 4, and have never caught a pike in my life.  Just to rub it in, he caught another pike a little later on the cut bluegill.  2 nice pike in 1 night for him, and I'm still 0 for 34 years. 

Genie, I love that mount. The plaque is beautiful. I've never seen one done like that before. The bass is a beautiful fish. Your taxidermist knows his stuff.
 
R2, pike on a hot dog? That's cool. I've only ever caught two pike in my life and neither one was very big. My son outfishes me every time we go out. He should. I don't reel them in unless he already has his hands full. He tells everyone that he outfishes me all of the time. I love it!
 
Great stories guys. Keep 'em comin'.

Here we go,please pardon me if it gets too long.
One time I went on vacation in Canada w/Dad &step-family.This was 1978,and it was up near North Bay(12+hours from our home)We left at 2am got to our lake/cottage around 4pm.Me and my bro ran down to the lake w/our Zebco 202's and nitecrawlers.He got baited up first,I was behind him getting rigged up when he tried his 1st cast.
Somehow he had just enough slack or I was to close,when he went foward his hook went up under my right eyelid between the eye and lid snagging there,after a couple tugs from him and my screams my Dad came a running.I now know that at that time we were over 80 miles from the nearest Hospital.
My Dad cut the line,scooped me up and started driving(nitecrawler was still alive at this time ,can still remember it squirming on my cheek)We went 20 or so miles to the nearest CMP Station trying to get help.There was no one there at that time with a car,Dad kept driving,maybe 10 or 15 miles later we got pulled over(it was out on the radio)A Mountie drove us the rest of the way at 100+mph
No rhyme or reason as to why I still have both eyes,but still think of those that helped me and thankful that the Big Guy was looking out for me.

R2, thanks for the pic. That smile says it all!
 
Ac, wow dude. I was gonna tell folks about the time I watched my one buddy snag another kid in the cheek with a J7 Rapala, but you  have that beat by a mile. Thank the Good Lord he didn't get your eye. Poor kid. I feel so bad for the little boy you used to be. Your poor Dad musta been sick out of his head! Did  your Mom ever let you go back to Canada with your Dad and brother after that? LOL! Close call duud.

slabdaddy
. Tell some more stories. I know you have lots. Awesome job on the plaque.

 
Thanks Slab..yea i have lots fishtails .
Did you ever hear about my "no touch" release for steelies?
It's true, about a third of them or more are released without touching them
 
it's cause my knot tying skillz STINK
 
 
..L.T.A.

TheBlueLagoon

The one day we took some live bluegil, fished close to shore and hammered HUGE Large Mouth all afternoon.

 
I did that MANY years ago..way before i knew anything about bass fishing
It was a small  private pond a friend had permission to fish....only got to fish it once
I've never seen a pond so full of HUGH bass cruising around ...before or since .
Knowing what I know now, I;d speculate they must of fed them regularly , cause the pond was too small to sustain such a LARGE population of hogs.
anyway..I couldn't get a look from any of them ....so i tied on a tiny jig and caught a four inch  'gil, stuck a 3/0 hook thru his back and chucked him in the drink 2ft  under a beach ball bobber .
In a matter minutes I landed my first ever hog bass...almost like cheatin'
 
 
 

  Got a couple of farm ponds like that.  July 4th seems to be my best day for pulling hogs out of 'em - two 23" and one 26" bass on that date out of one particular pond.

 
Nice R²
I love the farm ponds cause they suit my "go to"  style of bass fishing (light fineness fishing  plastics)due to the relatively shallow nature of them .
and duud, I absolutely LOVE your  fishtails  and pics  of you and your son
 
My biggest bass days (size wise)  over the years have been fishing the leading edge of thunder storm  fronts and super windy/gusty  days   .

The windy/gusty days have consistently  produced my best days of large bass in large  numbers .
I had one of those days last Spring ...winds @ 25mph w/gusts to 40+

I pounded them in a pond near my house for a couple hours til i got bored .
Out of the two dozen or so bass landed, only a couple were under 3 pnds .
a half dozen were 4+ and one hog over 5
this a pond i regularly fish and have to  land 2 dozen or more 1-2 pound'rs for every 3+ pound'r
but sump'um about the gusty winds make the big'uns dumb and more aggressive than the average size
 
That's been a consistent pattern over the years for me.
When ever it's mild and really windy, i try to make time to hit a bass pond
 
 
..L.T.A.
 
 
 
 
 

rmcmillen09

1 n time I was casting for eyes late night from shore and had landed a couple good fish. A while later my rapala was bumped and I stopped reeling it to see if it would hit it sitting still, when he hit again I let em have some ugly stiking and set the hook . All heck broke loose about 30' out in front of me, he took off and I had to loosen my drag and use my finger on the spool ,I fought him for all of 20 min. without gaining on him. He screamed the drag out quite a distance and I would hold the pole up high to see if I was snagged because I couldn't turn him. Finally I was able to get him in close and I could shine a light on it to see the monster. Have caught eyes as big as 12 lbs. there and have seen a 14 lbr. caught one night. but this fish had to be close to a state record . When I got my first look he had the wrong color and his eyes didn't shine back. It ended up being a 20+ carp what a fight , like trying to land a submarine.

Carp can put up 1 heck of a fight!
 
