it was about twenty years ago on the east side of the hole in the morning, water was up a bit.

"3. Guy fishing egg sacks long log in Elk at waterfall hole. He snagged on the tree. He then proceeded to walk into the deepest part of the hole, reach down and pull out the egg sack, walk back to his spot and cast right back into the hole."
 
I've stepped into a hole to retrieve a fly, and caught fish on the next cast.
 
They are not the most elusive of creatures.

ChromeBandit412

I made 3 trips my first year fishing for steelies and got skunked each time. My first trip of year 2 i had done my homework and was eager for my first ever chrome. September 12th me and my cousin end up casting spoons into the lake at the mouth of walnut. After about 2 hundred casts or so i hooked up with a heavy fresh chrome. He put on quite a show for me jumping clear out of the water twice and striping off line. After a good fight my cousin netted him for me. We walked down off the pier to and were getting ready to put him on a stringer. Being that it was september and warm out my cousin wanted to revive the fish so it would stay fresh longer. Well as he was reviving the fish it flopped hard and got out of his grips. He dove after it but it the chrome was long gone. It blew my mind. There goes my first steelie that i drove hundreds of miles for, spent hundreds of $ chasing, and countless of hours reading up on. My cousin was more ****ed than i was at the time and i can look back and laugh now. If it wasnt a challenge i wouldnt love it so much and i caught at least a dozen on my next 4 trips that year.

 
Why would you revive a fish you're putting on a stringer?

ChromeBandit412

it was september, still hot out. our reasoning was the fish would stay fresh longer. shoulda strung er up first surely

 
Keeping it alive allows more lactic acid to build up in the fish, making it stronger tasting.  For fresher fish, cut the gills and bleed it out quickly.

Cold

ChromeBandit412

it was september, still hot out. our reasoning was the fish would stay fresh longer. shoulda strung er up first surely

Keeping it alive allows more lactic acid to build up in the fish, making it stronger tasting.  For fresher fish, cut the gills and bleed it out quickly.

 
^ What he said...  Also, get that thing in a cooler full of ice asap.

I had a decent morning fishing and headed to Teresa's Lakeshore Deli for some lunch.  Having secured a hot sausage sammy, I made the trip down to Walnut Access to sit on the bank, eat the hoagie, and enjoy the show.  It was not disappoinitng.
 
Two guys were fishing in the shallow section below the Stop Sign Hole and above the wall.  I bet the water wasn't six inches deep in most spots, but they must have cornered a couple of fish because they were pretty intense on what they were doing and not really paying attention to what was going on around them.
 
Suddenly the one guy rears back on his noodle rod like he was setting the hook into a giant travelle.  There was a huge commotion and splashing and hooting and hollering -- right before the duck that had snuck in and ate whatever he was using took to the air.
 
So here is this poor guy, stuck to a duck, with it flapping around and trying to fly away.  The drag is singing, the duck is quacking, and tears are running down my face.  It buzzed him a couple of times in the air, crashed to the water a few times, and got back into the air again.
 
If I weren't in danger of choking on the hoagie at that point, it darn near happened when -- and you can't make this stuff up folks -- the guy with him yells, yep, you guessed it -- "DUCK ON!"
 
Try as he might, the guy could not break the duck off -- no idea if it was a legal hook up or if it were, please excuse me -- fowl hooked.
 
So he tightens down the drag, pulls the duck into the water, and, yep, his buddy nets it.  They wrestle the duck into a position, after much flogging and quacking, where they are able to unhook it and release it.
 
And then they rebaited and went right back to fishing the same spot as if nothing ever happened.

DarDys, you told that like a champ! Literally LOL'ed! Fantastic. You win.

One time back in the early 2000's I was fishing the wall at walnut overnight.  There were 3 guys next to me who had a little fire going to keep warm, one of them decided to take a nap next to it....
Next thing you know there is a guy whose jacket is on fire running in circles panicking as his drunken buddies swing their beers back and forth yelling stop drop and roll. I was on the ground laughing!
 
..but the funniest thing I have witnessed on the tribs is some of the fishermen that take themselves way to seriously...
 
 

I was fishing at Trout Run and it got crowded at the mouth so I moved East by the pier.  I was crushing the steel with fresh roe only feet from shore.  I had a steelie break me off and as I was replacing my hook three fishermen actually asked if they could fish near me.  I said of course you may but stay out of the water as the fish near shore are not on a stringer.  I turned around after rigging up and all three were 15 ft from shore and had scattered the fish.  

