What's Your Most Unusual Catch

[Not Now Kato]

Fishing a lake in Kissimmee in the States along with my Brother-in-Law using chunks of Hot Dog Sausage to catch all manner of fish we were having a great time when suddenly I hit into something really heavy. This thing just hugged the bottom and it was difficult to gain line as it took off in one direction, and then another; but slowly I got it coming towards me until at last I had it in shallow water and could see what looked like a large Terrapin digging it's front feet into the mud making it very difficult to bring in, give it any slack line and it was off again. Finally, I managed to get it in landing net range and my Brother-in-Law netted it for me.

I had just lifted it out of the landing net and was about to unhook it with my fingers when a young Latino local lad came running down the bank shouting "NO! NO! NO! Wait!", and I'm glad I did. When he came up to us he told us that it was a Snapping Turtle and that it would have had my finger off if I tried to unhook it by hand. And he wasn't wrong, as I went to remove the hook with a pair of forceps this thing, like lightening, shot it's head forward and grabbed hold of them with a vice like bite - I could actually hold the turtle off the ground, it's grip was that strong.

We cut the line in the end and I held onto it by it's sides until it finally let go of the forceps whence I put it on the ground, photographed it and let it go.





So what's your most unusual catch?

 

[chefster]

I once caught a little terrapin in a lake down in Kent, on the pole on double maggot

 

[Deejay8]

Fishing a lake in Kissimmee in the States along with my Brother-in-Law using chunks of Hot Dog Sausage to catch all manner of fish we were having a great time when suddenly I hit into something really heavy. This thing just hugged the bottom and it was difficult to gain line as it took off in one direction, and then another; but slowly I got it coming towards me until at last I had it in shallow water and could see what looked like a large Terrapin digging it's front feet into the mud making it very difficult to bring in, give it any slack line and it was off again. Finally, I managed to get it in landing net range and my Brother-in-Law netted it for me.

I had just lifted it out of the landing net and was about to unhook it with my fingers when a young Latino local lad came running down the bank shouting "NO! NO! NO! Wait!", and I'm glad I did. When he came up to us he told us that it was a Snapping Turtle and that it would have had my finger off if I tried to unhook it by hand. And he wasn't wrong, as I went to remove the hook with a pair of forceps this thing, like lightening, shot it's head forward and grabbed hold of them with a vice like bite - I could actually hold the turtle off the ground, it's grip was that strong.

We cut the line in the end and I held onto it by it's sides until it finally let go of the forceps whence I put it on the ground, photographed it and let it go.





So what's your most unusual catch?

I've seen them in Florida, and they would most definitely have your finger off. Very nasty things.

 

[carphauler]

I once caught a little terrapin in a lake down in Kent, on the pole on double maggot

There's loads of them in Arrow valley lake of various sizes.

 

[smiffy]

Also had a terrapin in a match. Other lads called it a tortoise and wondered why I was using lettuce for bait. Mouth full of nasty bugs so I kept my fingers well away.
More unusual was when I was fishing a match on the local river. Had a few lads behind me having a natter. Fishing the whip for gudgeon and the float buried. Struck and pulled in Two gudgeon. One hooked fairly, the other lassoed a couple of inches further up. Got plenty of grief from the lads as they walked away in disgust

 

[tipitinmick]

I once caught a little terrapin in a lake down in Kent, on the pole on double maggot

They’re bigger on banded caster Gazza.

Mitton crab. Tidal Trent was plagued with them last year. May as well take up sea fishing if it gets any worse.

 

[Total]

American bullfrogs are regularly hooked in the warmer months at Monk Lakes in Kent!

 

[Silverfisher]

Landed a cormorant in Florida once. Have had a few near misses with them going after my hooked fish but this one dived down and took my live bait! Fought well tbf

Have come incredibly close to the same thing happening with pelicans as well with hooked fish.

 

[Birtleyheed]

Freelining lobworms for perch on a rising River Wear at Chester-Le-Street about 20 years ago I caught a flounder, which greatly surprised me at the time, as it is a good few miles upriver from the North Sea !

