A rare species you've caught?

[toallmy]

I am a commercial pound net fishermen at the bottom of the Chesapeake bay so I see all kinds of stuff ( if someone throughs a can in a ditch in Washington d.c. it floats by me later ) but the strangest thing yet was a Portuguese man of war after a hurricane . He must have been for a ride to get hear.

[OnHoPr]

If you could call this rare. Had some big sharks latching onto cut skipjack all day and breaking off my 50lb mono, so I decided to put on the only steel leader I brought with me to the hotel. First thing that hit it... that is my luck though.

Attachment 152353

Back when my sister and I were kids and we (the family) went up to the cottage for Memorial Day for vacation and while the bluegills were on the beds we would get the crawlers and bobbers ready. We had fun catching those gills and since it was in a logging river in the back bays there were quite a few box and painted turtles around. Occasionally they would pull the bobber down and we would hook them, but never reeled one in. They always cut the line. One time I hooked one and it jumped out of the water about two feet in distance along horizontally with the waters surface, ah it was a lol sight.

[tmanbuckhunter]

Back when my sister and I were kids and we (the family) went up to the cottage for Memorial Day for vacation and while the bluegills were on the beds we would get the crawlers and bobbers ready. We had fun catching those gills and since it was in a logging river in the back bays there were quite a few box and painted turtles around. Occasionally they would pull the bobber down and we would hook them, but never reeled one in. They always cut the line. One time I hooked one and it jumped out of the water about two feet in distance along horizontally with the waters surface, ah it was a lol sight.

lol! I've never caught a turtle in freshwater. That was a sea turtle caught off the beach in South Walton County, FL. Don't want to catch another one either.

[Tatume]

I am a commercial pound net fishermen at the bottom of the Chesapeake bay so I see all kinds of stuff ( if someone throughs a can in a ditch in Washington d.c. it floats by me later ) but the strangest thing yet was a Portuguese man of war after a hurricane . He must have been for a ride to get hear.

I saw a tarpon at Gloucester Point after a hurricane many years ago. More recently I've seen them at Cape Charles.

Is the net just downstream from the concrete ships yours?

[toallmy]

Yep we catch tarpin right often thay can shoot out of the water and go over the boat . That is wear I keep my boats cape Charles harbour. A nice little town. Nice memories about fishing , the first fish I caught was a spot , and I put it in a jar of vinegar to keep it . I wonder how long it took my parents to get that from me and get read of it.

[jonp]

up in lake cut foot sioux a couple of years ago my daughter caught a ling. it was hard to get into the boat and looked dangerous so we released it. man did it fight and was very strong. was told later it would have been very good to eat. if we ever get another one it will be eaten. i cant imagine getting a 30 pound one as a 5 pounder was really a fight.

We caught a kusk through the ice on Lake Memphremagog on a couple of occasions when i was growing up. I guess that's what a ling is or freshwater cod. Strange looking and very good to eat my grandfather said. One was 3 or 4 feet long. My Pere said they were cold water fish and lived at the bottom on the Canadian side in 150ft or something like that. We only caught them in the winter when they came across to the Vermont side.

[toallmy]

Yes the trap at the south end of the concrete ships off of state park is one of my traps. Good fishing sometimes.

[toallmy]

Sorry been out of town a few days.

[Friends call me Pac]

Don't know how rare they are but while stationed at Shemya Island in the Aleutians I caught Irish Lords all the time. At least that's what we called them. They looked like a Gremlin that had gotten wet! One ugly fish for sure.

[54bore]

Golden trout, i was fishing a creek in the high country of Western Wa back in the late 80s, the stream was from an alpine lake, there was lots of golden trout in that creek! They are a really pretty fish, not very big, about 6-8" is what i was catching, i didnt keep them, just catch and release, i was only there that one time, it was a LONG ROUGH hike into that area, very few people did it back then.

[DougGuy]

Back when I was on tour with a rock and roll band I caught a rare one, a competition figure skater. Ohh boy she was rippled from muscles and had smooth skin, pretty golden blonde hair and golden brown eyes, a very curiously beautiful creature I do say.. I like to have never gotten her off the line, and oh the fun only lasted but a short time but she put up some kind of struggle to capture my heart and she did do so effortlessly.. She scaled out about 105lbs, about 5' 0.5" in height, I had only seen specimens like this on the TV during the olympics, but they do exist in the wild.. This little fishie swam in one day and although I have survived her going back to the deep, it was one of those fish stories that gets better with time, and one I will never forget no matter how much it would benefit me to do so..

