# I PROMISE YOU WILL LAUGH... My funniest fishing trip ever.



## KodiakZach (Mar 16, 2005)

*I will tell you right up front that this story might be a little long, but if you read it you will laugh when you find out what I went through to get this first fish.*

So I finally went to sleep at 4:30am Sat night (actually Sunday Morning) with the intention of going bass fishing 2 hrs later at my buddies house in Lake Forest in the Lake Mary/Sanford area. I didn't make the 6:30 sunrise because I overslept til 7am. Walked out the door by myself to go fishing at 7:15am and it literally started raining as I walked out the door. Went to the fishing pier on the lake and took a few casts and it really started pouring so I packed up and drove to Hardee's to grab a breakfast sam'ich. Asked the lady at the counter if she knew where I could buy live bait since I had never fished with live freshwater Shiners before. She told me where to go and I went and bought 1 dozen medium shiners and a container of flourescent green worms.

The rain subsided so I returned to the fishing dock at 8am and threw out a free-lined shiner on 1 pole and a glowing green worm on my other pole. By about 9am I had missed about 20 crappie on the worms and that was the extent of the action. Normally I fish with artificials when I'm going for bass so at this point I was less than impressed by the money I had wasted on live bait. Then things started to get interesting.....

For Xmas last year I had bought myself a $70 Humminbird Smartcast wristwatch/bobber combination from Bass Pro. Why??? Because the bobber is actually a transducer which takes water depth readings and pinpoints fish and then beams that information back to a screen on my wristwatch for display. 








I normally don't use it much at home when I'm fishing saltwater because I figure it would be an expensive toy to lose. However, being on a small man-made lake I figured I'd tie on the bobber and throw it out and get some depth readings and see if I could locate fish. What could possibly go wrong here?

After casting out the $70 bobber (tightly attached to 30-lb PowerPro) several times, the wind was pushing it back towards me at the dock. I found out that most of the lake area I was fishing was around 8 to 9 feet deep and was holding very little fish, except for the bream up close to the dock. I kept fishing with worms and all I got was an ugly freshwater catfish.

Then the bright idea hit me: "I will just tie on about 3 feet of crappy Wal-mart brand 15-lb test mono below the $70 bobber and put a worm on a hook below it". So I did and finally caught one of those pesky little bait stealing crappie/bluegill/speck/brim... whatever it was. Well the whole reason I came out was to catch some BASS, not some little dink fish so then another bright idea hit me: "I will throw on a live shiner to swim under my $70 bobber" and see if I could get any takers. What could possibly go wrong here?

After about 15 minutes of floating my live shiner, the bobber had floated back almost to where it was even with the dock. I was busy fishing with my toxic looking green worms on my other pole when all of the sudden the fish finder on my wrist watch starts beeping like crazy indicating that there were a lot of fish below. I figured it was just the little bream that hang by the side of the dock begging for bread scraps, so I kept on fishing with absolutely nothing to worry about.... 

Suddenly without warning my bobber disappears, my watch starts beeping like crazy, and my fishing pole bends in half heading up under the dock. I grab the pole, cup the spool and start tightening my drag. After about 5 seconds of tugging, the fish darts out from under the dock into open water and finally I have my drag tight enough for the fight. I think I have a decent 2 or 3-lb bass on and suddenly the fish dips hard to the left and snaps my line!!! I instantly felt that my $70 bobber was no longer attached and my heart sunk with disappointment. =( 

I reeled in the rest of my remaining line to see that the fish had managed not to break my crappy 15-lb skinny wal-mart line, nope... he had snapped my 30-lb PowerPro braided line  and took my expensive little contraption with him. After I finished reeling in my line I realized that I was still getting sonar readings on my watch! Not only did this sneaky little bass steal my gear, he was now going to swim around 20 or 30 feet out from the dock with my bobber attached to him. To make things worse, he was going to give me depth readings as well as swim through schools of fish that I couldn't seem to find or catch. Talk about a slap in the face!

After about 20 minutes of depth readings, the bass swam out of range into the bigger part of the lake and the screen on my wrist watch went blank. At this point I knew I was going to have to catch me a bass to make up for losing the gear, even if I had to die trying! I said "to heck" with my live bait and went for the artificials. First I threw a rubber worm for about 10 minutes without any bites. Then I tied on a DOA TerrorEyez (don't laugh, I've caught some big bass on them) and threw it without any bites for around 10 minutes. Then I spent some time scratching my head trying to figure out just how I was going to catch a bass!

