Kerry Hansen Loc: Bremerton, WA

Hooked a White Sturgeon and played it a bit until it jumped out of the water into my river sled. It was about 8'. It then thrashing around and flipped back into the water (Columbia) and I played it about 20 minutes until I got it into the boat again to unhook it and let go.

Ivey Loc: South Central Tennessee, Tim's Ford Lake

True story of the best bad night I've ever fished. Fishing a small club tournament on Pickwick lake part of the Tennessee river impoundments can have it's challenges. The ramp at Florence Alabama’s McFarland Park is about a half mile down river from Wilson Dam. Water releases from Wilson can really get the current going at times so this one particular night my partner and I decided to run down river to start our 12 hour Smallmouth only tournament and fish some of the slower current areas. I fish out of a 20FT. Bumble Bee bass boat and was headed to our first spot a few miles down river when I either hit something or the one blade of my prop broke off. Somehow I got the boat shut down without any other damage but now was miles down river from the ramp with heavy current and only a trolling motor to get back to the ramp. As we started our slow troll back up river I pulled up close to a rock pile and made a cast. A tick on the line to and a hook set brought a nice 3 pound Smallmouth to the boat. Wanting to save as much battery for the Trolling motor I dropped the fish in the live well and didn’t put the pumps on told my partner we’ll keep a close eye on the fish to watch for stress. I picked up my rod and headed back to the front of the boat and walked directly off the front of the boat and fell into the river. I came up with Rod in one hand my hat still on my head and a toothpick in my mouth. My partner ask if I was ok then began his round of laughter at me telling my it was illegal to get out of the boat to fish, he helped me back in the boat and I found a change of cloths and continued our long troll back up river. About an hour in I remembered the fish in the live well and ask my partner to take a look and see how it was fairing. He opened the live well lid and my nice 3 pound Smallmouth took his chance and jumped out of the live well. Now I said it jumped out but I mean it jumped out of the well and never touched anything but water. This fish must have been doing laps around the Live Well to get that kind of air because It jumped out of the boat crushing my only chance of maybe weighing in a fish at weigh in time. My partner and I just stood there looking at each other, dumbfounded at our bad luck.
Not long after the great fish escape the dam shut the current off so we figured at least we’ll get back to the ramp and knowing a couple good spots just across from the ramp we got back with about 45 minutes to fish till weigh in time. The spot I stopped on was a pile of rocks close to a bluff that held some good fish at times so we decided to spend our last few minutes there. I cast a jig out and picked up line and thump, hook set BIG rock. Breaking this jig off thinking this night will never end I tied on another and made another cast to the rock pile. Jig hit the bottom and I started working it back through the rocks I turned to my partner and said “man it feel fishy down there”. The words just out of my mouth another thump but this time a hook set revealed I had a nice one, then it got bigger and started pulling harder, a big fish broke the water and jumped about 3 foot up before falling back in with a splash the sounded like someone threw a large dog in the river. The battle was on, the fish ran under the boat and started peeling line off my spinning gear. Suddenly there was a loud splash 20 feet or so on the other side of my boat. My partner ask what that was and I followed with MY fish. Somehow I led the fish back around the front of the boat and after a couple more hard runs and another epic jump we led the fish up to the boat when I realized we didn’t have a net. I made my way to the drivers seat and lipped this big smallmouth finally ending the fight. I was astounded at the size of this fish but with little time left we dropped it in the live well. I swung the boat around and my partner made one last cast to the rock pile and bam he was hooked up. After landing his really nice fish we were out of time and had to get to the ramp for weigh in. Ended up the fish my partner landed went 5 pounds 2 ounces and mine tipped the scales at 7 pounds 4 ounces. To end the story our combined weight 12 pounds and 6 ounces was just enough to win first place in the tournament and my 7,4 was enough to net us the big fish pot. All this just proves don’t give up on fishing till the bell rings cause there just may be a pay off at the last few minutes.

Raw Dawg Ron Loc: St. Petersburg, FL

Wife and I were fishing by Anclote power plant and was just taking a break having a sandwich and watched an osprey dive in for a mullet! Cool, asked her if she seen it, why yes and then a eagle screamed in? Grabbed the mullet too and was spinning around till about the water and osprey let go. The eagle won the in air fight for the mullet! Now that was really cool! Jest burnt into our memories, will never forget that day!

kandydisbar Loc: West Orange, NJ

Where was this?

kandydisbar Loc: West Orange, NJ

Caught 30 lb brown trout and 30 lb. salmon in Green Bay Wisconsin while on tour with a Broadway Show. I really wanted some salmon eggs [bath oil beads as one of my friends says.] People were scooping them out and throwing them on the bank. As it went, mine left a trail of white stuff all the way up to the car. LOL
My fishing buddy took the trout, I took the salmon, he had it smoked and I brought it back and ate it for a month in NJ. Yum!

flyguy Loc: Lake Onalaska, Sunfish Capitol of the World!

Oh, what's a foot or two when you are talking about the size of fish.

jp21sd

Had been ice fishing for 4 hours. Had a couple crappies, a couple yellow perch, and one walleye...nothing spectacular. Coming down the lake my younger brother and my nephew drove up. We talked for probably 20 minutes with me fishing without a bite. My younger brother asked my nephew where he wanted to fish. I'd drilled 15 holes before I started fishing so I could jump around. I told my nephew, There's the only hole I haven't fished...not even 10' away. He sat down and pulled 19 crappies out of that one hole in 10 minutes while my brother and I watched!

Jeremy Loc: America

They are boys. They were more interested in something other than fish. :)

Jeremy Loc: America

I was fishing the John Day River in Eastern Oregon for Channel Catfish. I also fish for small mouth there too. I see something within 30 ft. of where my bait should of been on the bottom. I look closer....it was a HUGE RATTLESNAKE swimming right towards me on the bank. Once it got within 10 or 15 ft. I tossed a few rocks towards it. It turned and went into the grass on bank 50 or so ft. away from me. I always walk with a heavy foot there to spook snakes away.

Jjparadis

I was fishing a river and on the opposite bank I saw a weasel come out of the brush.
He sniffed around the bank a little then went back into the woods. A minute later a small rabbit came out in the same spot. But the rabbit went into the water and swam around for a minute. Then he returned to the woods the same way he’d come out.
Then a minute later the weasel came back and searched around for a minute, then he returned back the way he came in. I never heard of a rabbit swimming before.

Grandpa Knows How Loc: Bahia De Los angeles, Mexico

Hey GrayCustomKnives, It his fish story, he gets to tell it any way he likes. We just don't have to believe everything he says. I take it you are definitely having some doubts.