What's the most unusual thing you've caught on a rod & reel?

[Tile]

A swan on my solid baitcasting rod and Abu Revo combo. The said swan came ashore and I was able to get hold of it and retrieve the jig head without any injuries - that fishing day was no fun.

[nelz]

one day while jigging I snagged a humpback whale .............. !!

Did you land it? 

[sabaman1]

I caught a sea slug, beautiful red octopus, and a rock covered in barnacles and some type seaweed, all while fishing for calico and sandbass on structure.
I had a great day fishing that day!

[nelz]

Bottom fishing for small catfish, hooked something really big. Had to chase it around the lake shore for quite a ways before finally landing it...  a softshell turtle, it got snagged by one of its legs. Looked like a dog-gone flying saucer, it's shell was like a yard in diameter! 

[Midway Tommy]

I was never very efficient with a bait caster, always got back lashes. Needless to say when I got my first Mitchell 304 in 1965 I never used a bait caster again, but when I was about 9 or 10 I was practicing casting out in our driveway with some old JC Higgins level wind, probably a Bronson trade reel, an old 5' steel rod from WWII era and a real plug with treble hooks. Dad didn't have any casting plugs and using a lead bell sinker was out of the question because I'd probably pitch it through a window. My aunt & uncle came to visit for the weekend and things were boring so I headed outside to practice casting. I'd pitch that lure from up by the garage out and across the street. It was a lot easier to drag that old lure across concrete than through the grass.  Well my sister was 4 or 5 at the time and decided to come outside and ride her tricycle. She was riding back and forth across the driveway up the garage. I went to make a cast and it stopped immediately behind me. My sister let out a blood curdling scream. I had just hooked her in the forearm. My dad tried to get the hook out but it was so deep they had to call the doctor. He met them at his office and had to cut it out.    At 66 she still ceremonializes that day when she wants a little sympathy, but hey, kids have always been kids.        

[Gfish]

Landed or just hooked? Landed a Western Grebe at Eagle Lake in N.E. Calif. Took a crappie killer jig I had below a bobber. Good chop on the water gave it great jigging action. The hook was in a soft part of the bill. Easy to release, once I got his neck. Hooked a endangered Monk Seal, broke my spinning reel bail, a major bummer. Broke him off, but I felt bad about hooking a mammal, especially when you leave the lure in it. I've hooked Green Sea Turtles and it dosen't bother me as much, is that wrong?

[Jim Fujitani]

Fishing for steelhead after a quick storm went by, while wading on the American River at Glen Hall Park (across the river from the back of Cal Expo), in the early 70's.  I was bouncing a nightcrawler on the bottom, when I had a tremendous hit.  Once the line came tight, it was back and forth, as I fought the catch across the current to my side of the river.

My 20 pound line was whistling in the breeze as I fought for every inch of line.  I thought that maybe I had hooked a King Salmon, because there were no acrobatics nor fast runs.  I finally got the catch to the surface, about 40 feet away, but I couldn't identify it.  After a few more minutes, I saw what it was.  I brought it alongside me, unhooked it and let it go.  It drifted downstream in the current and out of sight.

It was a very dead, stiff, and huge jack rabbit!

[festus]

My saltwater fishing has been very limited, when I was younger and visited the coasts, fishing wasn't a priority.  Lounging in a tiki bar, soaking up rays and crusing up and down the beach were more fun.

Last time I was in Panama City Beach very little of anything was biting. Easter weekend, 2001.  My girlfriend's sister owned a condo down there and she was a very good fisherman and usually knew the best fishing times.  She told us fishing had been dead for a few days but we tried anyway. We tried everything, shrimp, some type of cut fish we bought at Walmart, cut crab, and a few freshwater lures.  I caught a puffer, talk about something that doesn't put up a fight, it was like reeling in a football.  Also caught one of those catfish that's considered trash that resembles a freshwater channel cat with an overgrown dorsal fin.

Finally I hooked something on a Roostertail spinner, a long skinny fish, maybe 15" long and a diameter of 2-1/2"  Nobody on the pier could identify that thing.  It had teeth, a spiny dorsal fin, and reminded me of a cross between a freshwater hellbender and a bowfin. Or maybe a deflated freshwater sculpin Even the man who ran the pier had no idea what it could be. We didn't get a picture and I've never been able to find it an any books.

[boon]

On a recent trip my friend hooked the frayed remains of the rope on a commercial lobster pot, at a guess someone had run the line over and cut the buoys off. Managed to retrieve the rope on his line, and then we got two strong men on the end of it and with some strategic boat driving we managed to raise the pot. I would estimate it at over 200lb so this was no mean feat. It still had the nameplate they're required by law to have in these parts so we left it by the boat ramp for the owner to presumably find.

On our last trip out my father hooked a piece of weedy old rope, which upon retrieval turned into an extremely tangled setline, tangled in the middle of which was the remains of a small gill net! All of this detritus was removed and disposed of responsibly; sadly based on the tangling of some parts of the setline I suspect it had, at some point, multiple fish caught on it.

[conchydong]

My saltwater fishing has been very limited, when I was younger and visited the coasts, fishing wasn't a priority.  Lounging in a tiki bar, soaking up rays and crusing up and down the beach were more fun.

