BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water

Subject: BS: Biggest FIsh I Ever Caugt in Fresh Water
From: Nick E
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 09:47 PM

Somehow I Just Had To Let The Internet Know!
I live in NW Connecticut and went fishing today on the Housatonic River just below the confluence of the 10 mile river. I hoped to catch small mouthed bass or trout. In a small rapid I caught many ambitious bass not much bigger than the lure. THen I fished the large pool below.

In 10 minutes I landed one Pike that was 33 inches long , and another that was 30.
I am flabergahsted!

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest FIsh I Ever Caugt in Fresh Water
From: olddude
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 09:53 PM

Nick
isn't that fun. Here we have the big Muskie's and those guys are a load to bring in for sure. Congrats ... nice fish .. and lots of fun to battle .. those are nice pike you got there... did you use live bait or a spinner? I like use a worm harness when I fish for the Muskies or Pike. I do really well. Again congrats .. post some pics if you have them

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 10:32 PM

When I was a kid, we caught a big carp in Lake Michigan - 35 pounds. It had been wounded (apparently by a bow hunter's arrow), and we were wading in the water and picked him up and carried him to shore.
Not absolutely impressive, I suppose - but we were proud of him.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 10:57 PM

Back in Wes Ginny I was fishin' in a lake where Mr. & Mrs Shirks lives and that lake hadn't been fished in several years so I knew there were gonna be some big bass in there so....

...I no more than cast out an' hit a fish so big that the photograph of it weighs in at just under 5 pounds..

That's a true story...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 11:49 PM

The then-9-year old son of an Alaskan Mudcatter was visiting family in New York and one day they took him out fishing.

He caught a nice trout but didn't seem overly impressed. His uncle tried to get him to express his delight, stressing that that's a big one, boy! Just look at that fish, boy!

The Alaskan kid looked up at him, and said, Uncle So and So, I've never seen a fish so little.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 03:11 AM

Twenty one and a half pound salmon from the River Nith in Dumfrieshire, just below Thornhill Bridge, November 1999, 4pm just as the light was starting to fade.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 03:35 AM

Some many years ago my ex father in law hooked a fish. He proclaimed, while dragging it in, that it must be at least a 35 pound catfish. Landed, it turned out to be about a 4 pound carp.

As there were "other events of interest" related to the trip, the tale was retold at family gatherings for a number of years - and then he got to tell his side of it. By about a dozen years after the event, that carp had grown to something like 30 pounds (in his rebuttal).

[I think he hoped to get an argument about the size of the fish, to divert attention from the "other events" that were a lot more fun to tell.]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 04:28 AM

Best, not the biggest, trout I ever got was in Wabush, Labrador... a bunch of 4 pound sea trout at the Coop grocery store on a $50 bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 05:27 AM

I once caught an 8 pound rainbow trout at Whalley Abbey Lake a few years ago, the lake owner Jimmy Gilder took a photo of me with it, on my next visit the photo was on the wall of the fishing hut but the fish had grown to ten and a half pounds.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 01:33 PM

I once reeled in a fish so big that the hole in the water took a couple of minutes to fill back up

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: olddude
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 03:27 PM

Well shoot Gary grab your pole and get your ass down here ... salmon run will start first part of october ... I will show you some big ass rainbow trout and salmon.. remember those big rainbows I got last spring .. nothing compared to the fall run ..

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 03:47 PM

Wish I could, Dan.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: kendall
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 04:37 PM

The trout I caught was so big I couldn't weigh it on the town coal scale, so I took a picture of it and the negative weighed 14 pounds.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 04:41 PM

I have caught a few small ones in days gone by.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 05:15 PM

Beuts, gnu; I think the only thing I ever caught that big, we were too dumb to know it was a dogfish or something; we cooked it up, and you would have had to have been starving real bad to eat that mess of slimy glop.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 05:33 PM

I saw 60 pound lake trout hauled out of downstream of the Gabbro Structure (dam) on the Churchill Falls, Labrador water resevoir system. Took a lad six hours to do it. Waste of time in my mind. There were as many 20 pounders as you wated... 4 per day. That's 4 fer you, 4 fer the wife...

