Best Fishing gag you pulled off

[tyeeking]

Slow fishing one day at Kootenai Lake. My boat mate is snooring away so I took the lid from the pot of chili we cooked up and attached it to his line with a swivel and let it go. I quietly went back to my chair and waited for it to hit the end of his line. Sure enough his drag starts singing and wakes him up. He fought that pot lid for 20 minutes. Finally it got close enough to the boat that he started hollering "I see color" (it was a silver lid). I thought I was going to die laughing when he figured out what he had caught.

Of course paybacks are hell. The following Saturday my phone started ringing at 6:00 am with a constant string of people asking if "the boat was still for sale". Turned out my friend had listed my boat for sale in the paper at a firesale price!

 

[Sushihunter]

Well, this one isn't quite a practical joke, but it is a funny story...

I have a good friend who is an avid fisherman, but not a boater. He doesn't even own a boat.

A number of years ago the two of us were out in my boat fishing from the North Arm Jetty down to the Jetty off of Sandheads. I don't normally sleep on my boat but on this day I had been awake all night getting ready and had only an hour or so of sleep. Some time in the afternoon, I just couldn't keep my eyes open and told my friend to take the wheel and call me if anything happened.

It was my turn on the rod for the next fish. It wasn't long before I was sound asleep in the cuddy. Suddenly I'm awoken by the unmistakeable sound of a Shimano reel screaming line out.

Now we had been fishing for Chinook and the downriggers were set at about 100' or so.

I came stumbling out of the cabin to the back deck and grabbed the port rod and started to reel. I'm shaking the sleep out of my head and I look down and see that the downigger cable is looping in coils toward the water surface. I can't figure out what is wrong, so I look over at the other side. That downrigger cable is straight, but it's going straight out the back of the boat! Not normal for 15# weights! I look around and we are miles from shore. I look into the cabin and the depthsounder (right in front of my friend) is reading 18 feet!

I'm still really groggy from sleep (and lack thereof) so I look around again - yep, miles from shore. Yep, downriggers acting funny. And to top it all off, there is no fish on my line inspite of all the reel screaming a moment ago. My brain is struggling to do the math - downriggers set at 100', 18' of water, miles from shore. I put the rod in the holder and start cranking up the Scotty. Yes, in the old days, we had to hand crank the damn things.

I get the one up and the ball is gone. I bring up the other one and after getting it unhooked, it comes up with the ball. The flasher and lure are gone from one side, but OK on the other.

I finally figure it out. While I was sleeping, my friend headed into the shallows just north of the Steveston Jetty and dragged the cannonballs through the mud into 18' of water (and 80' of mud!).

He never bothered to look at the depthsounder!

Fast forward to 2007. We are fishing at Ferrer Point off Nootka Island with the same friend and his wife and another couple. All close friends. It's sort of a guided trip, but because we are all friends, I get a turn in the rotation for fish.

Any way, I am on the back deck setting lines. We are fishing in anywhere from 50 to 90' of water depending on where we are and are setting the lines at about 30 to 50'. I drop the one downrigger, planning on going to 40' and clunk! It stops at 18' and snags! Guess who is at the wheel - you guess correctly!

One rock in the whole area and he runs right over the center of it - inspite of the 10.5" mapping gps and depthsounder right in front of him!



Jim's Fishing Charters
www.JimsFishing.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/Sushihunter250

 

[Anonymous]

A good one that I used to do to my guests if the fishing was really really slow. Some days I would see 3 fish taken all day long, but I knew where there was an underwater kelp bed. You could troll through it at about 35ft, so I would have 1 line about 30 ft down and pass it right into where the bull kelp was under water, every time the rod would jump and trip off the rigger, because we where moving it would seem like the "fish" was taking line so I would troll for a little bit away from the kelp bed and let the client think he had a lunker on, so I told him we had better chase this fish down it's a big one.. KEEP YOUR TIP UP!! Then we would circle back and eventually the line would always come free of the kelp and I would tell him ohh noo I think you lost it!! I got pretty good at it after a while and would always come away with my customers satisfaction that at least I was "hooking fish up"!

 

[flytyer]

Went out many years ago with a group from work on a big pig guide boat were they had all the guys set up wit rods over the side mooching. I went down below to recycle the beer out of me an noticed out the window fishing lines hanging down. So i opened the window reached out and yanked reel hard. You could hear the guy yelling he had the big one haha. I did this all day long and had the best laugh when we all sat at the bar talking about the huge ones that got away

 

[trophywife]

brought up my father in laws line while he was snoozing and rigged a empty coho case,, let it back down with a loose clip,woke him up, sped the boat up a little and popped the clip, yelled fish on to him and wow what a battle he had with a filetless coho

share the harvest
2625 kingfisher

 

[Gomesy]

I have a story similar to FLYTYER's.

I was out fishing with my Dad and 2 of his soccer buddies years ago. One guy was a complete rookie. We were jigging for rockfishing and lings and this "rookie" held his rod with the butt sticking under his arm and out the other side. Every so often my Dad would push the butt of the rod and rookie would get super excited, scream that he had a fish and real it all the way in with nothing on the lure. This went on for a couple of hours. Everyone else on the boat was doing well catching fish but not poor ole rookie. And the more my Dad did this, the less rookie would get excited. It got to the point that he wouldn't say that he had a strike and just calmly real in the empty lure. Finally, Dad decided to put him out of his misery by pushing the butt of the rod continuously until rookie noticed it was him all along. The hardest part was trying to keep a straight face with this all going down. I'll never forget that day.

Good Times!

I like it,
I love it,
I want some more of it!

 

[profisher]

Had a customer tell me of a Charlotte's story. This group fished in a lodge together and had a little money on the largest fish. One guy took it a bit to seriously. To bed the earliest, took his rod into his room with him...mr. competitive. On their last night the guys are sitting aound having a few drinks and playing cards...they only have a half day morning left then fly home. The guy has already gone to bed and rod in his room. One of the guys playing cards sneaks into his room when he hears snoring. Grabs his rod and sit on the car table...everyone aske what you doing? He strips off about 100 feet of line and cuts it, then winds it back on....puts it back in the room. Well everyone is waiting for it to happen in the morning. Sure enough he gets a big one on and is wooping it up as he fights it. It peels a bunch of line out and keep s on going...everyone around him starts clapping and laughing....the f bomb was heard a few time in Hardy!!!!! lol