 

[pies]

Dragonfly, legitimately caught on a maggot

 

[robert d]

Fishing a lake in Kissimmee in the States along with my Brother-in-Law using chunks of Hot Dog Sausage to catch all manner of fish we were having a great time when suddenly I hit into something really heavy. This thing just hugged the bottom and it was difficult to gain line as it took off in one direction, and then another; but slowly I got it coming towards me until at last I had it in shallow water and could see what looked like a large Terrapin digging it's front feet into the mud making it very difficult to bring in, give it any slack line and it was off again. Finally, I managed to get it in landing net range and my Brother-in-Law netted it for me.

I had just lifted it out of the landing net and was about to unhook it with my fingers when a young Latino local lad came running down the bank shouting "NO! NO! NO! Wait!", and I'm glad I did. When he came up to us he told us that it was a Snapping Turtle and that it would have had my finger off if I tried to unhook it by hand. And he wasn't wrong, as I went to remove the hook with a pair of forceps this thing, like lightening, shot it's head forward and grabbed hold of them with a vice like bite - I could actually hold the turtle off the ground, it's grip was that strong.

We cut the line in the end and I held onto it by it's sides until it finally let go of the forceps whence I put it on the ground, photographed it and let it go.





So what's your most unusual catch?

Garfish and gurnard and almost a sun fish in Tenby ,i know the first arent that rare but they were yo me at the time ,on meps spinner

 

[Neil ofthe nene]

Inanimate objects - sunglasses, catapult, red pepper (legitimately hooked through the stalk).

Fish - first ever fish was a flounder from a Scottish trout stream some way from the sea. Sturgeon (sterlet?) from a small seaside lake in France. Also in France a foulhooked zander while fishing the Method for Skimmers and from a different lake a pumpkinseed fish*. And a bitterling from Decoy's Horseshoe lake.





It may have been a similar pumpkinseed fish I caught in a lake in Belgium that I was told was called a sunfish. A few of those and some skimmers helped me win that match.

 

[Dave Spence]

Once had a salmon Parr in the Trent at chilwell

 

[smiffy]

Freelining lobworms for perch on a rising River Wear at Chester-Le-Street about 20 years ago I caught a flounder, which greatly surprised me at the time, as it is a good few miles upriver from the North Sea !

Reminds me of another unusual catch.
Fishing a really tough open on the Beeleigh Canal in Maldon. I picked the float up to mend it and felt a tiny bit of resistance. Lifted the rig out of the water and saw a leaf masking my bloodworm. I vigorously tried to shake it off but it wouldn’t budge so shipped in to pull it off only to find out it was a tiny flounder Turned out to be my only fish.
This venue has a sea lock one end and a weir at the other where the tidal river ends. So it’s not unusual to get the odd flattie.
Luckily I didn’t have any bank walkers behind me this time. The grief and head shaking would have been unbearable It didn’t win me any money.

Had my eyes tested since

 

[The Runner]

Fish;
Lumpsucker, Warkworth Breakwater, Northumberland
Shubunkin of over a pound, R Colne, Uxbridge (had a 5lb Koi from the same swim the next season)

Other wildlife
Housemartin, foulhooked on the cast, R Shannon, Banagher
Guillemots; the ones up here like those Savage Gear Paddletails almost as much as the pollack do.....

Inanimate
Pineapple; R Colne at Uxbridge
Toy machine gun; ditto
Catapults; two in the same match at Rolfs, one in the margins, the other, less explicably, at 14m

 

[Total]

A bat on fly gear!

 

[robert d]

A bat on a fly gear!

Did you sell it to china

 

[davepellet]

tiny catfish from river Don some years ago... it was almost completely black, with a very wide, flat head, and armour-like scales, 6 or 8 barbules can't recall
I'd just had a grayling & had dropped the hook into the edge after unhooking, when I cam to rebait the little bugger was hanging on to the hook...

also, both myself & my younger son (who would have been 6 at the time) caught a small sturgeon from a local pond (consequtive weeks from the same peg)...

 

[Bobster]

fished sunset lakes in Kissimmee caught some bass caught some sunburn as well lol

 

[Whisker]

Birch house lakes near Ashbourne is full of crayfish
One of the nicest fish I’ve caught...