Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Fishing Forum :: Strangest Catch in the BWCA or Q
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Pinetree |
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myceliaman |
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myceliaman |
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SouthernExposure |
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shock |
myceliaman: "A few years back on Little Caribou I had a walleye on the stringer.When a approximately a 10 lb northern decided that walleye was going to be it's dinner not mine. I grab the stringer and we had a tug of war over the walleye. Now I've had fish grab fish in a stringer in the past but this dude was not letting go. End result was me pulling now deceased walleye and the northern into the canoe.. Thus catching a fine pike without a rod/ reel nor a hook."LOVE IT ! on a local lake towards sundown , bobber fishing with a double float bobber/sucker minnow. along comes a pike and swallows my whole bobber right off the surface. so i loosened the drag up a lot and slowly brought the pike into the net !! :) :) in the BW once(toe lake) had a #5 pike on told partner to get the net , then told him not to bother as this pike skyed out of the water and landed right in the middle of the canoe and then the fight started LOL. |
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Hammertime |
Freeleo1: "Pinetree: "Freeleo1: "It's not a strange fish to catch, and I didn't officially "catch" it. But I got a very large green perch up to the boat on Ashigan that was the most vividly colored fish I've seen. It was bright green with a dark black stripes on it's side and a bright red stripe on it's head. It was as striking as any saltwater fish. It shook the hook as I got it beside the boat. It is the shape of a sunfish, but I have still not found any pictures of any fish that matches it. If I had to bet on it I would say you hooked up with a monster green sunfish, but I guess we’ll never know. I think it’s awesome that there are still some mysteries out there. Thanks for sharing! |
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Pinetree |
Hammertime: "I bet your right, I didn't read it close enough, talking about an orange spot by the head. Was it flat in shape like a panfish or elongated like a perch?Freeleo1: "Pinetree: "Freeleo1: "It's not a strange fish to catch, and I didn't officially "catch" it. But I got a very large green perch up to the boat on Ashigan that was the most vividly colored fish I've seen. It was bright green with a dark black stripes on it's side and a bright red stripe on it's head. It was as striking as any saltwater fish. It shook the hook as I got it beside the boat. It is the shape of a sunfish, but I have still not found any pictures of any fish that matches it. |
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trstuck |
Hammertime: "trstuck: " Hmm, it's been so long I have forgotten the color. But the reel would have been a Quantum Hypercast with the trigger/bail opener on the base of the reel. It was lost about 1/4mi E of the site on the peninsula in the main body of the lake. |
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MidwestMan |
missmolly: "A beaver. Luckily, I single-hooked the critter and they live in rusting water, so I think he survived." That’s a first that I’ve heard of. I bet a ticked off, cornered/trapped beaver would leave some gnarly bite marks if you got too close… |
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bottomtothetap |
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Pinetree |
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YaMarVa |
My wife caught an old rod once too. |
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Savage Voyageur |
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Hammertime |
trstuck: " About 10 years ago my buddy caught a rod in Cummings that looked like it had been in the lake for about 10 years. Black with a cork handle? |
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Pinetree |
arctic: "I watched a friend pull a 26 inch walleye from a BWCA, native lake trout lake where no record of walleyes exists. The nearest walleye lake is three portages away, and the connecting streams are way too small and steep for walleyes to get from lake to lake." Some lakes just get enough of a hatch for a few to survive-that 26-inch fish was probably an old timer. Yes, there are some mysteries of life and fish presents. What amazes me is smallmouth were once not present in the BWCA,but were stocked in some lakes. Over the last three decades, they have somehow gotten into lakes with no real connection to smallmouth lakes or waterfall barriers. How? |
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AluminumBarge |
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scotttimm |
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AluminumBarge |
Pinetree: "arctic: "I watched a friend pull a 26 inch walleye from a BWCA, native lake trout lake where no record of walleyes exists. The nearest walleye lake is three portages away, and the connecting streams are way too small and steep for walleyes to get from lake to lake." A longtime outfitter told me that years ago, the sixties or seventies if I remember right, his father and a couple other outfitters rented a plane and used to drop smallmouth in a number of lakes. They were tired of trying to get the DNR to do it, but since they wouldn’t they took it upon themselves. This is a well known outfitting family and he sounded sincere, so I have no reason to not believe him. And it explains how they became established in lakes without prior populations and no way for them to migrate. |