Finally a light goes on in my head. The most reliable bass lure I've ever used is a Rooster Tail and while it normally catches smaller bass, it at least catches them. So around 11am I tied on my silver Rooster Tail and started throwing it. On my fifth cast I noticed something approx. 2 inches long swimming a couple feet below the surface and it appeared to be chasing my Rooster Tail lure. I looked and from the distance, whatever was chasing my lure looked to be about the size and shape of a little speck. I took a sixth cast and when the mystery fish got about 8 yards out from the dock I noticed: "HOLY COW, THAT'S NOT A SPECK, IT'S MY $70 BOBBER" that was following my Rooster Tail!

At that point I simply couldn't believe my eyes! I took a seventh cast of the Rooster Tail and made sure I retrieved it right over the spot where I had last seen my submerged Bobber swimming. To my sheer and utter amazement I snagged the crappy 15-lb test line which was still connected to the fish and my bobber and lo and behold: FISH ON!!!! I fought that fish over to the dock like a man possessed and in about 3 seconds I had flung a beautiful 5-lb bass over the rail, along with my $70 bobber!!! When I slung the bass over the rail it snapped the 15-lb mono line and sent my bobber flying. The bobber took about 5 bounces and by some miracle of God became wedged under the dock railing about 1 inch from falling in the water (again)! :bang: I about had a heart attack knowing I lost that bobber once, got it back 30 minutes later, and almost lost it again! 

After this episode came to a close I snapped some pics, threw the fish back in the water, and literally sat there laughing out loud for about 5 minutes straight before returning to my buddies house. Here's the kicker to boot, I went back fishing later that day and caught that exact same bass on a Rooster Tail. Below are some pics to accompany the story, along with all the other bass I ended up catching later that day.

Here's the 5-lb pig that stole my $70 bobber. Notice the black watch that gives depth sounder readouts on my left hand =) 










Here you see the $70 green bobber along with the Rooster Tail I used to get it back:




























Looking down the barrel of a loaded gun:


















This unlucky fell'er was caught on the silver Rooster Tail:


















This bass was caught on a fire tiger patterned Rooster Tail:









Me and my little guy pose with a bass that I think I caught on a chrome-blue Rat-L-Trap:









Little Bass that ate a Rat-L-Trap:









Self Portrait with another bass. Notice my camera phone reversed the image for some strange reason:









Freshwater Catfish  









Baby Speck that ate Neon Green Worms:










All in all I caught (and released) a good handful of decent sized bass, 1 freshwater cat, and 1 baby speck, or bluegill, or whatever the heck it was.... Not bad for a day's fishin' trip... and I even got my bobber back!


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## VICIII (Apr 8, 2005)

great post... 
soundls like some hungry bass...
I guess they can't feel the hooks eh?


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## Railroader (Apr 13, 2005)

That's a helluva stroy, there Zach.....Very enjoyable, and the biggest one I've heard in a long time!

Keep on keepin' on!


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## Surf Fish (Dec 16, 2005)

Dude, that's not a "bobber". That's a transducer. Use it on a pole without a hook next time  

Glad to hear you got it back... 

Next year for Christmas get one of those Korean fishing cameras so you can post some underwater fishing video for us to watch...


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## RuddeDogg (Mar 20, 2004)

*Great post.........*

Great post Zach.


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## Otter (Jun 18, 2004)

too damn funny man....keep it up bro.


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## sand flea (Oct 24, 1999)

Hah! See, that newfangled contraption _does_ work...


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## cpn_aaron (Apr 11, 2006)

now that is one heck of a fish story. I have the same thing happen to me with balloon floats shark fishing within the IRL near SI. Sometimes 2 hrs later I see this balloon chugging back up the inlet following my baits again. Never managed to catch one a second time, but then again I only lost a .10 balloon vs. a $70 bobber.


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## Lipyourown (May 11, 2005)

Great story. Reminds me of a bass that broke my line one day, and I cuaght it later that day again and removed 2 hooks. Cuaght the same damn fish many weeks in a row. How do I know it was the same one? It only had one eye.


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## SeaSalt (Apr 29, 2002)

haa haa... that is a funny story... thanks for the laugh.


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## b3butner (Oct 1, 2003)

That is great!


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## Red (Jun 25, 2006)

Great story and nice fish, thanks.


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## jettypark28 (Jun 23, 2006)

*I needed*

to hear this. It reminds me of alot of crazy trips i has in my life....That why we love to fish to get all these crazy fish storys we have...$70 for a bobber, $50 for gas, $20 for bait....Getting everyback with a Roostertail= Priceless  Thanks for the laugh...oh you have to tell me where you are breaking off those big Snook in Daytona.....I love all the story i have trying to catch those Monsters lol


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