Catch-of-the-Week

     Not your normal Big Fish story, the Catch-of-the-Week I’m looking for is the strangest, most unexpected and surprising catch.  Jig fishing for bass but instead hook a flathead?  Fly casting for rainbows and land a Paiute Cutthroat? Trolling for tuna and land a giant mako?  What’s your most unexpected catch and how did you catch it?   From FishExplorer.com


     Any angler who has spent an inordinate amount of their time fishing will have some stories to tell.  I once caught a small rainbow on a full-size spinner bait; another time, I flipped a jig into a bush and got a subtle bite that, though I never saw it, must have been a really big catfish; and my most unexpected was a Master Angler and personal record walleye in the middle of a club bass tournament.
     Over the last few decades, most of my angling time is during bass club, Federation or regional bass tournaments, so most of my unexpected catches have happened during those events.  While fishing waters that contain bass and trout it is not unreasonable to expect to get bit by whichever is the species you are not targeting at the time, but, since I fished that particular lake for fifteen years and it only happened once, it seems strange to catch a trout on a spinner bait.

     The ‘catfish’ is only named by deductive reasoning, as a blue cat or flathead are the only species on that lake that could get that big, or, now that I think about it, maybe a giant snapping turtle!  I was in a brush filled cove on a windy day and flipped a large black & blue jig into a bush.  The wind pushed the boat right up against the bush at about the time the jig hit the bottom and I felt a decent tap on the line and set the hook. 
     Now, I had a heavy duty flippin’ stick spooled with fresh 20-pound monofilament line, so when I sent that broom handle skyward with the butt end tucked securely under my forearm and strait up and above the bite, I expected to move a bass quickly out of the heavy cover.  Instead, it didn’t budge.  The rod bent double and the reel drag slipped small amounts of line out in short, jerky spurts as I felt a massive head shaking about ten feet below.  That fish did not move.  At all.  A few head shakes and a rush of adrenaline that left my hands shaking for a few minutes and it was over.  My line came back without the jig with the terminal few inches of the mono nicked all around, like being racked back and forth across the lips of a catfish.

32.5# Walleye caught during a
Denver Bassmasters club tournament
at Horsetooth Reservoir, 5/2003.

     The big walleye was also a big surprise.  Not only was it not what I was fishing for, but ended up being not what I thought it was when I hooked it.  Casting a jerk bait to a sandy bank with about three feet of water under it, I quickly saw the line run off to the side after one jerk.  I set the hook and the fight was on!  After a few seconds I was sure it was not a smallmouth bass, as expected, because it was much too large for that body of water where no one had seen a smallmouth over three pounds in years.  The fish also did not fight like most bass, it did not come to the surface to jump but instead made straight runs in surges, and it had shoulders like Arnold.  I didn’t have it so much as it had me, at least for a few minutes.
     This was the only time I have ever had to “walk” a fish around the boat.  I was using a $15 Lucky Craft Pointer on ten pound line so I didn’t want to lose the lure.  There was no visible cover to worry about, so I played the fish carefully, letting it run when it wanted to and recovering line when it let me.
     My fishing partner standing at the ready with a net, he and I giddily speculated that I had inadvertently snagged a big carp in the back on the initial cast into shallow water and as the fish finally got close to the boat I thought we were right.  The fish had a darker coloring with mottled splotches we could see, but when the net was under the walleye and raised out of the water it turned on its side and we got a clear look at it, especially the eye, and knew what it was immediately.  “Look at that walleye!” we both shouted at the same time.
     This was some time ago and cell phone photos were not what they are now, so my only picture is fuzzy and not too clear.  We measured and weighed it on the boat at 32.5 inches long and 13.5 pounds, showed it off to a few people, and released it to make more behemoths.
     These are a few examples of unexpected catches I remember fondly.  How about you?  Got any strange or unforeseen angling stories?  You can post the story here if you want, or on the forum page, and even a picture if you have one.  Or, send the story and a picture to me at jeff@fishexplorer.com so I can feature your story in a future blog.

Fish On!

Jeff