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Pinetree |
AluminumBarge: "A longtime outfitter told me that years ago, the sixties or seventies if I remember right, his father and a couple other outfitters rented a plane and used to drop smallmouth in a number of lakes. They were tired of trying to get the DNR to do it, but since they wouldn’t they took it upon themselves. This is a well known outfitting family and he sounded sincere, so I have no reason to not believe him. And it explains how they became established in lakes without prior populations and no way for them to migrate." I think it was many years before that by yes outfitter family. Pointe Lake in Quetico(I believe in the 1940s) I think was the first lake in Quetico to get them. Even then many lakes were not stocked. I remember back will say 1990 I saw my first smallmouth bass in lake one. Over time they made it into Alice. It did take a while to get up from Hudson Lake. There were still many lakes not stocked, but they are now present in. |
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Pinetree |
AluminumBarge: "Pinetree: "arctic: "I watched a friend pull a 26 inch walleye from a BWCA, native lake trout lake where no record of walleyes exists. The nearest walleye lake is three portages away, and the connecting streams are way too small and steep for walleyes to get from lake to lake." Yes they talk about in his book. |
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Sparkeh |
Pinetree: "arctic: "I watched a friend pull a 26 inch walleye from a BWCA, native lake trout lake where no record of walleyes exists. The nearest walleye lake is three portages away, and the connecting streams are way too small and steep for walleyes to get from lake to lake." We have a man made pond with natural yellow perch. Must have been birds dropping fish eggs or multiple live fish in. |
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montanapaddler |
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tumblehome |
A1t2o: "We once caught a rock on a Mepps lure. We actually reeled it into the boat from about 10 feet down. It weighed about 5 pounds so we were pretty shocked that we got it off the bottom. That's pretty funny stuff!. Tom |
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bobbernumber3 |
trstuck: "I have a similar story, though. Some 20 years ago I brought my brother-in-law on his 1st trip. We entered at Crab Lake and made our way to Cummings. Lots of wind that day - we capsized 50yrds from shore in Cummings. I lost my map (with lots of notes/memories written from previous years), a rod and maybe a bandana or two. We found the things that floated like Nalgenes. Two days later we strafed the area with heavy empty jigs trying to snag the rod to no avail. After an hour we gave one last pass and I caught... my map! Still have it with the hole where the hook went through." Great story! I've learned that if you don't look for something lost, you won't find it. Trout fishing on a small stream, I chased a lost bobber in shallow water and didn't realize that my keys fell out of my pocket. Back at the car an hour later, I realized what had happened. It was dark. But if you don't look, you won't find it. So, I waded back out and downstream with my nose right at the water. it was only a foot deep, but I did find those keys as a slightly different color on the stream bottom. Drove myself home with a lesson learned. Many years ago. |
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ForestDuff |
Caught two suckers on a jig and waxie under a windlass tip-up ice fishing for brook trout. Walked 40ft away and tossed the first one on the ice, I was curious to see if the Bald Eagle sitting in the tree a few hundred yards away would like a pre-open water snack. That sucker was snatched up 30 seconds later. Caught a couple large chub minnows once where the creek dumped into West Pike Lake from Clearwater Lake. There were a bunch of suckers spawning in the Cedars in the creek. Still not sure if the Chubs were there feeding on the sucker spawn or were spawning themselves, but I think they hit the Rapala 3/4 their size out of aggression more than anything. |
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OldGuide2 |
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missmolly |
grizzlyadams: "I once caught a fishing rod, no reel, at the bottom of the rapids coming out of Isabella. You're thinking about this wrong. Go into business, but don't open a fresh fish market. Open a tackle store! |
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Pinetree |
OldGuide2: "A friend of mine who guides in the Brainerd area once told me about a client who caught a gull when it swopped down to grab some live bait. It set the reel to zinging pretty good before they were able to cut the line. " That happens once in a while, especially like Mille lacs lake. Caught a snapping turtle once. |
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timatkn |
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MidwestMan |
On my second BWCA trip, I somehow landed a minuscule smallmouth (maybe half the length of my pinkie finger). I was using a slip bobber setup with a leech. Not all that strange, but I think it takes the cake for my strangest BWCA or Q catches. What’s your strangest catch? |
