Giant Fish Stories

[the11fisherman]

Another day of terribly cold weather has made me revert to ice fishing videos, rather than actually going out. Found this video of large fish being caught: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIbLJQOnbMs

Now it is time for everyone to break out their fishing stories about the big ones that they actually landed........

Try to keep the stories as close to fact as possible........none of this stuff about fish that grow 3 inches every time that you tell the story.

I can't wait to hear all the great fishing stories.

[pinelakeperch]

I caught consecutive 30in and 31.5in walleyes within about fifteen minutes of each other on a 5ft 6in ultralight Ugly Stik with 6lb mono.

18in+ smallies on at least 10-15 occasions.

A few ~16in perch in North Dakota.

I don't think I've caught a pike that would hit 20lbs, but I've seen absolute monsters in the 30+ range. Need to learn to seduce them a little better!

I guess none of these are "giant" fish, but big fish/good stories nonetheless

[Tfng]

My wife likes to tell this story but I'll have to do. It was our first major fishing trip together when we were dating. Being a farm girl she hadn't been fishing in remote locations before.

After a long road trip we had traveled into northern Sask. We were as far out as I had ever been without taking a plane. That day we had traveled through a river system and a few lakes and into another river. We had another couple with us and at this point we pulled their boat up on shore and all jumped in mine. We proceeded down the river through two sets of rapids and at the bottom of the second set was a beautiful pool and a row of rocks blocking any further progress down the river in this boat.

We started casting spoons and fishing was hot and heavy. Every cast was something but you didnt know what to expect we caught grayling, whitefish, pike, and walleye. All on spoons.

We'd been fishing a while and she started squealing that she had a good one. I thought to myself you've got time for one more cast and fired a white and orange #2 Len Thompson up into the white water of the rapids. Almost immediately I had a fish on and it came to boat quickly with the current. As it came alongside the boat I realized I had the biggest grayling I had ever seen until that point. I could hear my gf (wife) screaming at me but I only had eyes for that grayling. I pulled that fish into the boat and looked over at what she was doing. As I looked over the edge of the boat she had what I would consider to be an easy thirty pound pike right at the boat just sitting there finning. When I did that the grayling flopped and I lost my grip and it fell into the bottom of the boat. I looked down at it and back up and with one quick flip that pike spit the hook.

So there's the story of my first big grayling at 1.75 pounds, as well as the story of when I let my wife's personal best pike get away lol. I've caught bigger grayling but I've never seen a pike like that since.

The story of our trip out of that river is even longer, let's just say losing a big fish was the least of our worries and we didn't make it back until 5am the next day.

[58thecat]

Stories are close to lies where legends are made and if passed on well they get bigger as we speak and sometime even change species and locations...
People who fish have short memories but great stories!

[nast70]

Our biggest fish story goes as follows:
My family is out on the lake, easy +25 outside. The kids are fighting to stay interested despite lots of walleye action. I was in the process of unhooking a small walleye while my son was struggling to bring up a log he hooked. It was coming up slowly, he did what he was taught, so I had time for another cast or 2. Soon enough he was complaining about tired arms, okay dad will help. I got up from the back seat to work my way to the bow of our 18' stern drive, suddenly he yelled to me to hurry up! I was still at the passenger seat, he's in the bow. I leaned over the side for a peak and saw nothing but tail, with my eyes I followed it up to the front and realized it was the largest pike i had ever seen! My kids eyes were the size of dinner plates, almost scared! He passed me the rod to land it. I called for the landing net and worked him around the starboard side. He was just cruising on the surface, massive. My wife was taking vids of this guy (I don't have them on this computer, i think its on the old home PC). I could tell he was getting bored so i risked grabbing him and hauling it in. He turned upright in the water and flared his gills, one big shake and splash he vanished. I won't ever forget the site of my hand reaching down to the gaping toothed mouth, my whole arm could fit in no problem.

[trophybook]

25 lb Pike Baptist lake 4 lb mono 15 years ago

[Stubb]

I took a buddy out on the river for his first time fishing and didn't realize the only other rod I had in the boat was an ultralight with 8 lb mono. He ended up landing a 25lb sturgeon with it for his first fish ever.

[cribfisher]

Went for a day of light tackle drift fishing in Ft Lauderdale for mahi mahi, sailfish etc, and ended up landing a 9' bull shark on 30lb test. Guide said it was the largest fish he's ever had up to his boat.

[Coulee]

1997: Planned to bushwhack along a creek for small cutthroats with a 4lb tippet leader. Instead wound up on the Bow catching 12 inch rainbows on a Parachute Adams.

Saw a dark shadow move underneath my fly and by natural reaction, set the hook.

