Mine is easy. In 1987 I went one Dec day to fish a tx with an old Army buddy. We only fished red crankbaits. He was stationed there and knew the lake well. We fished the South end and quickly had a limit. The water was low. We were fishing creeks with stumps. He hung his Red model A on a stump and trolled over to it. He reeled down to the lure and poked it to free it. When it came off the stump a 5 pounder ate it. Man that was wild, but he caught it. I figure the fish was watching it and when it popped off it was all he could stand.it. What has surprised you?

I was young, maybe 12-14. To the right of Tommy's Marina gas pump there was a grass flat. This was the middle of the day, middle of the summer. Me and one of my friends were wade fishing and I was throwing a fly rod with a Schuman's cricket. I saw to me what looked like a bass swirl on the edge of the grass. I casted over there with the cricket and WHAM the bas attacked it. I set the hook and game on. I fought that bass for about 15-20 seconds all the while my Dad, Tommy and some other guys were hollering "get him in". They were all under the old cherry tree shooting the chit. The bass finally turned straight toward me and I started stripping line by hand as fast as I could. The bas got within maybe 10 feet of me jumped and spit the cricket out of his mouth. Best I can remember he looked in the five pound range. I just stood dazed for a minute thinking, "what the hell just happened"?. I turned around and all of the men were laughing their arses off at what just happened. I wish I could go back just once to those days..............................

Had basically same thing happen. Took rod and poked off down thru millfoil to see how shallow it was. came up with a 4.5# largemouth.

Another would be seeing a rabbit swim across a river.

I caught an aligator on a frog just outside of Inglis, FL. Ive also caught a water moccasin on a spook in seminole co fl

Had a barred owl come down out of a tree and grab a spook I was working and try to fly off with it.

Fishing a Cyprus slough on the Aliceville lake one day. The banks were really thick, and you couldn't see in the woods. All of a sudden we here something making all kinds of racket just inside the woods. About that time a squirrel came flying out of the bushes and landed on a dead Cyprus tree about 10' off the bank. Up that Cyprus tree it went and right on it's tail was a bobcat. They both made it about 20' up the tree before they realized that our boat was right beside them.

This wasn't bass fishing but its a heck of a story. I was 13 or so and my family were down in Gulf Shores on vacation. One night we all decided to head to the pier and see what we could catch. We are prob half way down the pier fishing and my little sister drops her rod straight into the water. I remember she was so upset. We had made our way closer to shore as the night went on and about an hour after my sister dropped her rod in the water my brother feels as tug from a fish (or what he thought was a fish). Somehow after an hour or so my brother caught the rod my sister had dropped in the gulf. My mom took a picture of my brother with the rod hanging on the hook at the place you can take picture of your fish. I wish I knew where that picture was.

I'll add another. This was last summer on Neely Henry. I was fishing a slough that had an island separating it from main river. I heard a splash, two big ole red does hit the water, swam across the slough to another island and across another slough to some houses. About 5 minutes later, I hear a beagle running like hell. The beagle hits the water exactly where the does went in, swam across the slough, lost the trail for a minute on the other island, bayed again and he was off. I hit the TM on high to get around the point to see the beagle barking and running through someones back yard right beside their pool. He went off into the woods after them. That was a hell of a dog to pick that scent up and knowing the deer swam that slough. He might have done that before....................

1st time i used braid was on g-ville. I tied the wrong knot ( was fishing a frog) a fish blew up on it, set the hook and knot came undone. My buddy said " i will catch him for you". His very next cast( using a frog) reeled in the very fish i had break off. He had my frog and his in his mouth and was about 3lbs.

