Weird things I've noticed while fly fishing

[BowLurker]

Here we go!!! 

When you catch a seagull completely by accident, during the forward portion of a deliberate Snap-T...it's weird that they can pull some backing. 

[FishnChips]

This past summer, with a guide and a buddy on the Bow (Mac to the Weir) I landed a good sized Rainbow which was netted promptly, unhooked and quickly measured. The guide slipped the fish back into the water. The nymph, after removal was dangling from my rod tip at a depth of about 3’. That darned trout took that nymph immediately! I had caught the same fish twice. What a gas. 

[jdangler]

  Seagull took my City Worker off the surface of the water , I brought him in to the net, but he broke off trying to get him into the net because we wanted to get the fly out of him. He flew away seemingly fine with my freshly tied fly .

[BowLurker]

Wading at a very early hour, with some wind in the Rockies, some of the weird sounds coming from Spruce & Pine rubbing together can sound altogether spooky. Try tying on a Sz20 Adams with shaking fingers! 

[SilverDoctor]

While guiding a couple in BC on a small stream they asked me to marry them. Kind of like a captain of a ship I guess. Told them it wouldn't be legal, they said its OK they already where. We did a ceremony under the pines in my old drift boat. Have always received an xmas card from them every year.

[monger]

I have caught 3 gulls now. 2 while throwing streamers at the bank and one on the back cast. Another took my floating stone, but dropped it

2 bats on dries

[fishinglibin]

I have caught 2 gulls, a duck, and 2 fly rods.

 

[screaminreel]

People wearing neoprene waders when it's +30 degrees out!

[BowLurker]

Some folks still think that an 8-foot tall bank below the walking path hides them as they smoke/snort/shoot drugs. Little do they realize there are 4-6 fly fishers across the river on the shallow 'inside elbow' watching it unfold!!  Weird.

 

 

[Taco]

I came across a double sleeping bag draped over a large flat boulder along a river once. Contents of the sleeping bag were stacked 2 deep, moanin' and groanin' and doin' the inchworm. I don't believe they ever heard me when I scrambled by in that narrow assed canyon although I did consider tossin' rocks at them for a bit.

[BrianR]

Was a baby bottle floating by.Followed by a guy,with  baby .Drifting down the river.In the hard top,of a tent trailer

[trailhead]

A buddy of mine hooked a grebe on a leech pattern once. We landed it and got the hook out. It gave us s#*t as it swam away. The weirdest thing was the stock from a sawed off shotgun I found floating by Fish Ck.

[BowLurker]

I was nymphing in the Springtime, in murky, knee-deep water, having a fun day. All of a sudden, it felt like something was thumping the bottom as I was wading. The banging and thumping got more and more pronounced and I promptly got out of the way as a full-sized semi wheel and tire bumped and rolled down current no more than 1m away!!

One day later, there was a weird scraping, banging and thumping yet again in the same channel. I looked upstream to see a giant root system from a severed tree flipping and rolling and tumbling downstream. It was at least 2m in diameter, and whipping in the runoff. Weirdness! 

[charlietrout]

Here are some of the weirdest things I've seen while fly fishing: Trout will eat dead fish - If you see a dead fish floating in the water, that's actually a good place to cast your line. This may sound gross, but trout will eat other fish. Just be sure to reel in your line if you think the trout are only nibbling on the dead fish and not your lure. Trout are very smart - Trout will often not go after the first bug they see. It pays to have several flies with you because they'll go after different bugs depending on their mood.

[borofan]

On 11/6/2021 at 11:14 PM, BowLurker said:

Here we go!!! 

When you catch a seagull completely by accident, during the forward portion of a deliberate Snap-T...it's weird that they can pull some backing. 

I've never caught one fly fishing but have when throwing metal in the sea. They don't like to behave when unhooking them. 

[WesG]

So many,

While guiding in Ontario I pulled up into a back bay in the boat and I immediately noticed something white in a dead tree. Around here you would think a piece of plastic stuck in a tree branch or something but this is out in the middle of Northern Ontario bush and you don't see garbage anywhere,  so I went closer to try an see what it was. There was an eagle hanging upside down from the tree branch, as we got closer  you could see it was trying to free itself but somehow had one of its legs stuck in the branches. My guests (americans who love their eagles) thought we needed to do something as they didn't want to just leave it there to die without at least trying to save it.  We decided to try and drop the tree with the axe in the boat to see if we could get the eagle out. So I hit the tree with the axe and on the first chop the thing went crazy flapping its wings and squaking, It dropped out of the tree about 10' before opening its wings and righting itself and flying off.  Pretty cool.  

