Fishing or hunting memories that had nothing to do with fishing or hunting

[Maxed Out]

If you've fished enough times, you would remember certain fishing trips that were highlighted by something that had nothing to do with catching fish. I've had several fishing trips that fit this criteria. Here's just one.

I took a couple guys from work with me to Neah bay. It's a 6 hour jaunt with boat in tow. Lots of winding bumpy roads. We were driving thru the night and stopped in Port Angeles to get boat fuel, and one of the guys says he musta forgot his wallet in his truck that he parked at my house. I told him no big deal, I'll pay his share for our trip and he could pay me his share when we got back home. Onward we went and got to Neah bay about an hour prior to sunrise. I pulled into lit up store parking lot to raise up my radar, and get ready to launch. As I'm up on the roof messing with the radar, my buddy comes around to where he can see me on the roof, and says "you're not gonna believe this", and I replied what now. He says "I just found my wallet on the back bumper of your truck. I musta set it there when we were loading our gear at your house". I instantly replied " I'm telling you right now, that this will NOT be the highlight of our fishing trip". He walked away saying he has $1,000 cash in his wallet. I just shook my head and kept my lips sealed, but was thinking how lucky he was that his wallet survived a 6 hour journey to the coast on my bumper. Btw, we did have great success catching salmon on that trip, despite the stupid move by my fellow worker.

What's your story ? It seems everyone has one or more !

[happyhooker]

Many moons ago, I was going fishing with my brother-in-law on a Minnesota lake.  His stepson wanted to come along; he was only 5 or 6 at the time, and it would've been his first outing in a boat.  Of course, we said OK.  Man, he was stoked.  He was just hopping about as we got the boat launched off the trailer and I pulled it in to the dock so we could board.  Got his life jacket on and as he crawled aboard and sat down, his comment was "I'm really enjoying the life of the sea!"

Frank

[JasonGotaProblem]

The trip that got me started fishing again as an adult.
It was my best friend's birthday and he wanted to camp. The weather was insane but we said what the heck let's go for the adventure. So when it turned out to be 40°f with 40mph winds we did it anyway. My tent was waterproof so when I finally got it set up and my clothes changed I was pretty comfy. Minus the tent occasionally smacking me in the face when it gusted hard. I didn't even realize when I went down my tent was facing the water. I woke up to an awesome view and a beautiful day. We caught like 40 fish that day. All we're small but it was a ton of fun.

That's what kicked this whole thing off, and now I have a garage full of parts. Crazy sequence of events.

[nelz]

Looking out from atop the pier, on 7/7/07 I saw a pod of 7 manatees. Unforgetable.

[Keta]

Not quite the same but hunting related and a unforgettable and fun trip.

We flew into a high lake at the base of a glacier carved valley with a small glacier at its head and a vertical cliff and the lake outlet a waterfall dropping into a creek that flowed into the Unik River a few miles above tide water to hunt mountan goats.  There was no clouds the day we flew and until just before noon the following day.  We could see goats above our camp and started the climb up to them but before we got half way clouds moved in and we were in pea soup fog.  We climbed back to camp, on a small "flat" alongs side of a small creek, and made plans for the next day.  Well the fog got worse, it started the normal SE Alaska rain and we were stuck where we were until it cleared.  I grabbed my rod, climbed down to the lake and started fishing in a 100 yard section of shore that was not cliff.  On the first cast I got a 18" grayling and almost every cast got grayling from 12" to 20".  We fished and ate grayling for 10 days before the clouds lifted and my friend could make it to the lake to pick us up.  Between fishing and tending the fire we panned for gold in the creek and got a few small flakes.

Without ropes and climbing gear the only way out was float plans or jumping off 800' plus cliffs,  hiking 4 miles through brown bear infested devilsclub and temperate rainforest "jungle" and then swimming 40' acrost the icy Unik to a cabin.