Strangest thing ever caught on a fly?

[skeeter]

Just wondering, for discussion, has anyone ever caught anything really strange on a fly?
My story begins on the Breeches, late August White fly hatch, just dark enough to flick on the old head lamp. Casting away at this anxious little trout when during my back cast, you guessed it..snag.. Begin pulling the rod forward and plunk... Thought it was a branch, rotate around to see what I snagged to find a juvenile bat splashing frolicly in the water below me. It was a legal catch, no foul hooking there. I next then attempted to unhook the restless little thing by wrapping my net around it and successfully did so. I next, kinda out of anger (10 min wasted of the hatch), tossed it way up in the air and he flew away. Later that night after catching one 8" bow and a "breech" bat, I was discussing at my car with another fisherman my exciting evening. He laughed and said "that was your first"? So that is the strangest thing I have ever caught on a fly!

 

[RLeeP]

In the aftermath of the killer tornadoes around memorial day of 1985, I was on the West Br. of Caldwell Creek and caught a perfectly legible copy of a promissory note between two Amishmen in Atlantic in Mercer County, about 50 miles away as the crow flies. The wind evidently carried it all that way.

Been a long time, but I think it said something like "I, John Yoder agree to pay Isaiah Hershberger the sum of $500" by such and such a date.

Got it from beneath an undercut bank on a #12 Whitlock Fox. Sq. nymph with a mottled turkey wingcase. Very subtle strike...

 

[JackM]

My buddy caught a duck on his backcast- he's still learning. Gave a new meaning to the chuck-n-duck cast. As for me, I once caught a walleye on a white bugger, but the strangest thing has to be Maurice's hat. That was my infamous jerk cast.

 

[Padraic]

I caught my fishin' buddy Paul G. :lol:

 

[PaulG]

Padraic

Boy, was that a long time ago, but funny I still have the hat!

My stranges catch was a duck, not with a flyrod, was using a casting rod, it was a long time ago!

I was fishing in a lake and the darn thing took my bait, it wasn't easy getting that guy off the hook!

 

[ryanh]

Spinning rod:
1# snapping turtle on an old wooden bobber at Boy Scout Camp as a kid

#2 snapping turtle on a bass in a pond at PSU. (the snapper let go of the bass's tail prior to landing it)


Flyrod:
#1 bass on a chub that took a caddis in the Lauralhill. Scared the bejesus out of me when the bass nailed the chub.

 

[Bamboozle]

Bat - (accidentally) on McMichael's Creek – foul hooked on a Sulphur imitation while trout fishing during a Sulphur hatch.

Bat - (accidentally) on Mc Michael's Creek – legally hooked on a Sulphur imitation while trout fishing during a Sulphur hatch.

Bat - (intentionally) on Letort Spring Run – legally hooked, (is there a legally in this case ;-)), on a Sulphur imitation while BAT fishing, (don't ask), after a Sulphur hatch.

Duck – (accidentally) on Falling Springs Branch – foul hooked on a Sulphur imitation while trout fishing prior to a Sulphur hatch.

Duck – (accidentally, sort of) on The Run, (Breeches) – foul hooked on a deer hair imitation of a McDonald’s French fry, (really!) while annoying ducks.

Duckling - (accidentally) on Monocasy Creek – foul hooked on a Trico imitation while trout fishing during a Trico hatch.

Seagull - (accidentally) on Atlantic Ocean - foul hooked on a Honey Blond while fishing clueless for ANYTHING on a jetty in NJ. The fact that my friends were throwing bread up in the air and feeding the gulls right in front of me didn’t help matters much. Is this considered chumming for gulls?

Canada Goose – (accidentally on purpose) at Lake Towhee - foul hooked on a 4/0 worm hook and a Senko after I sort of got pi$$ed at all the geese at the lake crapping all over the place.

Snapping Turtle - (intentionally) at Ridley Creek - partially hooked on a size 14 Eagle Claw bait hook and a hunk of roast beef from a Wawa hoagie. The little feller grabbed the meat, not the hook. Fishin’ was slow that day.