I waited one time for this fly fisherman to make a cast so that I could walk behind him. He made 3 or 4 casts that he didn't like then finally he cast out and began a drift. I took this as a good time to walk behind him. As soon as I got behind him, he yanked his line out of the water to make another cast and whacked me right across the face. If I hadn't been wearing shades, his rod tip would have poked my eye out. It left a big, angry welt across my face. I was white-hot mad. He looked scared to death and kept apologizing. It was an older Asian dude. I finally just walked away from him. He packed up and left. I then proceeded to hammR em duud.
I didn't think it was funny, but I bet the other people at the stream did. LOL
 
Probably the funniest thing that I have ever seen was two or three years ago at Elk. My best friend and I were fishing in Feb or March. There was hardly anyone at the stream. We had a big pod of fish in front of us and we were having a blast. This dude comes down the bank and sees all of the fish and just gets stupid. He was so excited that he could barely bait his hook. He charged into the stream like a labrador after a duck. Of course the fish scattered. I told him, "The fish are kinda spooky. You got to be quiet." He just looked at me like I was retarded. Well, my buddy was between me and the new guy. My buddy started catching fish again but the new guy couldn't hook up. Instead, he started inching closer and closer to my buddy. There were fish strung out for 30yds, but he felt that my buddy's spot was better because he was catching fish. LOL. Anyway, the new guy got about three feet away from my friend and my buddy looked over at him and started coughing. I said, "Hey man. You ok? I knew I shouldn't have brought you up here." He looked at me and said, "I only have 6 months to live anyway. Dam tuberculosis is killing me. Might as well be while I'm fishing." The new guy jumped out of the water just as quickly as he jumped in.

It happened to be the first steelhead I ever hooked:
 
I was about 6 or 7 years old, fishing Erie for the first time, right above the mouth of 16 mile, with my dad, and my mom walking the dog around the beach area there, videotaping our fishing and the lake. Sure enough, after hours of drifting some skein, I hook a steelhead, and everyone around is cheering me on, although it takes me awhile to tire it out, because I was young, weak, and only using 4 lb line. I'm bringing the fish up to the bank, when it gets one last burst of energy, and makes one last run upstream. Sure enough, in spite of the fact that everyone else had gotten out of the water, and reeled their lines in, there was one fat slob who didn't have a clue, still wading and fishing as if nothing was happening, he was slowly inching towards me, not even looking, when he stepped on my line, breaking my fish off. My mom absolutely explodes into rage at the guy who stepped on my line,  throwing every single cuss word in the book at him about "how dare you break off my baby's fish?"
 
Fortunately, the video camera was rolling the entire time, and the whole moment is on film, entire rant and all. Now, fast forward 17 or so years, I'm 25 now, and make several Erie steelhead trips each year, my personal bests are a 9 lb brown trout and a 14 lb steelhead. Every so often, however, I have to put that tape in and laugh about it, eventhough it wasn't funny at the time.

These stories make for a great laugh, but I can't even begin to tell my stories, I'm not sure how you guys were able to narrow it down enough to pick the best one!

Ok I have seen many funny things happen in Erie, Some of my own doing but here are a few
1)  Man sitting beside me looks at me and says hey man dont eat power bait it sucks as he starts to puke and then heads to the hospital
2)  Russian night snagging the stop sign hole and hooks one of his fellow snaggers in the ear Priceless
3)  Chinese guy fishing over a big bikers gf as she has her first chrome ever on needless to say chino went swimming.
4) Me arguing with my buddy that his line is on mine as my rod goes flying and I have to go get it.
5) West Virginia crew thinking a 17 inch Jack is a massive steelie.
6)  THen the one that ****es me off all the guys with the yellow rope keep chrome that you can tell by looking at them are not legal and strutting around like they got a state record.
7) Last but not least the guy trying to convince the warden in Manchester that he was in New York and Snagging was legal.

The funniest thing I ever saw on the Erie tribs is me attempting to catch a steelhead.......WF...I have just missed the run for about 20 years now.

Cold

Saw two fruits at follys wearing womens underwear over top their waders.

Somethin in the water, I guess...

That's funny! What I don't understand is why anyone would set themselves up for some, maybe a lot of possible "ribbing" or perhaps worst, vicious harassment. Or maybe it was just regular guys doing it as a joke. Who Knows? It's still funny and probably many "double takes" occurred.