Saw a lad take an 8 pound speckled trout (my personal fav) at a set of rapids between Simm's and the next lake. It was awesome. I was kinda sad when I saw it because he was using a Red Devil lure on a spinning rod with about 40 pound test. Not near as sporting a chance for the trout as a fly with 4 pound test on the leader.

I wonder if I can find the pic of the Arctic Char and the Rock Cod. Great fishing story there. Life threatening stuff... well, maybe I wasn't REALLY in danger... but when you piss yourself getting back to shore because of the 6 foot fin coming your way, it's a good story.

And the story of "cookie" beating me with a broom while chasing me out of the cookhouse after I dropped the rock cod in his kitchen... well! Fookin mainlander! Don't know a difference between rock cod and shit? Fooker!

Ahhh... memories. I wish I could go back to Labrador. Or just back.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 05:56 PM

Never fished there (or fished much, I'm afraid to say on a thread like this), but a thrill of my life was finally getting to canoe some whitewater with my dad there at the 10 Mile and Housatonic on my 10th birthday. Just made me think of it, Nick E.

Sigh.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:08 PM

Canoe... fine in shallow water.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 11:59 AM

My nephew caught a 63 pound spoonbill (a/k/a paddlefish) in a land-locked former gravel gravel pit in Missouri a couple years ago. It's a state park and the rangers decided it got washed in during a flood. Kid was, to say the least, surprised.

So was his father.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: GUEST,999
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 01:03 PM

OK, I ain`t gonna brag. However, I took a Lake Trout outta Lake Athabasca in northern Alberta. Needed a chainsaw to fillet it.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 01:09 PM

Well, I'm a shy and modest sort so I mentioned my nephew's fish. But I once caught a catfish outa the Mississippi that caused water from the Gulf of Mexico to flow backwards into the River clear to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. I was fly-fishing, too, using a #32 Black Gnat on a four-pound-test line.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: GUEST,999
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 01:13 PM

Well, not to compete with you, Rapaire, but when we got an earth mover to chain that fish outta the lake, the water level dropped about five feet.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 02:21 PM

999... maybe you could tell me about a story I heard from a lad about fishing in N AB. He said they launched and pulled about 500 feet of winch cable out into the lake, stuck a chicken on a meat hook, dropped it and went fishing for the day. When they got back, they winched in the cable and pulled out an 8 foot long "jackfish". They got fish like that out there?

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Phot
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 02:49 PM

After 2 years of course fishing with no result, I gave up!

Wassail!! Chris

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 03:56 PM

There's no doubt at all that there are big ones still to catch. I remember my grandpa tossing back 25 lb. trout "because they're too small for anything but bait." That was back, oh, more than fifty years ago. Nowadays the "bait size" has gone down to 20 pounds due to overfishing, bottom trawling, and long-liners. Why, I understand that some of the cricks back home haven't had anything bigger'n a hundred pounds taken out in several years!

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:06 PM

Four lads pranged in a Beaver a few hunderd yards from shore on a lake near Chuchill Falls, Labrador while I working there. I talked to one of the divers that recovered a couple of bodies. One diver said there were lake trout laying dead on the bottom with their skin, some flesh and eyeballs eaten away and that they were longer than him. Said it freaked him out and he'd never dive in the lakes up there again.

Again, I wonder if I was havin my leg pulled. I mean, I have seen a duck disappear in a flash and assumed it was a pike. But, a trout that big would certainly scare the b-jeepers outta me. I got webbed toes eh.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Louie Roy
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:34 PM

I caught a 77 pound Rainbow but it got away

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 05:59 PM

Dang, I didn't know rainbows could be caught! I just knew about the pot of gold thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: GUEST,999
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 01:33 PM

The eight foot Jack--which as you are aware is a Northern Pike--seems to be a bit of a reach. A BIG one comes in about five feet long and they know how to bite. Also, the biggest lake trout I ever heard of being taken from that lake was a touch over 102 lbs--however, it was androgenous (sp) so didn`t count for record books. I got that info from a fellow who`d live, fished and hunted there all his life.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: kendall
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 02:38 PM

That's it, if you guys are going to resort to lies I'm outta here.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 02:59 PM

Hahahahaaaa!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 03:02 PM

999... my buddy told me, first thing he was told as a good old boy from New Brunswick is, "Don't put your hand near the water." He asked why and was told, "Your fingers look like worms. Go ahead, you'll see."

