Fishing Finds

[snakeman]

I was fishing the Elbow the other day and came across a black duffel bag washed up on the shore. Inside there were a couple soaked subs, batteries, shirts, tampons, a couple sealed bags of chips (miss vickies s&v, yeah I ate them), and a true treasure - a sealed pack of Longview beef jerky! Sorry if it was yours but my dog and I were hungry and it made for a great snack!

This led me to wonder what kind of treasures other fishermen have discovered on a river. I'm sure some of you have some interesting stories, I'd love to hear em....

[ÜberFly]

Phew, I was worried you were gonna say how you used the tampons!! LoL

 

P

 

P.S. Dropped my headlamp and pouch in Invincible Creek last weekend so it's proably floating around Upper Kananaskis lake by now!!

 

I was fishing the Elbow the other day and came across a black duffel bag washed up on the shore. Inside there were a couple soaked subs, batteries, shirts, tampons, a couple sealed bags of chips (miss vickies s&v, yeah I ate them), and a true treasure - a sealed pack of Longview beef jerky! Sorry if it was yours but my dog and I were hungry and it made for a great snack!

This led me to wonder what kind of treasures other fishermen have discovered on a river. I'm sure some of you have some interesting stories, I'd love to hear em....

 

[ÜberFly]

I rememebr Don Anderson saying that he found (hooked) a dead body on a similar thread a while back!!

[Bigtoad]

I was out on a super hot day on the Red Deer this year. I got there too early and it was still incredibly hot out. On my way up to where I wanted to fish some red sticking out of a logjam caught my attention. On further inspection, it was a backpack style Budweiser cooler. On the outside it was pretty muddy but on the inside, it had a full bottle of sunscreen AND (drum roll), 2 cans of cool Alexander Keats!

 

So I continued up the river, parked myself on the side of the water and put my feet in the river, leaned up against my pack, and drank the beer until the evening temps dropped and the fish started rising. It was heavenly. Like some poor drunk bastard had floated down the river and flipped out of his homemade-redneck-raft just upstream of there, JUST for me. Thanks poor drunk bastard, you're the best.

 

Never did get any Browns that night but somehow the trip still felt worthwhile.

[kranny]

Two words, tennis balls. They say you are able to find plastic bags in most waterways around the globe, but I wonder if the same can be said for tennis balls.

 

You see, I tend to always have my dog with me when I fish, and he goes ape over those balls, I think they must be coated in crack or the like. No matter where we fish, but especially on the Bow, he will always find those green fuzzy things. I don't like him having them in his mouth too long, so I put them away for disposal later. I only need to give him 5 minutes and he has another.

 

I guess its better those than things rather than some of the smelly items which can be found next to the river.

[Wolfie]

What a great topic for my story........3 years back i went fishing on the Elbow, but I'm sure not to the part where any of you guys go...it was in town..started at the bridge at 25 st and just south of Macleod trail, north of 4th ave...anyway...I got as far as the next bridge, the walk over one in Lindsay Park...something "purple" caught my right eye under a low growing bush. Went over and found a purse! The first thought that came to my mind was..damn I don't have any rubber gloves..for this park was the home of many transits, and crackers, and only God knows who's purse this belong to. Lucky for me there was an empty plastic bag about 10' in front of it...I opened it up just by dumping the contents on the ground..Holy crap...I hit a jackpot!!

 

There on the ground was a 3/4 full bottle of Vodka, a book of bus tickets with only one gone, a hairbrush, 4 condoms in their package, a small plastic bag of "crack", a pipe that was used, and 3-$20 dollar bills, 1 $10 bill, and enough change on the ground to make up just over another $10 bucks...BUT NO ID...after gathering up the $$$$, and the bottle, bus tickets, crushing the crack in the little bag and dumping the power onto the ground, I left the condoms..and got out of that spot, only to meet up with a native passed the bridge where I was and gave him the 3/4 full bottle of Vodka, he thanked me and off he went back to the river's edge.

