What's the strangest thing you ever caught ?

A long time ago while fishing with my father , we were bottom fishing for cap , you know with a sinker , you get the line tight and let it sit until something takes it . Well my dad decided it was a good idea to use his itty bitty ultralight, so small it couldve been mistaked for an ice fishing pole , the lead weights nearly doubled the rod over by them selves. It was evening and we were watching our poles and my dad says he has to get a soda or something and starts walking to the car . while he is away the tip of his rod jumped and I was running to grab it and set the hook , but before I could reach the pole it went flying over the railing and into the marina . My father actually laughed abot it .

The next day he hooked a good sized carp on a different pole but it snagged itself on the botom and after alot og pulling the line pulled free , no carp , but there was still weight on the line, and yes , it was my dads ultralight ! he continued to fish with the little pole during the same trip.

ahhhh...the memories
 
A Ling Cod, the first time i ever saw one. I didn't whether to kill it with the oar or run across the water to get away. UGLY sucker.
 
udtjim said:
A Ling Cod, the first time i ever saw one. I didn't whether to kill it with the oar or run across the water to get away. UGLY sucker.
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Thats funny Jim, first time I saw one in the boat I was 7 yrs old and it scared the hell out of me. My grandpa let it wriggle all over the bottom of the lund for about a minute laughing his butt off telling me to unhook it while I was heading to the bow shrieking.
Took some convincing that they were at the bottom of the lake not in the weedbeds near the swimming hole, 20lb pike did not scare me like that 2 ft slimy monster.
My grandpa called them Moria's.

Many years later I met a Metis that showed me and had to convince me they were worth eating. He made deep fried fish and chips better than some roadside diners I have been to.

They really are good eating....it is cod after all.
Clean them catfish style.

Nail the head to a post and cut around the head and score through the skin from top to bottom in 4 to 6 places. Grab with good pliers and peel like a banana. Big solid slabs of white meat, those things are all muscle and are a deep water predator. They do not taste muddy or eat crap off the bottom.
Lots of disinformation about fresh water ling cod from people that have never tried.
What is it with ugly fish tasting good? Look at halibut and some others.

The lake I bought property at last year has them, can't wait till the day bring one into camp and see the horrified look on my wife's face when I say "look what's for dinner"
 
We were catching them one night while fishing from the shore at Oahe. I was throwing them back until a guy from Sturgis walked by and told us that they were excellent food. I cooked up a couple and man was he right, great taste when you get past the ugly.:D
 
Rock cod are good but a two or three foot ling cod is exceptional! Solid, moist white meat makes for nice pile of cod cakes in the freezer. They sure are mean looking ugly critters though.
 
A pig combo, caught a fish that had a fish in its mouth that had a fish in its mouth. 3 fish on one hook. Only kept the big one as there was not much left of its dinner or its dinners dinner. That make sense? lol. Other things, a pole, a duck, dead goose, beaver, a shoe once and a bunch of garbage.
 
Brad "the butcher";8202493 said:
What is it with ugly fish tasting good? Look at halibut and some others.
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The Atlantic Wolffish, or as we call them around here Ocean Catfish is ugly, agressive, dangerous and delicious. They put up a nice fight too. :)

The one in the attatched pic is not mine, it's from google. The biggest one I have seen was almost 6 feet long with a head as big as a man's and weighed about 40 or 45 lbs. We hung it from the rail on the ladder to the top deck and its teeth dented the metal. They have milky white meat and are fantastic to eat. Their diet is shellfish and crustaceans.

To get back on topic, a friend who's family owned a trawler had an old musket stock they got in the nets. In the maritime museum in Newburyport, MA there are several Ancient Greek Amphora that were towed up by a New Hampshire dragger along with the molars of a mastodon. How 3000 year old Greek vases got 30 miles off of the New England coast make you wonder who really was here first.
 

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We were fishing over a wreck once and I got hung up. I managed to break free and winched up about 20lbs of tackle that had been lost on the wreck. There was lots of lead, bottom rigs and jigs of all sorts.

I once watched two guys on opposite sides of the boat that got hung up together and fought for a good ten minuets before the realized what was going on. One kept yelling "get the net, get the net".

Greg
 
Turtles... I use liver for catfish baiting but the turtles here love them. Lost count how many I've caught but I do detest them. I've hooked a sea bird once, cast a 6inch pencil bait into the swim and the guy just swooped down and grabbed it. What a tangled mess it was.
 
deep trolling for hybrids one day i snagged a heavy mono line . as i worked it in i pulled up a rod & reel. kept pulling on the line & a large gar jumped at rear of boat next to my buddy a good guy but a city square , he saw all the teeth & i thought he was going to walk on water. he hollered--" it's got lots of teeth" laughed my butt off.
 
udtjim said:
A Ling Cod, the first time i ever saw one. I didn't whether to kill it with the oar or run across the water to get away. UGLY sucker.
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lings; pretty scary looking but great eating...always glad when i get a legal sized one...

even scarier and uglier but better eating is the monkfish...just a knarly swimming head.

...i think rays are the freakiest looking thing i hook up...no eat, always tossed back...

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that wolffish is pretty evil looking too...never heard of them before...
 
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I caught an owl fishing after dark for Muskie with a large jitterbug surface lure. It picked it up while retrieving it after a cast.
Was an hour long ordeal but me and my buddy got it freed up boatside and it survived!
 
PorcupineMtns66 said:
I caught an owl fishing after dark for Muskie with a large jitterbug surface lure. It picked it up while retrieving it after a cast.
Was an hour long ordeal but me and my buddy got it freed up boatside and it survived!
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Man that is something, especially at night. I had a cormorant after my Zara Spook one time. Was able to avoid a hookup.

You ever catch any bass on that Musky jitterbug?Ive tried them at night before and only got explosions no hookups.
 
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A very rusty vice grip. I was spin casting with a cast master. I got distracted and let the lure sink. I start reeling my line in and it was heavy. I thought I snagged some drift wood not a rusted tool.
 
We were leaving a bay at high speed, going to another hot spot. Our rods were hanging off the end of the speed boat. I was sitting rear-facing , as we entered the main lake. Both of our lines were up and reels clicked ( or so I thought) , and my new rig flew off the end of the boat. I elbowed my buddy to stop, and told him I lost my rod. I was bummed. I figured at that rate of speed , it was gone for good. He checked his rod , and to his surprise, all of his line was peeled out, but his rod didn't move. He started reeling in , and as his hook came out of the water, we saw there was a line snagged on it ! He said "grab it !" , so I did and started hand bombing the line on the floor of the boat. After a bit , I felt a weight on the line and kept pulling. I pulled my whole rig out of the water ! The amazing thing is, his rod didn't go in , considering how all his line payed out, and his hook caught my line , with my rod at the bottom of the lake.. I still have that old Berkely rod and had all kinds of weird things like that happened with it.
 
dipbait said:
Man that is something, especially at night. I had a cormorant after my Zara Spook one time. Was able to avoid a hookup.

You ever catch any bass on that Musky jitterbug?Ive tried them at night before and only got explosions no hookups.
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I've had a few try and hit it but never any hookups. The Jitterbug I have is Huge!
 
I was salmon fishing in Alaska and cought a seagull. I was Striper fishing at Lake Texoma and as my lure hit the water and the line was settleing to the water, a gull swooped down to grab a shad and its wing got tangled in my line. As I was pulling it in, there was game warden that had just pulled up. He helped me get it untangled. If that is not enough for one cast, I started realing in the last of my line and there was a rino fishing pole with a zebco 33 hooked by my lure.
 
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