Strangest fishing story I have comes from back when I was a kid. I am fishing like always and I have a floating rapala type lure on the top of the water. Whoosh! A big boil and I got a fish....a dandy fish! I'm fighting him and fighting him and he dances across the top of the water and I have a nice roughly 5 pound large mouth on. Just as he hits the water...."doink". The lures comes free..... I'm shook and pissed all at the same time....I was like 12 or 14 at the time. I reel the lure in and it turns out the rear treble hook was pulled out of the lure! I have a few folks try to cheer me up over my lost fish, but it's not helping. I eat dinner and I decided I knew he was in there....and I was on a mission to catch him....again! I fish and fish and fish and fish.....it's just about dark now and I hear my folks loading up the truck to get ready to head home. I make what I think is one of my final casts and I get my weedless rubber night crawler hung up in a small branch just above the water. I'm yanking and the like trying to get it to come free......Woosh! I saw it that time....the black back and green side of another big large mouth! I got tension on the line so I set the hook! And the fight is on again. I'm squealing like a little girl, "I got him again, I got him again!" Dad comes running over now and he is talking me through it and sure enough it's a nice big bass. I finally get him worn out and I hand dad my pole and I go down into the water and grab the fish by the jaw with both hands. I come up the bank just smiling from ear to ear. This was the biggest fish I had ever caught. As I am unhooking the fish I see something down in the fishes mouth. "Dad, Dad, there is my treble hook from my lure!" Dad obviously thought I was crazy and took the fish from me and looked. Sure enough there was a treble hook with the retaining "screw" that was hooked deep in the gill plates of this fish. We didn't even try to remove it because we knew it would do more harm than good. We took some pictures and we released the fish. I had caught to some extent the same trophy (fished weighed just short of 6 pounds) fish twice......in the same day.
Other memorable story was my first encounter with a fish with teeth! I was fishing a small pond in the small town we lived in. The owner of the pond knew my grandfather....so he was a little crazy. The pond was so small you could reach the entire thing with a really good heave of a cast. Again I was a kid. I'd fish a water puddle as a kid if I thought there was fish in it. I'm fishing using a small rubber minnow looking soft bait and.....boom! I get a bite and it's a hard bite. This fish however went down....not up like the fish I am used to. It's fighting pretty good. I tire it out and as I get it to the surface....this fish looks like nothing I had ever seen before. It looked like it was blind. Well, whatever it was I had to get my lure back - so I reached down to lip it like I do the bass I catch and ....surprise......teeth! Several ....teeth! Turns out what I had on my hands was about a 12" walleye. So I use my pliers to remove the hook with the fish simply drug up on the bank. Then a flipped it back into the water with my foot because I wasn't toughing something that could bite me. About the time the fish hits the water I hear a voice...."What ya got there kiddo?" It's Howie, guy who owns the place. He was the schools art teacher as well. "Not sure Mr. Vickers...." "I wasn't touching it any more than I had too!" "Had teeth!" Howie starts laughing and comes walking down. "Had teeth huh?" "Sure did" I told him. That is when he told me that he had tossed some walleye in there a few years back....he wasn't even sure they lived. He then proceeded to tell me that the key to catching fish in his pond was you had to pour beer on your lure. I told him I was too young to buy beer....even just for fishing....AND it seemed like a good waste of beer. He told me that I sounded like my grandfather.....saying it was a waste of beer. He then handed me what was left of his beer...."Here, this will help you, help you catch more fish or help you not care that your not catching fish!" I had to explain I couldn't because mom would find out or smell it, and he would be able to hear her beat my behind from his house! He laughed and agreed that maybe a teacher shouldn't be giving a minor beer.... Like I said he was an art teacher!