 

It was back to fishing for me after that and boy the 4 fish I got was the icing on the cake!...........................Wolfie

[DonAndersen]

ÜberFly,

 

Never hooked it but chased it down the Bow for a good long way. And then the River Cops showed up and recovered their "dummy" they were practicing with.

Have found enough forceps to equip my own operating room, a lot of full beer cans - mostly junk beer - guess people take better care of Bigrock than they do of Bud, various types of floatant, several rods - got one this summer on Beaver Lake on a 20' leader c/w a chironomid, a couple of pickerel rigs - still looking for a SUV or jet boat. Know of several lost in the N. Sask.

 

catch ya'

 

 

Don

[admin]

My Buddies found a corvette in their fishing hole a while back. See the second / third video.

 

http://lance-taylor.net/fiftynorth.ca/?p=112

[Taco]

Thought I found a good down sleeping bag on a big flat rock in the middle of the Spray river one time but when I got closer I realized there was something stacked 2 deep in the bag and doin' an enthusiastic impersonation of an inch worm.... caught 3 nice brookies off the lee side of that rock

[Wolfie]

My Buddies found a corvette in their fishing hole a while back. See the second / third video.

 

http://lance-taylor.net/fiftynorth.ca/?p=112

 

 

question is....did they get to keep it?................Wolfie

[flyfishfairwx]

The saddest thing I ever found while fishing, was a pair of Bull trout. I was on Sheep Creek near, Grande Cache, one of the trout were , circling the other, I used my fly rod to move the one, a female closer to me, she was nose down in the back eddy, I got her in and she had a very large, Treble hook with bait, and spoon attached, stuck down her throat, it was before I had a digi camera, I could not get evidence for RAP, so I took the Hook out of her mouth and held her in the current for over 40 mins, she did not recover, all this time the male was circling the area, when I nudged her back into the current the male came right over and started to circle her and bump his nose to her face.. man it was the saddest thing I have seen in a long time, I still have the big treble and have made it a task of mine to retrieve any lost hardware I find.. I have quite a collection and NONE of it will ever see water again..

 

 

other then that 4 pairs of forceps and bout a dozen beers ..

[zed]

What a great topic for my story........3 years back i went fishing on the Elbow, but I'm sure not to the part where any of you guys go...it was in town..started at the bridge at 25 st and just south of Macleod trail, north of 4th ave...anyway...I got as far as the next bridge, the walk over one in Lindsay Park...something "purple" caught my right eye under a low growing bush. Went over and found a purse! The first thought that came to my mind was..damn I don't have any rubber gloves..for this park was the home of many transits, and crackers, and only God knows who's purse this belong to. Lucky for me there was an empty plastic bag about 10' in front of it...I opened it up just by dumping the contents on the ground..Holy crap...I hit a jackpot!!

 

There on the ground was a 3/4 full bottle of Vodka, a book of bus tickets with only one gone, a hairbrush, 4 condoms in their package, a small plastic bag of "crack", a pipe that was used, and 3-$20 dollar bills, 1 $10 bill, and enough change on the ground to make up just over another $10 bucks...BUT NO ID...after gathering up the $$$$, and the bottle, bus tickets, crushing the crack in the little bag and dumping the power onto the ground, I left the condoms..and got out of that spot, only to meet up with a native passed the bridge where I was and gave him the 3/4 full bottle of Vodka, he thanked me and off he went back to the river's edge.

 

It was back to fishing for me after that and boy the 4 fish I got was the icing on the cake!...........................Wolfie

 

shoulda tried the crack, some people really like it...

[reevesr1]

Don't know if this qualifies as a "find", but once when I was 13 or 14 my brother and I were fishing with my dad on a big Louisiana flat. You could go trips down there without ever seeing a soul, except at the ramps. Miles and miles of open shallow water. When we fished we always were competing. This morning I think my little brother was ahead a couple of fish, like he had 10 and I had 8 (which means it was still early in the morning!). I was working my lure when I feel big weight. I set the hook, and can feel some pull back, but mostly it is just weight. Well, I pull it in to find a stringer with about 10 live fish on it! I shudder to think of what the odds of this were. So I hooked the stringer to one of my belt loops and said "its 18 to 10 now!" My brother, um, disputed this turn of events, with passion!

