I got my rod and a bucket of worms and we crawled down the bank. Every time we dropped a hook with a worm on it into the water, a bunch of little bream would starting hitting it. We got smaller and smaller hooks and bait until we started catching them.
It got to the point we were having a contest to see who could catch the smallest fish, who could catch the most on one piece of worm, how fast we could catch them and more. We kept the bream for the cats - they were actually too small to clean - the biggest was about two inches long. We put them in a 1 gallon can we had along and filled it half full before quitting. When I got home I counted - there were 51 bream in that can! The cats enjoyed them!
One night I was at home visiting - this was just a few years ago. It was a beautiful night with a full moon. Mom and I decided to go down to the small pond on their farm and put out a trotline. She was paddling the boat and I was unrolling the line, playing out the line and hooks. All of a suddenly the line almost got jerked out of my hand.
The line had silver hooks on it but no bait. It had been stored for many months and not used. Yet when we went back out the line, we had a three pound channel catfish on it. It hit a bare hook. All I can figure out was the silver hook, dancing in the moonlight as I unrolled the line, looked like a little minnow and the catfish ate it. I could understand a bass doing that, but a catfish?
I used to spend lots of time at Clark's Hill during the summers - so much time I started looking for interesting new things to do. I always saw a lot of carp while out at night running lines - and wanted to come up with some way of getting them. I rigged a big frog gig on a piece of metal conduit - it worked great! I would get right over the carp and shine the spotlight on it. Then I would stab it, pinning it to the bottom until it calmed down.
One night mom was with me and she would open the live well when I gigged one. I would put it in the live well, she would drop the lid and I would pull the gig out. Worked great. Only problem happened one time - my dog Merlin was with us. She would jump around and get all excited everytime I brought a carp over the side. One time, she jumped back just as mom opened the live well and she went right in it.
Mom and I laughed till we cried at Merlin standing in the live well, head sticking out and with a look in her eyes like - what happened. I will never forget the look on the dogs face!
The idea for this topic from my bulletin board - NJTEECH posted, asking for people to tell about their most memorable or unusual catches. That got me to thinking - these are some of mine -
Unusual Fishing Catches Part 1