It took forever, but I finally landed the 29 inch brown. Unfortunately he was spent when I tried to put him back. Must have tried to revive him for 15 minutes.

I now look at him on my wall. Wanted to release him, however; it's also nice to be able to prove a fish tale as true. His girth was so thick, the taxidermist weighed him at 9lbs. Given where he was caught, me thinks his main diet was whitefish.

So why did he take a small fly on the surface? Two million years of evolution told him to.

[wildwoods]

Mine aren't massive but 2 PB's in one morning.
Fishing the 'Shu on an early morning. My buddy and I have young families so to accommodate them, we always strike out early on the hunt for trophy trout, in hopes to be back at the campsite at around 930-10am. This day was no different other than the fact we had our carb swamped in my 18' Bayliner (4.3 Merc I/O) a couple days before we were leaving. There was a mechanic shop that took us in on very short notice and got her back in shipshape just quick enough we could fish on our final morning of summer camping.
We pointed the bow of the boat from Sunnybrae and heading into a strong wind from the east. Our destination was the totem pole across from Sicamous. Arriving shortly before 5am, we punched out a couple lures that we've had good success on. If I recall correctly, the Chrome Apex went to around 77' and the Cop car Coyote Spoon around the 50-60' mark. We trolled along for maybe a half hour and our deep rigger popped the clip. Fish on! I raced to the stern and lifted my rod to secure that hook deep in what felt like a logs mouth. Down, down, down went the fish. I knew I was into a decent laker! Funny thing is, you can tell a good sized laker by the way it swims- exactly like a walleye. I've had 16" trout fight harder than this guy! My friend grabbed the landing gear and we soon had my ~10 lb, 30" laker in my arms for the pics and back into the depths from whence it came. Great start!
Another hour came and went. The wind kept wanting to blow us in. I didn't mind as it change up our speeds at times- a critical element in triggering finicky, summer slow trout. We marked a bunch of trout at various depths but to no avail. This went on for about an hour, flogging different depths to coax our prey into taking our offerings. As we passed by the Totem pole again, some line was terribly tangled and we had to pull it up and the downrigger to reset. The motor was turned off for this and we drifted slowly but surely towards shore, going a little slower than we were previously trolling. That was the ticket! We had our hands full and I casually glanced to my rigger and to my surprise the clip had popped and there was life in the rod! I no sooner saw it dancing when a large Rainbow breached the surface of the water clearly hooked well! I quickly made a grab for the rod (still in holder) and subsequently pulled my two piece in half!!! Oh No! While fumbling to get the thing together my bow broke surface twice with more acrobatics. I knew I was going to lose him! I finally got the rod together and reeled in 15-20' of slack! My heart lept and disappointment set is as I knew he was gonna spit any second. To my surprise and great relief, I felt weight at the end of my line. Fish on! Took a little bit of finessing him in and as he was just about to be scooped by my buddy, he took a sharp turn and missed the net. That Rainbow then had one more trick up his sleeve. He shot straight out of the water and said buddy redeemed himself by catching him MID AIR in the net! We have it all on a GoPro video. He came in just shy of 26" and hit 6 Lbs.
Long winded write up for sure. I hope you enjoyed reading it. So maybe not "monster" fish but definitely good ones in my books. And pics to prove it lol.

[the11fisherman]