Moral of the story? There is no moral, if there was, there would not be this story, but be careful what you fish for, be sure you want what you cast your line for because you can just as easily catch one you only think you want..

[Skeet06]

While fishing for small mouth bass on the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania, I caught a Mooneye. Thanks to cell phone cameras and the Internet, I was able to identify it. No one in the area had ever seen one. The fish was returned to the river.

[TCLouis]

I really do not know how rare they are but have only boated one "River Carpsucker".

Of course we were using Honda 220v so I do not know if that counts.

[Traffer]

I live in Wisconsin so there are fish in the eastern US that I have never seen. Moved to the Boston area in 1987 and did a little fishing in a couple of reservoirs there. I believe it was the Sudbury reservoir near Framingham where I caught a fish that I assumed was a white perch. But it had a forked tail. Now that I look up Mooneye, it may have been one of those. After this amount of time it is hard to tell though. It may have been a white perch. Interesting though.

While fishing for small mouth bass on the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania, I caught a Mooneye. Thanks to cell phone cameras and the Internet, I was able to identify it. No one in the area had ever seen one. The fish was returned to the river.

[texasnative46]

I once caught an >80# Bull Shark well up into a river on a BIG (maybe 10 inch) goldfish, while fishing for flathead catfish & quite far from even brackish water.
(I later found out that an over 100# Bull was caught over 1,000 miles up the Mississippi River years ago. An 8 foot/100+# Bull was VERY LIKELY the shark that attacked the people in NJ during the 1916 Twelve Days of Terror, that inspired JAWS the book/movie.)

Unlike other sharks, Bulls are equipped to handle fresh water for long periods that would be fatal to other sharks & yes, Bulls are KNOWN man-eaters that are statistically more dangerous than White Sharks are.

Some members mentioned Grindles/Bowfins earlier in this thread. - IF you want the fight of your life on light tackle, a Bowfin will ATTACK a slowly retrieved WHITE lure/spoon/jig most every time. = Cast, retrieve slowly, set the hook & HANG ON. - There are Bowfins out there that exceed 30# & they fight all out of proportion to their size.
(Btw, all the various varieties of Snakeheads also will hit WHITE lures too, as well as ATTACK people.)

yours, tex

[texasnative46]

To All,

All of the various varieties of Asian Snakeheads are GREAT eating. - IF you are lucky enough to catch one/some, kill the fish(es) rather than releasing them & cook them.

Snakeheads also make excellent "cut bait" for any number of other gamefish, like BLUE & FLATHEAD catfish & "landlocked Stripers.

yours, tex

[shredder]

Back when I was on tour with a rock and roll band I caught a rare one, a competition figure skater. Ohh boy she was rippled from muscles and had smooth skin, pretty golden blonde hair and golden brown eyes, a very curiously beautiful creature I do say.. I like to have never gotten her off the line, and oh the fun only lasted but a short time but she put up some kind of struggle to capture my heart and she did do so effortlessly.. She scaled out about 105lbs, about 5' 0.5" in height, I had only seen specimens like this on the TV during the olympics, but they do exist in the wild.. This little fishie swam in one day and although I have survived her going back to the deep, it was one of those fish stories that gets better with time, and one I will never forget no matter how much it would benefit me to do so..

Moral of the story? There is no moral, if there was, there would not be this story, but be careful what you fish for, be sure you want what you cast your line for because you can just as easily catch one you only think you want..

Been in a touring rock band for years myself, and had a professional ballerina in my net for a while. So much like what you describe I just had a big grin on my face reading your post. Yeh, I eventually threw that one back too!

[flint45]

The strangest fish I ever caught and they are fairly rare also was a Midshipman yes that is there name weird little fish very ugly and a head about half the body length of the body and they have a yellow goo all over there body just cut the line and let it go back to the bay.

[CastingFool]

Years ago, I was fishing for bass at a small lake. I was using a lure very similar to a Rapala, only plastic. All of a sudden, I had a good strike, nothing like any bass I had caught before. Fought hard, too. After a couple of minutes, I saw a flash in the water, and I could tell it was no bass. turned out to be a 2' dogfish!

[trapper9260]

I know this is a old post ,But this past Friday the 9/8/17 I was out fishing with a friend on the Mississippi River and I end up got a Lake Sturgeon It was about from nose to tip of tail 30" .I had let it go.What a heck of fight it gave.Found out is is endangered .Nice fish.if my friend come up with the photo of it on CD like he said I will post the photo.