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 03:12 PM

I caught a lake trout about 15 pounds one time in Churchfalls. It was the smallest one of the day. Gave it to the barmaid in the hotel lounge and she invited me and my crew to supper. She baked it stuffed with dry bread crumbs, onions and summer savory (a traditional turkey stuffing). Best lake trout I ever ate.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: kendall
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 06:58 PM

Fresh water fish just don't seem to have the flavor that salt water fish have.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: gnu
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 07:46 PM

True Kendall. Even the speckles that I love originate in the ocean. Perehaps they all do?

Deep?

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 08:08 PM

Yeah, Kendall... Fresh water fish is fishy tastin'... What's with that???

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 10:24 PM

Well, I weren't gonna tell this true story but, what the hey???

I think it was back 'round '84 'er '82 and my Couzin Rufus asked me to take him to Lake Assatique outside Springfield, Virgina fir a little fishin'... Ya' see, as a youngin' I used to fish that lake and I knew where the big bass were and so we loaded up Rufus's wife, the ever lovely Retha Mae's AMC Concord station wagon and off we were to Lake Assatinque....

Well, Lake Assatique is prolly arounda thousand acres so there's lotta places to fish and so we got there, rented a flat bottomed boat with a 12 hp Evinrude and off we went toward my honey hole...

Now Rufus??? He ain't much a fisherman but he got a bigass tackle box with every lore that has ever been made in it so he's ready... Me??? I got a bag lunch of a pomento cheeze sammich and a bag of tater chips, also in a bag with one of them yellow twisty ties on it to hold it closed...

So I motor us to my honeyhole and Rufus gets rigs up a Mister Twister with a spinner and throws it out... Nuthin'... Me??? I jjst sit back and have the pomento cheeze sammixh and them chips...

Now Rufe been castin' a bout 50 times while I was havin' that ymmy sammich and then he says, "Ain't no fish eher, Boberdz"... Now that make me mad fir a minute and then I figure it's time to show the bpoy how a real fisherman goes about his business so...

...I takes that yellow twisty tie and tie it on a #12 hook with just enough shot to cast it and cast it right where Rufe had been castin' his Mr. Twister with the spinner and before that twisty tie even hit the water I big ol' 4 pound bass jumps outta the water and...

...bango... That one in the boat...

So Rufe say, "Hey, you got another of them yellow twisty ties???" and I say's "Yeah" and give hi the other one that was holding the chips bag closed and he sets it on another #12 hook with just 'nuff shot to cast it and...

...bango, part 2... He's got another bigass bass in the boat...

Well, I told ya'll that this was a honeyhole but I'd forgotten just how much honey was in that hole as we pulled in one big bass after another until the bottom of the boat was completely filled with fish and the weight of me and Rufe and the fish had that boat sittin' mnightly low so I say's to Rufe, "Man, we gotta nuff fish here fir all next winter and some so lets head home"...

Well, bless Reher Mae fir puttin' up with Cuz but as full as that boat was ol' Rufe siad, "Just one more, Boberdz" and so he cast out and just as the last hundred or so casts a bigass bass jumped outta the water and hit that rather worn out yellow twisty tie but before that fish could so much as think, "What did I do that for" there was a big commotion in the water as the biggest and nastiest Mud Tom I'd ever laid an eye on come outta that water and swallowed that 5 pound bass whole and now it and Tom were attached to Cuz's line???

Hmmmmmmmm???

