4/2/06 report: now Ive seen everything

[e-sea-e]

I went to a pond on the north shore sunday to see where the largemouth fishing was at, and caught a few pickeral, and no bass. well, actually caught a bass in one of the most bizzare scenarios ever.

I am standing in a cove full of standing brush, when i hear a splash about 10 feet away. I look and see the tail of a sunfish sticking out of the water. I figure the thing got stuck in the brush somehow and keep fishing. then I hear the splash again, and now i can see that it looks like there is the head of something sticking out of the water and the sunfish is sticking out of the mouth of whatever is holding the sunfish. I go to take a look and find a 2 lb bass that apparently charged into the brush to get this sunfish, put its head between a bunch of brush stems that made a "V" just below the surface and grabbed the sunfish, but its gills flared out and its gill plates extended, keeping it from being able to slide back out of the brush, while a stem in front kept it from going forward. the sunfish's dorsal spines must have preveted the bass from spitting it out, and the thing was stuck fast, with its whole head out of the water except the lower jaw, so water was going over its gills.

I grabbed the fish's lower jaw and lifted him up out of the water, and he still held onto the sunfish. I then put him in the water and let him swim away, but before swimming away, he swallowed the sunfish.

I wish I had my camera!

[tsheehy]

Cool story!

:)

-- Tom

[Ray]

There will be a day when you can't buy a hit from a fish, then mother nature will return the favor!!!!

[AdamFishes]

Try using one of those sun fish for bait sometime. Those bass are like sharks to the sunnies:)

[Thunder Rod]

Here's another one...

I was steelhead fishing up at Salmon River a few years ago and looked down to see a metal shopping cart submerged in the water. Some idiot must have tossed it in I figured. Disgusted but not surprised, I figured the right thing to do would be to get it out of there. So I worked the thing around a bit and was eventually able to free it up and pull it out.

Once I got it out high and dry I looked the thing over. There, flapping back and forth in one of the holes in the basket, was a small 8-inch steelhead. It was stuck in one of the rectangular holes in the (metal) basket mesh, with it's head extended just past the prongs so that the gill plates prevented it from backing out -- much like how a barb works on a harpoon. And it's body was too big to squeeze the rest of the way through the hole. The fish was plenty alive, but wedged in tight. No telling how long he would last.

So I worked at him for a bit, holding both gill plates closed while I slipped the head back out of the hole. Born free... and he was soon swimming again in the wild. He seemed healthy enough, so I figured he'd make it ok.

And perhaps someday in the future I might run into that fish again, hopefully when it grows to over 20-lbs.

[teflon_jones]

Those are a couple of good stories. You see some crazy stuff while fishing.

I have a kind of related story but it involves actually catching a fish. Last summer I was fishing in a local lake and hooked into a bass of about 15" or so. It was fighting really strangely and I could see its mouth was wide open as far as it could go during the entire time I was pulling it in. When I got it to me and lipped it, and started to lift it up, the crankbait I was using just fell into its mouth farther. The fish wasn't hooked at all. The bass swallowed the bait headfirst and when I set the hook (or should I say lure), the rear of the crankbait went into the roof if its mouth, while the bill of the lure jammed into the bottom of the mouth. The pressure on the line held the lure there as I reeled the fish in. The lure and the mouth of the fish were just the perfect size to wedge it in there like that.

[e-sea-e]

Those are a couple of good stories. You see some crazy stuff while fishing.

I have a kind of related story but it involves actually catching a fish. Last summer I was fishing in a local lake and hooked into a bass of about 15" or so. It was fighting really strangely and I could see its mouth was wide open as far as it could go during the entire time I was pulling it in. When I got it to me and lipped it, and started to lift it up, the crankbait I was using just fell into its mouth farther. The fish wasn't hooked at all. The bass swallowed the bait headfirst and when I set the hook (or should I say lure), the rear of the crankbait went into the roof if its mouth, while the bill of the lure jammed into the bottom of the mouth. The pressure on the line held the lure there as I reeled the fish in. The lure and the mouth of the fish were just the perfect size to wedge it in there like that.

I had the same thing happen with a sbft this season, it inhaled a small popper and just proped the mouth open like that.