Strange Things We See On The Water

[Bird Watcher]

Chambug started it.

[ollie]

On Bushwackers Lake I was fishing in the yak on a shoreline when a boat came up alongside of me out of nowhere. In the boat were 4 Amish guys fishing and the guy driving the boat had boots and a cowboy hat on. Looked awful strange to me.

[Al Agnew]

There's actually an old joke about this, but honest, it happened to me...

My best fishing buddy when I was a teenager, Rick, and I were fishing a private tiff lake out by Potosi at night. It was a deep, clear lake that had a lot of big bass in it. We were anchored off a point in about 12 feet of water, dragging plastic worms over the point, when I hooked a nice bass. Getting it in, I couldn't get the hook out, so I grabbed my flashlight, one of those kinda big ones that use a 6 volt battery. Somehow, in the middle of getting the bass unhooked, I dropped the flashlight overboard and it sunk like a rock, still shining before finally disappearing in the depths.

A couple nights later we decided to fish the lake again. We went out and were getting ready to anchor off that same point, when I looked down into the water and that flashlight was still shining! Sure made it easy to figure out exactly where to anchor.

Now I have no explanation for this, since the flashlight had seemed to go out or go too deep to see when I'd originally dropped it overboard. And I wouldn't have thought the battery would have lasted for two days turned on all the time. But there was that light down there shining.

(The joke I mentioned goes something like this. Two guys were sitting in a boat fishing, and telling fish tales that kept getting taller and taller, until the one guy told of the 250 pound catfish he'd caught a few years back. The other guy then told a tale about dropping a lantern overboard one night, and it stayed lit and attracted all kinds of big fish when he then caught for several nights afterward.

The first guy said he just couldn't believe that a lantern would stay lit after dropping it overboard, so he didn't believe that tale at all.

The second guy then said, "Well, I'll put out that lantern if you'll knock 225 pounds off that catfish.")

One of the weirdest sights I ever saw was while I was fishing the dam at the lake at Trail of Tears State Park many years ago in my canoe. The dam was covered in tall grass, and suddenly I saw a bullhead catfish just appear rising out of the grass. I gaped at it and it dropped back out of sight, only to levitate above the grass again. Again it dropped out of sight, and one more time rose slowly out of the grass and dropped. Mystified, I paddled over to that spot, and there was a big water snake and the bullhead. If you've ever caught a bullhead, you know that they have powerful jaws and once they clamp down on something, they don't let go. Well, that snake had tried to grab the bullhead by the head to swallow it, and somehow instead of getting its mouth around the whole head, it had made the mistake of getting its upper jaw inside the bullhead's mouth. So the bullhead clamped down, and the snake was caught. It was continually trying to shake the bullhead off, and would raise its head up so that the bullhead's tail was waving above the grass, then weaken and drop back to earth, which is what I saw.

I once watched a bullfrog catch a green grass snake about 20 inches long and eat it. Watching that frog stuff that snake into its mouth coil by coil, using both "hands", was hilarious.

And finally, my best nude bodies story...

I'm floating the upper Jacks Fork with a group of Ozark Society members many years ago on a nice late spring day. We come to the Blue Springs access, and there are a lot of people there swimming and picnicking. As we float by a huge boulder rising out of the water, we suddenly notice that there is a couple atop the boulder, which is big enough to let them lie flat. The woman is underneath, and the man's bare butt is bobbing up and down, and they are oblivious to the people upstream and floating by them.

In the canoe ahead of me is a woman who is one of the high society ladies of Cape Girardeau, a prim woman who is always dressed well and always acts in the proper manner. She glances up at the couple, then stares at them for a bit. We do the same. We float on around the bend without a word, and then she turns around to us and says, "Well, she was sure between a rock and a hard thing."

[ciRe]

Fishing the meramec river last year by cardiac I seems tent on the side of the river. Not even thinking about it I fished (this was around 7am) about a half hour later an actrative older (mid 30s) lady got out in her underwear and darted back in after she seen me. I just laughed and continue to fish. About 10 minutes later she came back out clothed this time and started asking me how I was doing. We talked for about 5 minutes and seen the tent moving ready for her husband to come out. It was another woman even better looking than the first one I was talking too. My jaw just dropped thinking that this couldn't be happening. It ended up that they camp on that section of the river quite a bit but I've never seen them since. My buddy Mike was fishing the park and didn't believe me when I told him what happened.