I was fishing the back of a pocket one morning. There were a few stumps sticking up out of the water. They was a small squirrel playing on the bank and eventually ended up in a tree kinda hanging over the water. As I watched the young squirrel noticed a bid ol acron laying in the middle of one of the stumps. Finally it went out on a small limb the was over the stump. As the squirrel went out his weight made the limb sag down to the stump several feet. When he jumped onto the stump the limb swung up to it's orginal heigth. Having finishing his acron the squirrel couldn't jump high enough to catch the limb so after trying and failing a few times it jumped into the water to swim about 10 feet back to the shore.
Then when he was about half way back a huge bass came up and swallowed him whiole. I was amazed. In a lifetime of fishing I had never seen anything even remotely close to such an event. I only had a couple minutes to reflect on what I had just seen.

Then suddenally, something even more amazing happened................
















That big ol bass flopped up onto that stump and laid another acron on it and jumped back in the lake.

LMAO @ CT!

Old joke TC, be ashamed for lying to us!

BC, I'm no owl expert so I don't know what brand it was, but something very similar happened to me one. I was throwing a spinnerbait in a creek on the North end of Livingston, in Texas. An owl flew down on a limb. Each time I cast the owl followed it to the water with his eyes and head. Each time he lurched, but never took off. About the fourth time I moved off. I decided I was in no mood to fight an owl that day.

Another odd occurrence was once on Lay I was throwing a brand new chrome Norman DD22 at the mouth of Peckerwood Creek. I hung up, but after a couple of jerks it came free. When I reeled my lure up, another DD22 identical to it was hanging on it. There was about 5 ft of line on it, but it looked as new as mine.

If you've fished much, you've all had crazy things happen on the water. I was with two guys fishing the North end of Eufaula in 74. The guy that owned the new bassboat had taken us out to show it off. We got to the first spot and he moved from the console to the front deck. his first cast he threw the only rod he had brought into the lake. In 25 mins that trip had begun and ended.

Once on Lake Livingston my partner got bitten by the bank monster(fishermans term for going to the bank to take a dump) While he was on the bank, bass came up schooling. I put 5- 3 pounders in the livewell while he was gone. When he returned I had a hell of a time explaining how I had caught those fish in the livewell.

I've seen some odd stuff but the funniest was me and my brother took my niece fishing in a pond at our grandparents place. We've caught some 4lb bass out of this pond.His daughter is 2.5 years old and has a small pink rod with actual fishing line on it and a 2" long 1/4"thick rubber blue fish toy tied on it. We was fishing and caught some 2lbers and some blue gill. I was throwing hers out there for her and she'd real it in saying here fishy fishy she was having a blast. The last time I casted her rod for her it got a little close to some cat tails but wasn't hung up so I handed it back and let her start feeling it in and when she got about 4ft from the bank one of those 3-4lb fish snatched that little rubber fish of the top the water and took off with it she held on to the rod when the fish took all the line that was on the reel it snapped off. Me and my brother was laughing to hard because she never moved a muscle and just kept staring at the pond like she was in shock then started reeling in till she realized it wasn't on there any more then turned to us shrugged her shoulders asked us where'd it go then went back to calling the fish here fishy fishy. Now her little rod sports 12ft or so of braided line I had left over and a small rapala fish that I took the hooks off of.

A buddy and I was pulling some jigs Crappie fishing and I was telling him about a Largemouth I had found struggling on the surface a few weeks before. It had tried to swallow a bluegill that was just a bit to big to swallow so there it was hung in its mouth and they were both about dead.
Before I finished telling about it we saw some commotion on the surface about 30-40 yards directly in front of the boat.
When we got up to it, it was basically the same thing. Only difference was it was a Shellcracker that had almost been a meal for a Largemouth. The bass swam off when we separated them, but the Shellcracker just flipped a few times and not much else. I doubt it made it.

Saw the same with a pack on smith lake one year. Doe come swimming by the boat 200yds up from where she entered water, 90'd beside us and walked up the bank. Guess the pack didnt feel like swimming...

Was at Paradise Point Marina years ago waiting to meet a friend there to bass fish. He was bringing his boat up and I was going to meet him there. A tournament weigh in was just concluding and a bunch of guys were standing around. I had just gotten a new flipping stick and decided to take it down to the lake by the dock and try it out. First practice flip into the grass and a 5 pound bass pounded it. Fought him in and landed it right in front of about 100 guys standing there! Ha Ha I just released him and walked back to the truck just like I did that every day.