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CoachWalleye74 |
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BWfishingfanatic12 |
Trolling a rapala on a 3-way targeting Walleye or Smallmouth we got into a bunch of big whitefish. Like upper teens low 20 inch ones. It was so bizarre to me. We caught 3 or 4 in a row. We thought they were staging Smallies prespawn on the graph. Another interesting catch was a Walleye on a topwater at dusk. I have heard of others catching Walleye on top but it still seems so bizarre to me that it happened. |
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bobbernumber3 |
It was late May, 2002. Our usual group of six fishermen were out for the week camping and fishing and relaxing. I had found this small honey-hole the previous year and caught several walleyes of about 25", all catch and release. I lost a fishing rod here and was eager to fish this spot again. May 2001. I had a strong bite on my rod that was hanging over the side of the boat. The rod tip was bent well over and into the water. I couldn't get to the rod but wasn't worried as the butt was secure under the opposite-side gunnel. Until the walleye started to swim away sideways and my rotating rod popped loose and fell into the lake. Well... it was dark and my fishing and our trip was over. We would be leaving the next morning. Little did I know what tomorrow's adventure would be!! But that is a whole different story. And all of our fishing rods would be lost. But, we were back at the honey-hole as best I could tell. Allan caught a nice walleye on his first cast with a slip-bobber and leech. Yes, this was the place! My bobber was slowly sinking. "Hey, Al. Look at this!" I couldn't figure out what was going on as I tightened the line but never felt a thing. So, I never set the hook. But something was there on the line. Slowly, slowly I reeled in. Until from the depths emerged a stick. No... a rod tip. And then my entire rod and reel from the previous year. On my first cast with a single hook I had hooked into an eyelet of my lost rod. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my strangest catch in the Q. |
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MidwestMan |
bobbernumber3: ""Yes, this is about the spot. I caught some great walleyes right here last year", I said as we pulled in near a small indent along the rocky Quetico shoreline. Whoa, that is beyond bizarre! 1-in-a-gajillion. Thanks for sharing, bobber! |
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missmolly |
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YetiJedi |
My strangest BW catch...a turtle. Little guy ate the worm but I think he survived the ordeal. |
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Jackfish |
Fishing in Quetico quite a few years ago when live bait was still allowed, we used to fish with slip bobbers a lot. Hard to beat a slip bobber with a leech and watching the bobber go down, down, down... I'm watching my bobber and it went under pretty quickly. I set the hook and was immediately in for a pretty good fight. Didn't feel like a northern and it had plenty of power so we assumed that I had a dandy walleye on the line. Imagine my disappointment when I finally got it to the surface, only to see that I had caught a good-sized snapping turtle. I cut the line. The other story was from one of our earliest trips to Quetico. This is probably around 1990 or so. My canoe partner and I had been having pretty good luck with the walleyes that day and had dinner for our group of six hanging over the side of the boat on a chain-type stringer. My partner or I caught another walleye and went to put it on the stringer when the fish thrashed causing us to lose the grip on the stringer and it went overboard straight to the bottom. Our dinner was now 10' or so below the surface. Fortunately, it was a very calm day and we could catch glimpses of the stringer from time to time. My buddy and I kept trying to hook the stringer but we'd miss it, lose track of it, then have to find it again and keep on trying. This went on for at least a half hour. Finally, with a large one ounce(?) Daredevle with a big treble hook, I hooked one of the loops in the chain stringer and brought the entire stringer of walleyes up to the surface and got them secured onto the boat again. Dinner tasted especially good that night! |
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Frenchy19 |
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Hammertime |
Also an old fishing rod and a t shirt, but those have already been covered. |
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bloody stump |
Had the same experience with a slip bobber snapper fishing from shore at dark. Was quite the surprise! |
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blutofish1 |
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Pinetree |
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nabor617 |
Dad was nearby so I asked him what he was using. Sure enough, same fish. We ended up eating the pike and dad got his lure back. Pretty fun story. |
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smjudd |