No critters were hurt during these adventures and all were released after amazement and hysterical laughter.

Excluded are all inanimate objects including garbage and other fishermen which in some cases can be remarkably similar.

 

[afishinado]

I was trolling plugs for springtime browns, steelhead and salmon on Lake Ontario in the channel at Sodus Bay, I had a knock off on the planer board. “Fish on!” The “fish” took a suicide run and headed straight towards the sea wall. All of a sudden the line rose out of the water into the air. A seagull took the plug from near the surface and was attempting to fly away with it. I tied to reel him in to free him, but couldn’t reel against the drag. The poor thing landed and got tangled up in the rocks and the line frayed and broke. That the only "hit" we had all day.

 

[Bruno]

A hellbender on Laurel Hill. I admit I never saw one before and was a little freaked. It grunted when I unhooked it.

 

[trico]

myself....
my first outing to the salmon river i neglected the duck part of chuck and duck... i burried a globug in my chin pust the barb, thank god for jameson's
since then, i gave that up, and went to traditional flyfishing techniques

 

[2bonthewater]

bat-- sulpher -- legal
bat-- sulpher -- legal
bat-- march brown -- legal

all right in the mouth!!!!! one a mid-air take......the others plucked off the water

also whacked a bat on a backcast--I am pretty sure that one died

whilst spin fishing in my youth I have witnessed:

a friend hook a rat on a nightcrawler
a cousin hook a swan and loose plenty of fishing line
I caught a turtle on a spinner


I would have loved to have witnessed the HELLBENDER...truly amazing critters..............

 

[tomgamber]

For me it was either the seagull or the bat...both strange...for my dad it was a swallow.

 

[bobm]

surfcasting as a kid - seagull on a clam
flyfishing - A big bullfrog at my buddy's farm pond. Casted a hopper right in front of him, twitched it and wham! the bugger broke me off, tippet was too light.
The hardest fighting thing one could hook would be some type of streamside bovine, that would really make the reel sing!

 

[RLeeP]

>>I would have loved to have witnessed the HELLBENDER...truly amazing critters..............>>

These things were real common around home when I was a kid. I grew up on the Outlet of Lake LeBoeuf, which connects to French Creek. We used to sit and fish for bullhead at night in the spring on the creek, which was 100 yards behind the house. When the hellbenders (mud puppies) started biting around 1AM, we knew the bullhead were done for the night and we'd quit.

As recently as 10 or 11 years ago, there was still a pretty healthy population of hellbenders in French Creek proper, to the point that when they were laying out on the spawn (usually late August through mid Sept.) they were a PITA when you were trying to fish the heads of the runs for smallmouth with a fly. They'd get all wrapped up in the fly line and are the slimiest, goopiest creature I ever touched. The stuff would clump on your hands and your fly line. Took a long time to clean it all off.

I don't know how the French Creek hellbender pop is doing now, though.

 

[live2fish]

How about a water snake. Seen it when standing on the bridge and drop my streamer down. Didn't take long for him to grab it. Heck of a time to unhook him. Worse than catching an eel.

 

[fly_flinger]

While spin fishing a few years ago on the Perkiomen I caught a dead rooster. A few months later while fishing at night I caught an eel on the Perkiomen too. I thought it was a snake at first until I reached for the tail and it was flat and slimey.
When I was about 18 I caught a huge snapper on a worm below Lake Redman where the water dumps out of a large drain pipe. Man did I think I had a monster fish on.

 

[Chaz]

I was in MN in summer 96 fishing on a pond, we'd been catching a bunch of Blue Gills and Sunnies on poppers when I went to pick up my fly and swirl and a very good fight brought a large burbot to the boat. I unfortunately didn't put my net in the boat and it broke of when I tried to bring it onboard. So I don't have a photo. 3 ducks, one on a trico, one on a caddis, and one when it tried to land on the LL and flew across the fly line, when I set the hook he broke off the approach much as a pilot would and started beating his wings and after a short climb out broke the tippet. This was when I was playing hookie from night classes during a sulphur hatch in spring 93.