Last time I was in Panama City Beach very little of anything was biting. Easter weekend, 2001.  My girlfriend's sister owned a condo down there and she was a very good fisherman and usually knew the best fishing times.  She told us fishing had been dead for a few days but we tried anyway. We tried everything, shrimp, some type of cut fish we bought at Walmart, cut crab, and a few freshwater lures.  I caught a puffer, talk about something that doesn't put up a fight, it was like reeling in a football.  Also caught one of those catfish that's considered trash that resembles a freshwater channel cat with an overgrown dorsal fin.

Finally I hooked something on a Roostertail spinner, a long skinny fish, maybe 15" long and a diameter of 2-1/2"  Nobody on the pier could identify that thing.  It had teeth, a spiny dorsal fin, and reminded me of a cross between a freshwater hellbender and a bowfin. Or maybe a deflated freshwater sculpin Even the man who ran the pier had no idea what it could be. We didn't get a picture and I've never been able to find it an any books.

Sounds like you might have caught a Lizardfish?

[CapeFish]

the family dog, it wasn't really a catch, but still. I tied up a batch of leadhead jigs with rooster hackles for our local catfish and took a smoke break outside and the next thing our dog comes pawing me with what I thought was a big spider trophy, turns out, it was a leadhead and it had got him straight in the lip. Big problems as I had to wait for my parents to get home, I was still at school and couldn't drive the dog to the vet. Also big trouble for smoking.

So far the xmas tree wins!!!   

[Gfish]

Good photo of a Lizardfish. Several species here. I catch one type on the reef and another one over deep sand, always on a jig 'bout 1/3 as big as themselves. They are almost perfect trolling bait. They remind me of a lingcod, hanging on the bottom and ambushing their prey. Like a ling, large mouth, with big spike-like teeth, only there are many rows.

[David Hall]

Sea turtle, hard to land by the way.  a young sea Lion, put on a heck of a fight and finally broke off.  a humpback whale, snagged him with four lines while fishing sand dabs with grandkids.  got it all on video too.  they will not fit in a salmon landing net. funniest one was when my brother caught me.  While fishing some backwoods lake in BC I was about 10 yrs old and my brother was 14, he had snagged a branch under water and was playing it up like he had a huge fish on, I ran up behind him to look over his shoulder and watch the fight,  I didn't see anything except his rod doubled over loaded with tension, when suddenly the lure slipped off the branch and came flying straight at us, I must have been in shock that lure went right in and hooked me deep inside my left cheek. I began running in circles wildly screaming my lungs out, my brother whips out his pocket knife and I thought for sure he was going to cut my face off to save his lure, after all it was me that lost his favorite red devil while fighting a monster bucketmouth bass back home, he never forgave me for that and no I was getting my payback.  But he simply cut the line to free me up from the rod.  No sooner did he cut the line when I turned and ran as fast as I could back to camp.  My family heard the noise from across the lake and were preparing for my arrival expecting to see me with at least a limb missing.  Granny sat me on a stump while mom, dad, granny and gramps had a pw wow, we were at least 50 miles from the nearest town and granny was quite proficient at removing hooks from flesh.  Gramps used to come home from a day of fly fishing the sierra lakes with numerous flies stuck in his back where he couldn't get them out and so she did the honors.  they reassured mom that everything would be fine.  It was after all a small treble hook.  I believe it was a mepps spinner.  So granny says to me, im gonna count to three and when I say three, gramps is gonna pull the hook out and I want you to scream as loud as you want.  Nervous but not wanting to be deprived of the attention I sat patiently while granny counted, One, two, that's when gramps deftly pulled the hook, I sat there silent and wild eyed, granny puts her hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eyes and says three! there was a long silence, I couldn't believe what they had done  I didn't say anything, well go ahead and scream she said!  I was shocked at being cheated but happy the hook was out. Grandpa just looked at me and chuckled out loud.  They congratulated my brother on a fine catch and all went back to normal.

[SoCalAngler]

I went offshore one time to bottom fish with my brother, his wife and my nephew. We were in 70ft of water anchored up and pulled out the Publix fried chicken for lunch. My nephew finished eating first and fired a bait down and caught an nice 15# Red Grouper that spit out a chicken bone when it hit the deck. We were dying laughing for sure, so I put a chicken breast carcass on my hook, fired it down and caught a 10# Red Grouper immediately. That's why I always take Publix fried chicken offshore with me and break it out when fishing is slow

Had this happen too. I was fishing the pipe off Huntington Beach for sandbass and we were just throwing the bones overboard. I catch a nice sized turd roller and as soon as it hits the deck it spits out a leg bone. Both the leg bone and sandbass went back into the water for a successful catch and release.

In Baja I have caught all sorts of stuff that I have no idea what it is so no telling what the strangest is for me. I guess a seal was strange. Hooking a seal can happen from time to time, it is sort of rare but does happen. What was strange was this seal bit a yoyo iron. The seal was only about half the size of a full grown one so I'm guessing it was like a seal teenager. Just shows teenagers of any species can do stupid stuff. But, I bet it will never do that again.

[Dominick]

My favorite fish story is when Wayne (el pescador) caught his own ear.    Dominick