the strangest way you have lost a fish!

[tide'n'knots]

a couple od months ago i started a thread about strange catches and it was so popular that I thought I would start another thread called - the strangest way you have lost a fish! over the years I have lost some fish to some strange ways, around anchor ropes etc, but the strangest for me was the time i was fishing at long reef from the rocks with my ex wifes brother in law, and this guy knew nothing about fishing. I hooked a very big silver drummer and asked him to gaff it for me - what a mistake!!! he grabbed the gaff and started smacking it like it was a snake and he was trying to kill it with a stick! I very quickly lowered my rod to give the fish some slack line so the line wouldnt break and scream at him to STOPPPPPP!!!! in the process the line wrapped around a barnicle on the rock and popped!! I stood and watched with tears in my eyes as this huge fish that had obviously fought to the death or had been beaten to death, one or the other, slowly sank to the bottom! I felt like wacking him with the gaff! half an hour later I was lucky enough to hook and land another one of similar size so all was forgiven. The landed fish went 18lb.

My fishing mate Joe told my of a story many years ago when he was fishing from the breakwall at south west rocks when he gaffed a large jew with his gaff for another guy and as he was carrying it up the wall the head of the gaff tore through the bamboo under the weight of the fish and the fish wedged between 2 rocks and slowly sank down into the breakwall with every wave that came in. They estimated the jew over 50lb.

I cant wait to hear some of your stories I reckon there will be some crackers!

pete.

Edited October 14, 2011 by tide'n'knots

[Mr Squidy]

Hi Pete,

Reckon you'll get some great answers on this one.

Mine would be about 10 years back. While fishing with my dad i caught an absolute cracker of a silver trevally, must have been around the 60cm mark and easily my PB. Dad netted the fish and we found the hook had been lodged quite deep causing the fish to bleed everywhere in the boat. While sitting back feeling warm and fuzzy about my new PB i watched in horror as my dad put his fingers right through its gills and reached over the side of the boat to wash the worst of the blood off it. Suffice to say the fish kicked, ripping its own throat out in the process, then sank to the bottom (my dad very nearly followed it).

Now as much as that hurt, I could only imagine the heartbreak for the guy losing his 50lb Jew, thats the stuff of nightmares.

Rich

Edited October 14, 2011 by Mr Squidy

[tide'n'knots]

i just remembered! about 5 or 6 years ago I was fishing with my mate joe at wisemans ferry and joe had just landed a nice jew around 9lb and I had hold of it through the gills and dropped it into an ice slurry in an esky. when it felt the cold water it lept out like a giant mullet and landed PLOP! straight in the river! I died inside as it wasnt my fish ,but joe cracked up laughing and said dont worry about , thank god.

pete.

[Fisherman36]

More stupidity than strange, but I've done the trick of thinking "I'll just rinse it over the side" as well.... It was one of my first few outings, caught a nice 70cm flathead. I descaled it on the boat, and thought I'd just give it a quick rinse in the water. Grabbed it by the tail and dunked it over the side only to see it slip from my hand and sink to the depths below....Needless to say, I was suitably p'ssed off at myself and lucky I was the only one on the boat so the only grief I copped was from myself. Lesson learned!

[ironfist26]

My mate was in forster with a gaff and was in the process of gaffing a 60cm + flatty from the break wall. First time he tried gaffing the fish it was deflected off the underbelly somehow but on the second gaff attempt it went straight through the head. AS the fish was being lifted out of the water it performed some sort of backflip roll off the gaff and fell straight back into the water. The line was cut on the rock during this process and it swam off from the event as though nothing had ever happened.

[Shanemills]

One day I was fishing the hacking in the national park. I caught a flathead about 60cm brought it in swung it round on to the rocks about 3m from the shore. The fish jumped of the hook bounces round a couple of times and lands in a crack in the rocks. The only one around and swims off was the only decent fish all day.

[rjc123]

Some nice stories here, here's mine.