As I was traversing the boat through a narrow section in the river I came up on something swimming that from further out I thought was just another beaver. As I approached it probably about 20' away, it did not dive down like beavers normally do so I slowed down, not knowing what it was, as I passed it turned and looked at me, showed a lot of teeth and made a snarl.   I had no idea what it was and by the time it hit me that I should turn the boat around I looked back it was already disappearing into the bushes. Once I got back to camp and talked to the other guides and looked at some photos online  we confirmed it was a wolverine, although know one had ever actually seen one at the lodge before. Will likely never see one again.

Sitting out in the boat one night I am way out in  the middle of the lake jigging walleye, I hear a bunch of splashing  in the water behind me. Go over to see what it is.  There are 2 pike side by side, both had the same walleye T-boned in there mouth, neither were letting go. I left the 3 of them to sort it out. 

Nature is pretty crazy if you take the time to pay attention. I could keep going.......

[BowLurker]

Okay, time to revive this thread! 

Weird things over the past year...hmmm., well, one big one is that I hardly see any Ospreys around the Bow River anymore.  Coyotes are really strong swimmers, a big Beaver can look just like an Otter and Minks can catch pretty durn big fish!  

Last weird one:

I was fishing river-left, and there was another angler who was fishing about 150m away, also river-left, and I was slowly nymphing up towards. We were both heading upstream. Really rocky / slippy banks, narrow canyon river and raining hard. I got fairly close to this person (!!) with no response or eye contact from them. This angler had to have seen me. I finally spoke up loudly, 50-60M away from them and asked if they would mind if I went around them on the bank and continue on past....this is where it gets weird.

This 'angler' literally jumped away into the bushes and was gone...Ohh--kay!? Well, I kept fishing on up for no more than a minute or two, and literally the same distance away from me upstream as the last time, was this same angler...? Again no response... it happened one more time and I spooked for real and quickly headed back to the car.

There is no way this 'angler' could have covered that much ground in 1-2 minutes, and not been breathing hard. Cool as a cucumber...but always wearing dark sunglasses in the Pacific NW rain....hmmm. It was a really weird one! 

[BowLurker]

There can be fish in front and bugs all around, and they rise once in front of you…right after you have broken down your rod. Sigh.

[BowLurker]

I was fishing below the 'moon pool' at the SHP side channel and just started my wade. I noticed a gentleman in a kayak upstream, maybe 200m away. I kept swinging soft hackles and stepping down. A fish hit my hackle really hard, but came off and I was stuck with a really difficult tangle, so I moved out of the lane and proceeded to try and get untangled.

All of a sudden, this gentleman in the kayak was coming down the outflow from the moon pool and proceeded to yell 'HEY!!' at the top of his lungs right behind me. I was quite startled and instinctively jumped and yelled back 'What the f*** is the matter with you!?' He answered back with 'You're what's the matter! You guys are all wrecking it! This river is mine, nobody should be on my river...' blah blah blah as he drifted away from me. He was yelling at the top of his lungs and shaking his fist all the way down and around the corner back towards the main. This was weird, almost like he swapped his shopping cart for a kayak! 

[SilverDoctor]

11 hours ago, BowLurker said:

I was fishing below the 'moon pool' at the SHP side channel and just started my wade. I noticed a gentleman in a kayak upstream, maybe 200m away. I kept swinging soft hackles and stepping down. A fish hit my hackle really hard, but came off and I was stuck with a really difficult tangle, so I moved out of the lane and proceeded to try and get untangled.

All of a sudden, this gentleman in the kayak was coming down the outflow from the moon pool and proceeded to yell 'HEY!!' at the top of his lungs right behind me. I was quite startled and instinctively jumped and yelled back 'What the f*** is the matter with you!?' He answered back with 'You're what's the matter! You guys are all wrecking it! This river is mine, nobody should be on my river...' blah blah blah as he drifted away from me. He was yelling at the top of his lungs and shaking his fist all the way down and around the corner back towards the main. This was weird, almost like he swapped his shopping cart for a kayak! 

Maybe he did.