Curious if you've ever hooked anything else?

[photoguy]

When I fish locally, I share the river with lots of other critters that are all in the same space as me: turtles, frogs, snakes, beavers, birds, etc. Every once in a while it crosses my mind- what is the likelihood of hooking something from these other citizens of river life that just might find my fly a suitable snack?

I've tried to imagine what it might be like to try and un-hook something unintended and thankfully so far I've never had to find out. One more reason I guess that I like to fish barbless, maybe that would help in such a situation?

But I'm curious, have any of you ever hooked some other wildlife (other than yourselves ) and if so what happened?

 

[karstopo]

Sea turtle while wading West Matagorda bay in Texas. I took a little time to get in with an 8 weight. I’m not sure how it got hooked, although, Kemp’s Ridley Sea turtles eat crustaceans and I was using a crustacean pattern.

I was able to unhook the turtle without losing any appendages and it swam off without any apparent ill effects.

Before fly fishing, I’ve hooked several birds including a pelican. Those are awful to try to free from the hook. I don’t miss treble hooks at all.

 

[Akflyguy]

Buddy of mine hooked a bald eagle, fish was jumping out of the water and the eagle dove down to grab it. Hook came out of the fish and dropper kooked the bird, maybe was hooked for about 5 seconds before the tippet broke and everything fell back to the water. Pretty awesome and scary at the same time!

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[gpwhitejr]

I catch a lot of trees.

 

[sparsegraystubble]

I hooked a big old snapping turtle in a Pennsylvania pond when I was a kid while fishing for bass. I don’t think the snapper took the maribou streamer. It was probably foul hooked, but I never got it close enough to find out.

Then when I was in college, I was fishing Big Fishing Creek at dusk and hooked a frigging bat with my back cast. I cut the leader on that one rather than have to deal with an angry bat.

Many years later, fishing the Henrys Fork during a PMD hatch, swallows kept picking up my thorax tie dun by the poly wing off of the water. None got hooked, but they would carry it several feet off of the water surface till they felt the drag from the line and then they would drop it. I had swallows do that on the Metolius River in Oregon a couple times, but there I figured it was because kids had been feeding popcorn to the fish.

I have never even had a close follow from a mermaid, but I’m still hoping.

Don

 

[cab]

Snagged a beaver once, and a couple of muskrats. A couple of bats in the air, and one duck. If something looks too freaky, I just point the rod straight at it, snap the fly off.

HTH,
CAB

 

[el jefe]

A dog. One area I like to fish has few fishermen, but many hikers, and of course many of them have their dogs with them, but not on a leash. The guy's dog comes over to harass me, and his owner starts calling for him to come away. Meanwhile, the dog gets tangled up in my line as I am trying to toss it away from him, starts heading away from me, the line runs out of slack, and snags him up near the neck. Got mostly fur, so it wasn't a big deal.

Snagged a turtle earlier this summer at a city pond. I was using a streamer, and reeling it in. As it got near shore, and bounced over a couple of river rocks, one of them lifted up off the bottom. I thought I just snagged the rock good, and tried to roll cast out of the snag, but the rock kept moving in funny directions, and was up off the bottom of the pond, moving around. As it got closer, I could see it was a turtle. I crush all my barbs down, so freeing him was easy, and he went back to the silt at the pond's edge, seemingly none the worse for wear.

 

[photoguy]

So it does happen! I thought it might-

Appreciate the stories, and it confirms my emergency ' Hope' plan- Step 1- Hope it doesn't happen. Step 2- if it does happen, HOPE that the hook dislodges before I get it in, Step 3- break the line and HOPE that it doesn't leave a mark!

 

[rangerrich99]

A box turtle and a snapping turtle. A couple bats. A seagull. A swallow. A cottonmouth snake. Several bullfrogs. My buddy's dog most recently.