On one of our Kawishiwi trips we were fishing walleye down a channel on a day with spotty showers, towards the end of our trip (believe this was Lake Polly). Fishing was good until my husband snagged a pair of someone's old underpants!!! No kidding! Not a catch any of us want to repeat. On a separate trip, we were up in the Snow Bank area, and were day tripping. We had just come off a portage back into Ima and were fishing a narrow when I got a hold of something. Thought it might be the bottom of the lake and very well could have been given how shallow we were. Turned out to be someone's goodie bag --- mesh bag that had a couple cans of A&W Cream Soda and a fresh bottle of Fireball. We couldn't stomach drinking the Fireball so we did dump that out later & dispose of the bottle. One of our fearless kids was so excited to have a soda we let him tear into that. Surprisingly chilled he said after the first swig... ! I guess that was a win. We cleaned up someone else's trash (though I'm guessing that was an accidental loss of goods) and the boy enjoyed his soda. |
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A1t2o |
BTW there were no weeds, tangled line or anything to help snag the rock. The treble hook just got caught in a crack and gripped it just enough to pull it up. |
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eelpout89 |
Pinetree: "anyone ever catch a bullhead in the BWCA? That would be an extreme rarity.". Last year in May on the kawish river a lot of the walleye and pike we cleaned had bullhead fingerlings in their stomachs Thought that was odd since I’ve never caught a bullhead up there. |
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Pinetree |
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scat |
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grizzlyadams |
Also on Isabella, I caught a back pack full of ice fishing gear. Full tackle box, fillet knife, and ice fishing reel. And lastly, on Kabetogama I caught a very nice Cabela's net. Now, if only I could catch fish... |
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trstuck |
bobbernumber3: ""Yes, this is about the spot. I caught some great walleyes right here last year", I said as we pulled in near a small indent along the rocky Quetico shoreline. That is a crazy story! I have a similar story, though. Some 20 years ago I brought my brother-in-law on his 1st trip. We entered at Crab Lake and made our way to Cummings. Lots of wind that day - we capsized 50yrds from shore in Cummings. I lost my map (with lots of notes/memories written from previous years), a rod and maybe a bandana or two. We found the things that floated like Nalgenes. Two days later we strafed the area with heavy empty jigs trying to snag the rod to no avail. After an hour we gave one last pass and I caught... my map! Still have it with the hole where the hook went through. |
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arctic |
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trstuck |
A friend and I were having a nice day on Grace many years ago where we were catching smallmouth on nearly every other cast. Not huge, but lots of fun! I lost my lure at one point to an average size bass (always check/re-tie your knots!). My buddy's next cast landed him a bass with my lure in it's mouth. He took it out and handed it to me. :-) |
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shock |
Pinetree: "Smallies only need an inch of water to go from lake to the other , Rog is proof of that.arctic: "I watched a friend pull a 26 inch walleye from a BWCA, native lake trout lake where no record of walleyes exists. The nearest walleye lake is three portages away, and the connecting streams are way too small and steep for walleyes to get from lake to lake." i had heard some time in the 50's some guys went through the border lakes and dump smallies in all of them they could. |
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Pinetree |
shock: "Pinetree: "Smallies only need an inch of water to go from lake to the other , Rog is proof of that.arctic: "I watched a friend pull a 26 inch walleye from a BWCA, native lake trout lake where no record of walleyes exists. The nearest walleye lake is three portages away, and the connecting streams are way too small and steep for walleyes to get from lake to lake." I like smallmouth bass, but many of lakes quality of other fish went down. A lake can produce only so many pounds per acre of predator fish. |
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nooneuno |
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missmolly |
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Rockriver |
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Pinetree |
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Freeleo1 |
Pinetree: "Freeleo1: "It's not a strange fish to catch, and I didn't officially "catch" it. But I got a very large green perch up to the boat on Ashigan that was the most vividly colored fish I've seen. It was bright green with a dark black stripes on it's side and a bright red stripe on it's head. It was as striking as any saltwater fish. It shook the hook as I got it beside the boat. It is the shape of a sunfish, but I have still not found any pictures of any fish that matches it. Yes, it looks like that is close. Maybe it looked darker since it was still in the water. It was a really big one judging by the specifications on MNR website. I'd guess at least a pound or more. I'm always amazed that every lake has a different mix of fish. It seems like there should be Walleye in every lake, but there are many lakes where they are not mentioned. Ashigan only seems to have Smallies, green sunfish and yellow perch. |