Hooked onto a nice little bream on a vibe in Pittwater. A pelican comes out of the blue and picks my 35cm fish up and proceeds to fly away. I only had 8lb braid and 10lb leader and this pelican made a mess of it. it flew around a nearby pylon before coming straight around the other side and then ping... well... that was.. fun...

[Plumb]

More stupidity than strange, but I've done the trick of thinking "I'll just rinse it over the side" as well.... It was one of my first few outings, caught a nice 70cm flathead. I descaled it on the boat, and thought I'd just give it a quick rinse in the water. Grabbed it by the tail and dunked it over the side only to see it slip from my hand and sink to the depths below....Needless to say, I was suitably p'ssed off at myself and lucky I was the only one on the boat so the only grief I copped was from myself. Lesson learned!

Exactly the same for me...

I was set to dive in after it but it was gone in the seconds it took to get my phone outofmypocket

Won't happen again... I had mates on the boat, who have never forgotten

[ben.marshman]

I was fishing a couple of months ago and pulled in a 30cm Bream first cast. He went in my bucket. Over the next 2 hours I caught a few more Bream, but all undersized. On my last cast I heard a bit of commotion around my bucket (it was about 20 metres away). I turned around to see a water rat running off with my Bream in it's mouth!! So after weeks of no luck, I went home with an empty bucket again.

[Guest]

My most embarassing day was at Browns Mountain with Boban,

We had landed on a patch of XOS yellowfin and Boban hooked a beauty which was played for nearly two hours on 50 and it was a very stubborn fish that would just stay out of gaffing range...me in my wisdom thinks HEY I AM SUPERMAN and can gaff this thing a bit deeper than usual and proceed to hit this big FIN right in the head with a big fixed head and sure enough the fin went biserk and nearly tore my arms off and pulled the gaff straight out of my hands and screamed off into the depths with gaff still attached and busted my good friend off in the process..........I felt like such a fool but luckily we all got big fish that day and all was forgiven but I know Mitch wanted to say something to me but he was to much of a gentleman.

Sorry Mitch I will never ever forget the look on your face as that HUGE FISH SWAM OFF and there was nowhere to hide either from my shame.

Regards Stewy

[Noodles]

Here's one for you. Not long ago (2 or 3 years back) after a pretty good day out from Terrigal my father in law and I returned to the ramp and cleaned our catch of flatties, snapper, mowies etc at the cleaning table as we normally do. Any of you who know the ramp will recall that Gosford Council in it's wisdom turned the water off due to low supply in the Mangrove dam and level 4 restrictions.

With the fish all scaled and gutted dry they are pretty messy. I decided to grab all the rubbish out of the boat and take it to the bin as I usually do. While doing this my FIL decides to pick up the whole fish box and walk down to the water to rinse the catch off. Well cleaning fish at this ramp usually attracts a crowd of onlookers and as I turned around after dropping the rubbish I see my FIL standing at the waters edge with the fish box in hand and a confused look on his face and a whole group of people clapping, cheering, laughing and asking each other "did you see that" and "what happened".

What happened was as soon as he put the box in the water he was attacked from all sides by the usual brigade of large feathered onlookers. Swimming around just off shore were about a dozen pelicans all happily trying to swallow flathead, snapper and mowies. It's amazing how large a fish a pelican can eat. He did manage to save a few but it was a rather disappointing end to what had been a pretty good day.