Well, they say that calm come just before the storm and I reckon that is true 'cause the Tom just went under water and all seemed real calm... No pullin'... NO jerkin'... No nuthin'... I mean, all the ripples even went away and the lake was smooth as glass until...

...it weren't smooth as glass no more and that Tom come outta that water like a possessed demon and next thing ya' know poor ol' Rufe has his feet against the sides of the boat trying to hold on as that Tom cranked up the turbo and next thing ya' know that Tom is pulling the boat backwards toward the marina and gaining speed and poor ol' Rufe is like in trance and won't let go of his pole...

Well, folks, I am here to say that every second that boat was going twice as fast as the second before and next thing ya' know that Tom was pullin' us so fast that the keel of that flatbottom boat was like a dam and shootin' up a water spout so high that it was later shown on the local weather station and we are now doing about 50 miles an hour with one rather pissed off MudTom doin' the best it could to make our day of fishin' a complete and total nightmare...

I'm lookin' at the marina and it was coming up real fast and I'm yellin' to Rufus, "Let it go!!!" but he still in that trance, his cowboy boots planted firmly on the transom, and he ain't gonna let go...

Now, peoples, there are times in a man's life where he wished that he could just pick his relatives and I'm here to say that that is the4 only thought that entered my mind as that Tom hit the shore line with so much speed and force that it, with Rufis and boat still in tow, that it carried us thru the marina, thru the parking lot, accross the road and about 400 feet deep into a cornfield before we all came to a stop!!!

I mean, I'm lookin' around and all I can see is bass and corn... I thought I'd dreamed all this so I gave myself "the pice" just hopin' that I had but to no avail... So there we were in the middle of this corn field copletey covered in bass and corn and I reckon in some parts of the South that would be a good thing, I donno... Guess I ain't that Southern....

Took about two hours to round up our catch outta that corn field and pack 'um in the coolers and to get the boat pulled back to the marina... All the while that Tom was out there in that corn field justa snortin' an' carryiin' on...

So we settled up with the marine for the damage to the boat and were on our way back home when Rufus looks over at me and asks, "Didja put a notch on the top rail of that boat where caught all them fish?"

"Huh, Rufe???"

"Well, listen, Boberdz... If ya didn't put a notch in the boat then if I come back here alone how am I gonna find that honeyhole of yours???"

Hmmmmmmmm???

Notch 'er no notch, legend has it that folks around Lake Assitique swear that when the night is still that they hear a snortin' and carryin' on from 'round that corn field... I doono... What I do know is that I ain't gonna walk back there lookin' for no nasty, ugly and rather pissed off Mud Tom...

No, I'll take a pass on that one...

And this has been a true fishing story...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: Beer
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 10:43 PM

King Salmon in the Klukshu River (sp.) Yukon.
42 pounds and the big ones got away. true.
Ad.

Subject: RE: BS: Biggest Fish I Ever Caught in Fresh Water
From: ichMael
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 12:03 AM

Biggest fish I ever saw caught was a catfish, but maybe it seemed so big because I was a kid.

My uncle used to "noodle," and one day I went with him. It was either in the Nueces River or the Frio River in west central Texas. We were out camping for the summer and my grandad's brother came in for a couple of days, said he'd catch a fish for supper. I would've been five or so and was a good swimmer, so my dad told me I could go with him but to stay well back. I had no idea what noodling was.

We both went into the water and my uncle drifted downstream along a bank, feeling up under the grass. Both those rivers rise from springs and the water is clear and cold up near the headwaters, and I had on a little dive mask and snorkel and could see everything he was doing. He felt along, and then he began to wrestle and stir up the mud. The water got cloudy so I broke the surface and treaded water, watching for him.   When he came up he had a catfish on the end of his arm. He was a small guy, my uncle, and I remember the fish being about half as big as him. He'd reached into its mouth and grabbed it by the gills. Took him a couple of minutes to get leverage enough to throw the fish up onto the bank.

His wife put a couple of stitches in his forearm and I saw that he had dozens, maybe hundreds of scars on his arm. My grandmother fried the fish with cornmeal and it fed a dozen people that night.