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Freeleo1 |
On the same lake, my husband caught a huge mass of fishing line with masses of smelly, rotting underwater weeds. We took it back to camp and burned it in the fire enough to make it a non smelly disk to pack out. |
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Pinetree |
Freeleo1: "It's not a strange fish to catch, and I didn't officially "catch" it. But I got a very large green perch up to the boat on Ashigan that was the most vividly colored fish I've seen. It was bright green with a dark black stripes on it's side and a bright red stripe on it's head. It was as striking as any saltwater fish. It shook the hook as I got it beside the boat. It is the shape of a sunfish, but I have still not found any pictures of any fish that matches it. Its a yellow perch and certain organs within the fish make it green for some reason. |
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arctic |
Pinetree: "arctic: "I watched a friend pull a 26 inch walleye from a BWCA, native lake trout lake where no record of walleyes exists. The nearest walleye lake is three portages away, and the connecting streams are way too small and steep for walleyes to get from lake to lake." I bet anglers transport some. That kind of illegal activity has wrecked plenty of brook tout lakes, Rog Lake by Seagull being one of them... |
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Pinetree |
arctic: "Pinetree: "arctic: "I watched a friend pull a 26 inch walleye from a BWCA, native lake trout lake where no record of walleyes exists. The nearest walleye lake is three portages away, and the connecting streams are way too small and steep for walleyes to get from lake to lake." Agree and skull lake by Ely and many more stream trout lakes and in some way has affected all lakes. Yes, Rog was once one of the better brook trout lakes up there. |
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PAR |
I was bummed because I was losing our competition 34 to 39. We turned around and the line wasnt moving at all. In my head I'm like "Shoot! Once again I got snagged on some hidden log and he's going to rib me about it forever". We pull up beside a submerged weed bed and as I continue to reel in the taut line all of a sudden there's a huge splash! Turns out my smallmouth bass (pretty good size too) was the lunch of a 39" pike! And that pike absolutely refused to let go. It took awhile to pry the jaws of the pike off the bass due to its size, obstinance and the little bit of room I had in the canoe's bow. It was awesome as that had never happened to me before. Needless to say, 4 years later he still argues that I should have only gotten 1 point for that catch even though he still won the totals for that trip lol |
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MidwestMan |
PAR: "Was trolling with my best friend back in 2019 (cant remember the lake) and I caught a bass about 30 yards behind the canoe. We saw it jump and it fought for a couple seconds and then it snagged. My pole bent and the front of the canoe pretty much got pulled around. That’s worth 2 points IMO! |
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FlushAndGiggle |
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OgimaaBines |
eelpout89: "Pinetree: "anyone ever catch a bullhead in the BWCA? That would be an extreme rarity.". Last year in May on the kawish river a lot of the walleye and pike we cleaned had bullhead fingerlings in their stomachs Thought that was odd since I’ve never caught a bullhead up there." There's a small catfish known as a madtom that might have been what they were eating. My strangest catch was a blue northern on Fourtown. Example I also netted a northern who had locked onto my brothers eater walleye once on LLC. |
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FishGeek01 |
Blue Walleye on the Basswood River |
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analyzer |
Jackfish: "I don't know if these two qualify as "strange", but they're certainly non-traditional. I've lost two stringers with dinner still on them, and was not as fortunate as you. I casted in the area for a while, but never hooked them again. There was one year when my dad was taking a nap, that I went for an extended walk on the shoreline (I was in my 20's, not a child). I found a nearly complete walleye skeleton with a metal stringer clip in it's mouth, and about 4 inches of metal stringer. It was clear that the stringer had broken. The tail was missing, but the rest of the walleye was intact. There was no flesh at all. I was surprised at how well the entire skeleton remained. You would think Seaguls, turkey vultures, snapping turtles, etc would have made short work of the fish, and it wouldn't have had an opportunity to decay like that. I left it for someone else to find, but considering the remoteness of the area, it's unlikely anyone else would ever find it. I kind of regret not bringing it home and mounting it on a wood board, "the one that got away". Without a tail, it's hard to know it's exact size, but based on it's head and torso size, I'd say it was in that 8lb - 10lb range. I think if the tail were also intact, I would have kept it. It was pretty cool to look at the full skeleton, head, mouth teeth, rib cage, back bone etc, with no flesh on it. It had been there long enough, it didn't stink, at least not noticeably. |