[jimg1au]

at least 25 years ago first gamefishing trip with botany bay game fishing club.fishing for makos.good burley trail mullet, bread soaked in whale oil(not leagle now}started at the shelf and drifted south east.after loseing 3 makos biting through 185kg wire put on a larger wire trace landed 1 and it was despatched to the front tired on via tail rope.last trace now used it was loaded with togles or s/s bars in the trace for holding on while gaffing sharks.put 4 small mullet onto a 12 or 14 shark hook.it sank as i was letting it out and stuck my 50lb game rod on the rod holder went for a break and a drink.the everol starting to screem now so i sunk the hook and hung on.thinking large mako here sat in the chair and started to give it the beans.big mistake after 3 hours owener of the 28 berty calls the fish a great white from up in the fly he saw some light and dark colour.another 30 mins up comes the bigest yellow fin i have ever sean and also to this date.the cycles were way past the tail fin.crew estemate well over 100kgs.the first toggle comes up and my mate grabs it and quote i got you now,i am out of the chair and over on the lhs of the berty.makes got the toggle trace and skipper tries to set the flyer in the sholders of the monster fin.he hits the head and only stirs up the fish.mate still has toggle locked in his hand and over he goes and under the water.silly me didnt back off the drag and the poor old everol spills off line again.it breaks thank god as the line was wrapped arond my mates wrist.he pops up by the burly bucket.quickly the other crew members drag him in white as a ghost.it was a 2 day comp and the next day i could on just reel the line in.chris got his wife to pick him up at stgmbc he wanted to go home.

this is a true story later that month a big yellow fin was caught off wollongong with a steel trace in it it was over 100kgs

chris has the line burn scar on his wrist stll.

[Day's Fishin]

A few years back I was fishing with my son on Harvey Bay wharf. We had been there for about 2hrs with not much to show for it. It was around 2am when a young bloke about 16 showed up on his push bike.

He marched out about halfway along the wharf and proceeded to flick out a squid jig and soon had a nice size squid,

Any of you raiders that have fished this area would know that it isn't an easy task to catch a squid so quick as those green toads beat the squid and more often than not cut your line off.

The young bloke than went back to his bike and came back with a nice short rod and reel outfit. Straight out to the end of the wharf and dropped the squid in.

It wasn't more than about 15minutes when I heard his reel screaming. Looking over I seen him clutching his rod with both hands and leaning back.

Thinking to myself,(he won't keep what ever that is on long unless he's using some pretty heavy line)

The line stopped peeling off and he actually started gaining some back.

Then away it went again. This too and fro went on for the next 30 minutes or so and now there was about 6 or 7 off us following this young bloke up and down the wharf peering over the side to catch a glimse of his fish.

The fish finally broke surface, but only when it was directly straight down under the rod with just enought line to keep its head on the surface.

Well there it was, a magnificent shovelnose shark. It was the biggest one that I had ever seen. At a guess it was around 5 foot. No wonder he was having trouble getting him up!

Anyway, at this stage the fish decided he didn't like what he saw and ploughed back down. The young bloke said his arms were tired could someone take over for a little bit.

Not waiting for anyone else to step forward I took the rod and had some fun for the next 10 minutes or so bringing him to the surface on a couple of occasions, each time to have him power back down.

A tap on the shoulder and it was time to give the rod back.

The next time the fish came up it decided to have a break and just lay on the surface. This was what the lad was waiting for, shouting out,( could someone get the gaff off my bike)

One of the blokes ran back and came back with a gaff attached to about 10meters of rope.

The young angler turned his head towards the bloke with the gaff and asked him to gaff the fish for him.

Everyones attention was now focussed on the new action to take place. The guy with the gaff peered over the edge taking in where the fish was and proceeded to throw the gaff over the side at the fish.

This bloke had no idea what he was doing. Not only did he throw the gaff at the fish hitting the fish and sending the fish into another power dive which took the rod straight out of the anglers hands,( as it wasn't expected and the young bloke was that tired he had released his grip a little,) but to add injury to insult the dope didn't hang onto the other end of the rope so the rod, reel, gaff and rope followed the fish down.

The look on the young anglers face as he turned to let the bloke know in no uncertain terms what he thought of him was priceless.

When he calmed down he walked back to his bike and rode off.

Talking to my brother in law later that day he said he knew the lad and had been talking to his dad. It wasn't losing the fish that had upset him as he had enjoyed the fight, it was the equipment that he had lost which he had received from his late grandfather only a couple of weeks earlier.

Regards Jeff