 

[philly]

I caught a couple YOY sea gulls a few years ago. They both thought my crease fly was a wounded bait fish. One came in easy. The other caught itself in the wind and took it a while to get in. The thing I remember about that one is a mother and daughter were walking the path the small jetty stuck out from and the daughter pointed at the sea gull and said to her mom. "Look at the neat kite that guy is flying." Neither of the sea gulls were very happy when I finally landed them, but they were released unharmed.

 

[deceiverbob]

I hooked one turtle while fly fishing for bream. The shell of the turtle was about 7" long. Thankfully the hook came out near the boat. I have caught several gulls on casting tackle. They flew into the line and it wrapped around their wing. None of them were hooked. Last year with a casting rod I hooked a great blue heron. Again it flew into the line and when it reached the end the hook sank into the wing. Luckily someone on the pier had a towel so I covered its head (and that stiletto beak) and was able to remove the hook. That particular heron hangs around the pier often. I think people feed it small fish.

 

[bazzer69]

A cormorant, a bat, a swallow, a dragon fly and a
Lawyer who I hooked in the nose whilst fishing from my drift boat. Oh, a grey whale whilst fishing for blue fish off of Boston ( he broke me off since I foul hooked him in the dorsal fun) then there was a seal fishing near the ocean on the Klamath, a great white, that was trolling off the back of my sailboat off of Baja. Several poisonous puffer fish. A seagull ( several ) very many sticks none of which were keepers, a old mattress. But the strangest thing I’ve heard of not hooked by me but my fellow guide Lonnie, a corpse which was hooked by a finger, he didn’t bother to net it of course but dialed 911.
Probably more than I can remember over my sixty or so years of fishing. It’s not the hooking, but getting them off the line that’s the hard part


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[hunter1]

I catch a lot of trees.

x2. Surf fishing one time ,I went to cast and a seagull took the bait on the fly. Did land him got the hook out ,gull put up a good fight. Gull wan't hurt, flew away, all ended well.

 

[vaheelsfan]

I've caught turtles in fresh and salt on bait. Had seagulls get tangled in my line but not hooked thankfully. Plenty of trees, hopefully never ever a snake.

ETA: Also crabs in salt and I've caught crawdads out of ponds fishing worms on the bottom.

 

[corn fed fins]

Let me think. 1 beaver, 1 pelican, 1 snapping turtle (on a streamer legit lol), muskrats, bats, swallows, tadpoles, snakes......

I can expect anything getting hooked; just as long as it's not a human body.


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[al_a]

Yeah, lots of critters, though mostly on bass lures. Probably the scariest and most exciting was when I hooked a great horned owl while night fishing. It came down and took a Jitterbug off the surface. Fortunately it got itself unhooked when I somehow got it in close and pulled it down onto the water, where it was on its back, and scraped the lure off one foot with the other foot. Had a strike from a great blue heron, but fortunately it didn't get hooked. Did hook a kingfisher once. Snapping turtles. Water snakes. All these things actually took the lure. I hooked a cormorant when it flew into my line. Hooked a bat the same way.

On a recent trip on the Salmon River, I had kingbirds repeatedly flying down to the spinnerbait I was retrieving just under the surface. They really wanted that spinnerbait.

 

[Rip Tide]

A 600 lb. grey seal can really make your drag sing !

 

[rangerrich99]

If we're talking about non-living items, I've caught a couple pairs of boots (no matched pairs), a shirt, a pair of pants, and a rainbow hopper (don't know the real name, but it had just about every color of the rainbow tied into it), that was tied to a leader and a fly line that was still on a Lamson reel that was still attached to my buddy's fly rod that he lost in the lake from the previous spring. He still has that rod and reel. Never paid me any kind of reward for catching it though.

 

[satyr]

I've caught a couple bats, a swallow and a duck. The duck was pretty hard to control while taking the hook out of his beak. I think that all of them took the fly willingly. Had a garder snake take a small trout I was landing so I gave him the trout.

 

[r reese]

Starling on back cast. Blue Hering picked up my trout i caught and flew well into my backing before dropping it. My neck bad one time.