Originally Posted by wildwoods

Mine aren't massive but 2 PB's in one morning.
Fishing the 'Shu on an early morning. My buddy and I have young families so to accommodate them, we always strike out early on the hunt for trophy trout, in hopes to be back at the campsite at around 930-10am. This day was no different other than the fact we had our carb swamped in my 18' Bayliner (4.3 Merc I/O) a couple days before we were leaving. There was a mechanic shop that took us in on very short notice and got her back in shipshape just quick enough we could fish on our final morning of summer camping.
We pointed the bow of the boat from Sunnybrae and heading into a strong wind from the east. Our destination was the totem pole across from Sicamous. Arriving shortly before 5am, we punched out a couple lures that we've had good success on. If I recall correctly, the Chrome Apex went to around 77' and the Cop car Coyote Spoon around the 50-60' mark. We trolled along for maybe a half hour and our deep rigger popped the clip. Fish on! I raced to the stern and lifted my rod to secure that hook deep in what felt like a logs mouth. Down, down, down went the fish. I knew I was into a decent laker! Funny thing is, you can tell a good sized laker by the way it swims- exactly like a walleye. I've had 16" trout fight harder than this guy! My friend grabbed the landing gear and we soon had my ~10 lb, 30" laker in my arms for the pics and back into the depths from whence it came. Great start!
Another hour came and went. The wind kept wanting to blow us in. I didn't mind as it change up our speeds at times- a critical element in triggering finicky, summer slow trout. We marked a bunch of trout at various depths but to no avail. This went on for about an hour, flogging different depths to coax our prey into taking our offerings. As we passed by the Totem pole again, some line was terribly tangled and we had to pull it up and the downrigger to reset. The motor was turned off for this and we drifted slowly but surely towards shore, going a little slower than we were previously trolling. That was the ticket! We had our hands full and I casually glanced to my rigger and to my surprise the clip had popped and there was life in the rod! I no sooner saw it dancing when a large Rainbow breached the surface of the water clearly hooked well! I quickly made a grab for the rod (still in holder) and subsequently pulled my two piece in half!!! Oh No! While fumbling to get the thing together my bow broke surface twice with more acrobatics. I knew I was going to lose him! I finally got the rod together and reeled in 15-20' of slack! My heart lept and disappointment set is as I knew he was gonna spit any second. To my surprise and great relief, I felt weight at the end of my line. Fish on! Took a little bit of finessing him in and as he was just about to be scooped by my buddy, he took a sharp turn and missed the net. That Rainbow then had one more trick up his sleeve. He shot straight out of the water and said buddy redeemed himself by catching him MID AIR in the net! We have it all on a GoPro video. He came in just shy of 26" and hit 6 Lbs.
Long winded write up for sure. I hope you enjoyed reading it. So maybe not "monster" fish but definitely good ones in my books. And pics to prove it lol.

Wow!! Nice Rainbow.

[Speckle55]

here is my fishing buds stories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gXB...ature=youtu.be

Sean n Adam

enjoy

ps there will be more u can follow on Facebook/U-tube


enjoy

David

[Nikanit]

In 1992 my husband Kerry Reaman caught a 50 1/2 inch 32 lb pike on 8 lb test line from Swan Lake when he was ice fishing for Lakers. He almost couldn't get it thru the hole and it was in the local paper at the time. Have an old newspaper clipping of it

[PerchBuster]

Pacific Ocean, Haida Gwaii, 310 ft of water, bait of the day, head of a 20# Chinook caught that morning impaled on a giant hook with a Lead ball on the rig. Bait didn't soak for more than about 7 minutes. 45 minutes later in heavy 10-12' swells, everyone else over the side getting sick I finally get it to the surface, thoroughly exhausted, the thing kicked my butt big time , 170 lb Halibut, 6'2" long, looked like a big old surfboard white side up. Tail was wider than my shoulders. Knowing what I know now I would have tried to release it but the guide had 2 harpoons in the sucker before I could even get over the shock of how big this thing was! Now that I have caught something that large I never want to do it again lol! Hence I fish for Perch, Walleye, salmon, Rockfish, mostly now.

[BuckCuller]

Not mine but I know a good one From days long gone about an old hunting fishing trip in northern BC. I think it was around Red Fern Lake.
They brandished a fishhook out of an old horse shoe and tied a diamond pack rope from the hook to a large dried out log and put a hind quarter of stone sheep on the hook.
They through the quarter of sheep in the lake and went to bed. When they woke in the morning and went to check on it the log was cruising across the lake with a six foot spray and a wake. Then all of a sudden the log stopped tipped up in the air and went straight down.
Nobody ever seen that log again.

True Story Say Some!
My bad I thought the thread was about tall tails.
Ha Ha.

[Peace Meal Farm]

2004 or 2005? Still in school. Finished tree planting for the season and flew my grandfather from Ontario out to Victoria. We rented a car and hit Cortes to link up with an old copper buddy of his.

Joe guided the two of us for big ling over 5 days. What a time.

On the final day I sent my jig down a couple hundred feet and hooked a small tommy cod. However, my gear immediately bent in half and stayed that way for ~30 minutes. I thought the cod got wedged under a rock of some sorts. I worked my tackle for a period of time until it slowly began to come up.

After a short while I saw a nice, fat, ~30 ling on my line holding on to the tommy cod which was still hooked on the jig. Both cods were landed. Lovely.

I slit the throat of the ling and hung it overboard on the rope to bleed out on the surface of the water. With its head hinged back I witnessed my closest ever 'near death' experience.

From the ling's esophagus came one tentacle. Then a second. Then more. Then swam out a live octopus from this fish's guts. The octopus then swam away about 20 feet before descending. Because the octopus emerged over a period of a minute or so I had time to take a couple pictures of the whole thing unfolding. It was absolutely jaw dropping.

Bummer though - my ~30 lb ling instantly dropped 6 or 7 lbs. Ha!