[oneshot]

I thought a thread about the strangest things we have seen while fly fishing (or other fishing) might be humorous. As we know fishing gives us a lot of time outdoors and that seems to be where the weird stuff happens. In order to get the ball rolling, I'll go first.

One day my wife and I were fly fishing on hickory creek. it was a calm day very mild and peaceful, we had caught a few fish but nothing worth bragging about, we were working our way upstream hoping to hook into some big rainbows. We had seen nobody in the park or the creek that day, the park felt as if it was totally empty. In one pool a good size rainbow rose violently and ate some small insect inches away from where we stood,( though I couldn't get it to take that time I came back later and got him.) As we walked around the bend in river we both stopped dead in our tracks. Ahead of us suddenly we saw fifty people standing on the handicap fishing area. all were dressed up and looking out in the creek. while fishing we had suddenly stumbled into a baptism. Perhaps baptisms aren't all that weird themselves, but to suddenly walk into one dripping with creek water and smelling like fish was both odd and unexpected. Needless to say we got out and hoofed it around the ceremony the rest of the way up the creek.

I'm sure you guys have seen far weirder stuff but this is mine so far.

Me, my Wife and my Father in Law were all three Baptized at the concrete Ramp at Bennett Springs Access on the Niangua.

oneshot

[oneshot]

Seen a couple Guys drunk fishing the Lamine River one night, they was shooting at eyes shinning at them through the trees. Come to find out it was Full Moon shinning through the trees.

oneshot

[ciRe]

Seen a couple Guys drunk fishing the Lamine River one night, they was shooting at eyes shinning at them through the trees. Come to find out it was Full Moon shinning through the trees.

oneshot

Sounds like a bunch of dumbasses.

[Big Brown Trout]

Seen a couple Guys drunk fishing the Lamine River one night, they was shooting at eyes shinning at them through the trees. Come to find out it was Full Moon shinning through the trees.

oneshot

Sounds incredibly dangerous to. I'd hate to run into those idiots.

[Bill Anderson]

Over the years, one funny thing I have seen over and over are women using spinning rods, holding their rod upside down, with the spinning reel sticking up in the air, above the rod. I have watched them reeling the line in, winding the reel handle backwards. I have asked a couple of them why they were holding their rod upside down, and all of them looked at me, puzzled, not knowing they were holding their rod upside down. I have never seen a man do this, but I have witnessed many women doing this. I guess no one ever showed them the proper way to use a spinning rod and reel. The most stupid thing I was ever asked happened last year below Beaver Dam, on the White River in Arkansas. I was standing about crotch deep, fishing a wooly bugger, and roll casting. A middle aged woman walking along the shore asked me, "And what are you doing?". I looked up and said, I'm flyfishing. She then said, "Well you aren't doing this", Moving her forearm back and forth. I just looked at the woman and told here I was roll casting. She said, "Well, you aren't flyfishing." A few minutes later, I waded out of the river, and she looked down at my Simms wading boots and asked, "Aren't your feet wet?" I said, no, I'm wearing waders. "But aren't your feet wet?". I said, no, I'm inside these waders. I then pulled at the tops of my waders with my hand. She still looked at me with puzzlement. "But aren't you your feet wet?" I said, "Lady I'm inside here, inside my waders, including my feet". The woman never could understand that I had on stocking foot waders. In my 50 years plus of fly fishing, I have never, ever encountered this extreme level of asinine, total stupidity on the river. Nothing I said registered with this dimwitted person. I admit, in disgust, I finally lost my patience and told her, "Actually I'm standing out in the middle of this river waiting on a school bus". The stupid woman never changed her expression. I know this sounds made up, but it actually happened. I don't mean to sound sexist, but this was probably the most stupid woman I think I have ever met.

[hank franklin]

When I was about 13-14 years old my friend and I were fishing out of a beat-up johnboat on the Bourbeuse River. Slow languid stream on a slow summer day. Not much going on. All of the sudden a dog-like creature emerged from the water about 10 yards below us, climbed up on the bank and trotted off. My friend and I were dumbfounded, we hadn't heard any splashing or commotion of any kind to catch our attention. The animal somehow had swum underwater to that location and then surfaced.

At the time we thought it was a dog, small to mid-sized, with a long tail, though over the years as I've thought about it seems it must have been either a fox or a coyote. It's possible it was a large raccoon but it had a slimmer profile. For years though my friend and I called it a "werewolf!"