[hopdrop]

Not me personally, but I did some work in Utah a few years ago. The guys I was working with would snorkel the Green River a few times each summer and would clean up. Fly rods/reels, sunglasses, car keys, cell phones, fly boxes, cameras, you name it. Basically anything that could fall out of a drift boat, they'd find. They said most of the rods were broken, but they'd send the better ones in under the warranty programs.

 

Hmmm, the Bow has some deep slow water........

[Harps]

One spring after a big flood we found a University of Calgary rental canoe wrapped around a tree on the Red Deer... 2 backpacks full of gear and clothes, a dry bag full of water and wet food. No body.

[Castuserraticus]

Toshiba laptop computer

[bigbowtrout]

I was fishing in Bowness and on one of the Islands I found a Canada Post mail bag and a stack of opened Gov checks.

 

[jjthom2]

Worst thing I ever found was a duffel bag containing one brick and 5 kittens on the Little Red. Horrific.

[Parry]

Not a fishing related story but kind of along the same lines as the thread goes. Back in my 17-18 less then admirable days we were pre partying before the big festivities of 17th ave when the flames were playing Tampa in the finals and as we were leaving my friends apartment I notice this backpack kind of semi hiding in the bush’s so I was like sweet! So I went and started to see what was in it, only things of mention were a sweet hat, a belt, an awesome bottle of cologne, and a nice pair of shades but there was no ID or anything. So I go up to my group of friends and am like “Dudes check out this sick belt I just found!!!!!” and my buddy Chris was like Sickkkkk!!!!!! Man I have one just like that!, then I was like and Check out these sick sunglasses!!!!!!!!!!! Chris: Dude that’s soo cool I got a pair just like that!!!, then the cologne, then the hat till he finally looks over to where his backpack was hiding to see all his clothing out all over the place. Made for a good laugh, anyways now a days I would look for ID, and if I didn’t find any I woulda just left the bag and wouldn’t have thought of taking anything. But fishing wise, I hooked the ½ decomposed skull of a dog on the South Raven once….smelt bad and was disgusting trying to get my hook un stuck, but nothing of value yet.

[Pipestoneflyguy]

Lotsa dog toys below campgrounds - found what appeared to be a food cache (mostly cans) from back in the Jimmy Simpson days eroded out of a river bank on the Bow above Lake Louise (I think there was a post about this before, definately the coolest thing I have found).

 

I also found 3 canoes usable and about 6 or 7 that were destroyed (so far) abandoned from folks with the foolish notion the could make it from Bow Lake to Lake Louise on the Bow.

 

A friend found a wooden crate in a sand bank under a bridge in the Kicking Horse river in Yoho NP a few years back - excitedly ripped it open to find a skeleton - determined to likely be from the old internment camp up river.

[mnm]

I once hooked a loaded tackle box by the handle out of Allison hole on the Vedder river.

Fished a big yellow slide out of the Bow after runoff one year, my kid's still use it today.

 

Dave

[trailhead]

All I ever found was a PS 2 game system in the Bow.

[Guest 420FLYFISHIN]

so far im at 1 live blind fluffy dog (that fishing spot is now dead dog ally) and a bunch of hardwear.

[alan2]

2 or so yrs ago I found a $700 digital camera on the Livingston, posted it on the bulletin board and the owner contacted me and I gave it back. I'm sure he had good intentions and said he'd get me a reward but not a thing ever became of it. So much for being honest, I probably should have just kept it---I needed one. It was good reminder about promising things but not delivering.

 

Last week I found a net on a SE BC river--too bad I have 3 already. Found a good spincast rod in the Bow once.

[bigbowtrout]

2 or so yrs ago I found a $700 digital camera on the Livingston, posted it on the bulletin board and the owner contacted me and I gave it back. I'm sure he had good intentions and said he'd get me a reward but not a thing ever became of it. So much for being honest, I probably should have just kept it---I needed one. It was good reminder about promising things but not delivering.

 

A thank you is reward enough for me. The honest part was you posting it and returning it.