I was casting out for panfish with my ultralight gear and then I felt a tug. I set the hook lightly and expect a panfish. Then a steelhead jumps and flips out of the water. My bearings whail for 45 minutes until I pull up the trophy landlocked steelhead. As I'm lifting it out of the water with my bear hands, it wiggles and breaks off.

Like the stories everyone, mine had to be when i was fishing a trout stream close to my house which has smallmouth, rockbass, chubs, your normal creek fish. When i pulled out a 12 inch walleye that had a tag in its back. After sending the tag in to the WV DNR, they had told me it was stocked in a lake near by (Cheat Lake) and made the run up the lake and up the trout stream 400 yds. Definity caught me off guard.

While fishing in the evening with a red an white daredevil about 2 feet from shore on the retrieve it stopped suddenly. my line started going the other way kinda slow like.I start pulling back. long story short it was a doggone snapping turtle a bigg one

set my worm in the water about 2 feet from shore ,i was catching panfish for hours. when i turned back around my pole was bending and turning i reeled for about a minute and a half on 4 lb test and ultralite poll when i finally pulled it ashore it was an 8 lb 24inch large mouth bass i was only 12 years old and this monster fish nearly pulled me in.

earlier this summer i caught a 6 lb buffalo (sort of like carp) while throwing my cast net for bait

When i was 5 or 6 i had a little cartoon rod n reel setup. I was fishing for catfish. I had a small gold aberdeen hook, split shot and a red n white bobber. I was out of worms but i wanted to practice casting a few more times. All of a sudden my line shot off and nearly jerked me in the pond. I reeled it in and i had a 6 lb largemouth that i caught with a bare hook. another time i caught two cats on one hook.

One time my dad was fishing for bass with a spinnerbait and an owl cought it and got hooked in the foot, my dad ended up cutting the line.

a snapping turtle while pulling a leech on a six foot snell

I was fishing for steelhead on time bouncing along the bottom, and hooked a heavy fish, but it had no fight at all, just very hard to reel in. Got it in, and it was a lantern!....and believe it, or not, the lantern was still lit! :)

When I was 15 or 16, I was fishing a small pond with a wooden flatfish from my dad's tacklebox. As soon as it hit the water, a seagull divebombed it, and before I knew what was happening, I'm reeling in this seagull 30 feet up in the air! My dad cut the line (and lost a lure).

I was fishing a topwater jitterbug for largemouth in a private pond when something sucked it down, after a long fight finally pulled in a 10 pound blue catfish. I have also hooked about a 3 pound channel cat on a streamer while fly fishing.

As a teenager, I was fishing for Walleyes below the spillway of a large dam. About 1 a.m. my buddy hooked something big. He played it through the current toward shore as I waited with a long handled landing net in my hands and a flashlight between my teeth.

The fish didn't fight quite like a Walleye and definitely not a Channel Cat. He brought "it" in and I made a swipe and netted what turned out to be a 3 foot eel. We were both more than a little surprised by that. The "unknown" certainly adds to the fun of night fishing.

By the way, to cook an eel: Skin it like a catfish. Parboil it for a few minutes. Scrape the layer of gel-like fat off. Cut into 6 inch segments. Roll in egg and cracker crumbs. Deep fry. It's excellent.

when i was around 10 I was white bass fishing at harlin county resivour, we were following the sea gulls that eat the shad that the schools of bass chase to the top, I casted out and saw one of the birds fall to the water, we I started reeling in I was dragging a sea gull and it wasnt very happy.

fishing in a small pond for trout in colorado, I had two different hooks on my line about three feet apart when I got a bite and reeled in about a 4 inch large mouth. as i stared retardedly at my tiny fish, i realized my line was still tugging, further down i pulled up a 13 inch rainbow. sure one of them was about as long as my hand is wide.... but i caught two fish at once!

first time trying fly-fishing, i was useing a small black fly, and still learning how to cast, as luck would have it the only thing i cought that day was a 230lbs me, perfece hook set right at the coner of the lip. on the bright side, i wasn't the only one laghfing about it.

I was crappie fishing in southern michigan using a jig. Bringing it back to the boat i felt a big tug thinking it was a northern pike. After i got it up to the side of the boat to my suprise it was a dogfish

i lovee to use ultralight equipment on everything, and when i went to canada, i challenged myself to just fish with that and 8 pound braid and one reel with 6 pound for the walleyes. well one night, i was fishing a rapala floater and all of a sudden BAM!!!! a huge 8 pound smallmouth, smashed the thing, fought it for 15 minutes, what a fight haha

I thought I had a nice walleye on fishing on Pelican Lake years ago near Detroit Lakes, MN but only had a Freshwater Drum on. Ice fishing in the winter I had a muskrat come up in my fishhouse. Most of us that fish a lot have caught a turtle. Some cast out and a seagull picks up the lure.

My story isn't as good as some of you but it is kind of crazy. I was fishing for rainbows and not having any luck. I had my 4 girls with me and they were playing down the bank. I finally got a bite and reeled it in and had a huge size crawdad on the lure. He actually had the lure in his mouth. Then very next cast, same thing. I gave em both to the girls and they had a heck of good time playing with the little guys. Never had it happen again or before, but had it happen twice in a row that day.

I pulled up a newer looking sneaker when checkin my catfish bait. I thought that only happened in cartoons but i guess im wrong. Couldnt catch two of them though to make a pair.

I have broken some cane poles on turtles, but what i thought was a nice feisty white bass turned out to be....Crappiezilla, check my profile.

I was fishing for trout with a cheese leader that had two trebel hooks. Got a strong tug on the line and when I pulled it in there was a trout on each hook.

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Thanks,
Jayson

Last night I was out fishing at Ivy Lake in Lynchburg, Va at around 1:15 in the morning. My buddy just broke his line and decided to hang it up for the night, but I was determined to catch something since all we had caught so far were tiny six or seven inch bass. We got up next to this one dock and i casted my line out there under the right side of it. Let is sit, then started to real in like normal. All of a sudden I felt some nibbles, then they stopped. I still felt a lot of tension of my line, but I was reeling it in pretty easily. At this point I thought it was another big snapper like the one I caught on Tuesday. All of a sudden it surfaced and turned over on its side. My buddy started freaking out because he thought it was a huge grass carp. As I got it closer to the boat we realized it was not a carp and scrambled for the net. We got him in the boat and it was a huge largemouth bass. Definitely not what I had expected. The ironic thing is that right before I casted my line into the water I told my buddy, "Watch, you are going to want to start fishing again once I reel in a big one." Upon arriving back at the car we weighed him and it turns out he was just shy of seven pounds. Right over six and three-quarters. When we got him back to the house we measured him and he turned out to be twenty-five inches long and sixteen inches in girth. I am most likely getting a replica of it here in the next few days. I will have pictures up in a few days as well.

while fishing near my grandparents home i hooked into an ice fishing pole i had lost earlyer that year

I was catfishing in a Pa. creek and thought I had hooked a monster catfish, when it turned out to be a 3 ft. eel! The guy next to me was so happy I cut the line and gave it to him! My good deed for that day!

I was fishing for smallmouth in the wisconsin river with a Storm Chug Bug when i had a 30 inch muskie bite and break me off on the hookset. Five minutes later the muskie jumps next to the boat to try and shake the hooks only to land in the back of my boat. I unhooked the chug bug from its mouth and released the muskie unharmed. A win-win for both of us!

Out fishing trout on a stream I'd never fished before and BAM all of a sudden I had a 26" pike on my wooly bugger!! It was awesome!