Caught 2 bass on a crome blue rattle trap..one on the front hook and one on the back..only done that twice in my life.(other time was with a super spook jr)...my daddy said hed done it a few times and my grandaddy had plugs an crank baits on go with trailer hooks for just that reason. Not much room but it happens.

We went fishing on Lay one Feb probably back in the early 90's and it was cold, cold, cold. I wanted to leave, but my uncle (who is not a deer hunter at all) was die hard and wanted to stay. A little later in the morning my uncle says "Look at that". I look and there's a really good 8 point swimming across Lay Lake. I wanted to get a close look at him so I cranked the big motor and eased up there closer to him. My uncle was sitting on the front deck and when the boat floated up beside the deer he grabbed the damn thing by the antlers and started trying to pull him into the boat. I started screaming "NO!" and jumped out of my seat and tackled him on the front deck. He gets up all mad and asks me what I'm doing. I told him if he pulled that big joker up in the boat with us that he'd killed both of us. Big dummy.

I took my childhood best friend fishing on Neely Henry one day near Hokes Bluff. We were both just kids, maybe 18-19 years old. We went back in this slough and in the very back there was a little shack with a small pier in front. I noticed about a 20 foot piece of cane pole zip tied to the rails of the pier and it was about doubled over. There was something serious on the other end of that cane pole. So I sat there fishing and kept watching that pole which looked like it was going to break at any second and man, I had to know what was on that line. I had no intention of taking anything as I was raised better than that, but I really had no business even touching it, but I just had to see what was on that pole. So I ease over there with the trolling motor and grab ahold of the line and start pulling. I pulled it up and it was a huge alligator snapping turtle, I mean one as big around as a 20 inch truck tire. As soon as it broke the water I let the line go satisfied knowing what it was. My buddy Eric says "What was it?", and I told him it was a huge turtle. He says "I want to see". So I grab the line and pull again. As soon as the turtle broke the surface all hell broke loose! I heard running footsteps behind me and over my left shoulder I seen a shotgun barrel appear and BLAM!!!!! I seen that turtles head and left leg disentigrate and the next thing I know I was in the bottom of the boat looking up at the sky. That joker had a 20 ga NEF in his tackle bag that he kept for snakes and he thought it would be funny. I sat up and felt the back of my head which was hurting and when I drew my hand back it was covered in blood. I was about disoriented and then I look over and there is a dude coming out of that shack with a shotgun. This dude was huge and real gruff looking. I don't know if any of you seen the Haloween remakes from a few years back where Michael Myers was this friggin huge 6'7 beast of a man with a long matted up beard, but that's what this guy reminded me of. He was dressed in old military garb that was so tattered and ripped up that it looked like it was going to fall off him at any minute. I jumped up and got the big motor cranked and slammed the throttle down trying to get away from the serial killer looking dude that was bearing down on us. We were in about 2 foot of water and the big motor was throwing a rooster tail of mud 50 feet high. We went and trailered that boat and I've fished Neely Henry hundreds of times since that day but I have NEVER went up in that creek again.

TopCat: The only elective class I was allowed to take at NC State back in the day was 'American Folklore'. The guy who taught that class last name was Betts.... and was somehow kin to the folks that owned the Betts fishing lure/tackle company.

I made an A in that class, and I'm pretty certain it was for telling that acorn spitting Bass and the squirrel story. I guess he'd never heard it before, but by the end, I had him howling at the podium. He basically called a time out, and gave the class about 5 minutes to compose itself before we continued. It's a good one! and I hadn't thought about it in years.

Read some of the Louisiana fishing forums about this subject. Crazy stuff.

I read once where a guy was waay back in the swamp gator fishing and came across a clearing that had a giant Cyprus stump surround by about 30 pairs of shoes pointed in. The dude said the shoes went from so wore out and old that they were barely held together to brand new. That's some voodoo junk right there.