BH

That story belongs in the "It was embarrassing but..." thread that I started in the Off Topic board. Don't worry, at least two other people on there have nekkid stories posted already.

16 or 17 years ago I was fishing off my girlfriend's father's dock on the Susquehanna river. I had one rod set up with a crawler, and was casting a spinner with another. My GF was behind me up at the pavilion at the top of the bank. She hollered down to me to ask how many burgers I wanted and when I turned around to answer her, sure enough thats when something grabbed the crawler rig and dragged my rod right off the dock and into the river.
The next weekend we were back at the same dock swimming and fishing and as I was fishing a jig and twister tail when I hooked into soething heavy. I thought "I've got a big one here!" after a while I reeled up my rod from the week before! and I thing there was still something on it until I grabbed the handle and started reeling because when the line came tight I felt a big tug and the line broke. So I was pretty happy thinking "at least I've got my rod back" Seems like a happy ending, right?
Well not really, because like two weeks after that, we were out doing some night fishing, and when we were packing it in I opened the hatch of my camaro to put the rods away. I just set them down inside the hatch and was turning around to grab my tacle box and lantern when my GF decided to close the hatch on the tips of my rods! The really bad part was that just closing the hatch didn't actually break the tips, it just bend them over, but the hatch had an automatic motor that pulled it down and sealed it. So as the motor is drawing it down I've got ahold of the hatch lifting up on it as hard as I could trying to save my rods! I think I must have had the back end of that car almost lifted off the ground! However no matter how hard I lifted up on it, it still pulled that hatch down tight. I got to hear Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! as the tip of every rod I owned broke about 18" down from the tip!  
I just looked at her and said "get in the car!" It was a really quite ride home. Just one of the many reasons I'm glad we broke up!
 

Ex-girlfriend...Ugly Sticks...Now there's a joke in there somewhere! ;)

shmoe could a been sturgeon's... 1 time I was sitting at the elk creek access late night salmon fishing mid 80s . Was down where the big hemlock tree hung out over the cliff. There were dozens of people with lanterns all the way up past the boat ramp and when someone would get one on, the place would get pretty loud with cheering and a boom box would start blaring polka music. I was 1/2 in the bag just sitting there enjoying the sights and sounds. Then around midnight I caught a salmon about 2' . I left him in the net in the water and got out 1 of my high intensity snap and shake lights out of my box tied a piece of mono and attached it through a slit right behind the lower jaw and released him. About an half hour later people upstream started talking real loud about a light moving up and down the stream. Some of the guys were pretty freaked out about the phenomenon saying" yeah I see it" "what is that" "what the expletive"  I wonder if they still think about the unexplained sight they saw.       

...was fishing Walnut at Buttermilk Falls. This was back before all of the construction went up, and we used to camp out overnight down there. Above the falls there were a few little places to catch fish in the run down from the old hatchery. I was fooling around a bit and ended up sliding on my bottom down an embankment toward the run. Schoolboys best joke and worst nightmare...my feet were spread apart and I was stopped by a tree. I do not think any further explanation is necessary. My friend dave almost went over the falls laughing at me. Now even almost 40 years later all he has to say is, "The tree." And we will start to laugh.

...was ice fishing with my buddies. We brought along a charcoal grill and some burgers for lunch. I put the charcoal in and lit it. The wind was making things difficult. I opened the lid to put the burgers in and  the wind blew a chunk of charcoal out of the grill, right into the corner of my eye. I scrunched my eye shut (instinct) but unfortunately that served to "grip" the red-hot coal and keep it there a second or so longer. I ended up with a dime-sized blister in the corner of my eye. It bugged the hell outta me. Not only did it hurt, but I couldn't stop looking at it. Anyway, we ate our burgers and I had a leftover crust of bread. I leaned down to throw it down a hole and my cell phone flew out of my pocket right down the hole. 100 acres of ice and my phone has to fall down a 10 inch hole. I was so mad. It had a micro SD card in it with lots of pics and vids of my kids. Well, I got a new phone and as soon as I activated it, I could see that I had a few voice mails. I started checking them and the first one went something like this, "Yeah, this is Drew (my buddy). It's 1:06 AM on February 14, 2010. I was just calling to see if  your phone saw more fish than we did. HAHAHAHA! CLICK." What a smart aleck! Every time we go ice fishing, that story comes up.

slabdaddy

...was fishing on lower Elk for steel. I just landed a nice fish and was headed back to my spot. Between my spot and I was an older Asian dude (45-50 I'd guess) with a fly rod. I needed to walk behind him (on the shore) to get where I was going. I patiently waited for him to cast. When his fly hit the water, I walked behind him. As soon as I walked into the danger zone he decided that he didn't like that cast. He jerked his fly out of the water and hit me in the face so hard that I thought he cut my head in two. It felt like I'd been shot. I lost my temper. When the fella looked at me, his eyes got about as big as dinner plates. He looked terrified. lol. I must have looked ready to kill. He started apologizing profusely. I could tell that he honestly felt bad (he should have) and that he was afraid that I was going to flip out on him. I just muttered, "I'm ok" and walked back to my spot and started fishing. The Asian dude left. To this day, I will not walk behind a flyfisherman without telling him that I'm behind him. I had a welt on my face for days.

 I tried twice to post a picture of me in a forester's helmet.