This ever happen to you?

RvW · 01-09-2003, 04:45 PM

Every time I see my guides on the upper portion of my rod out of line with the lower, I am reminded of fishing for bass as a kid.

The Merrimack river in Concord NH, lots of bass, a little rubber fish behind a spinner blade was choice ammo..

I used a spinning rod and threw that rubber fish as far as I could.

Long story short, I threw that sucker as hard as I could, and like a missile, the upper half of my rod shot out in a straight line like an arrow from a crossbow.....

I have no idea what promted me to close the bail on the reel, but as soon as I did, the end of that rod hit the lure and Kah-snapp!

it kept going completely across the river and into the woods on the other side...damn I was hot!, it took me an hour to find a place to cross, and another 30 minutes to find it, with the first eyelet broken off....

I fished anyway, and hammered a bunch.
I'll never forget how hard my uncle laughed when he watched that, and now that I look back, it was quite funny. My grandfather (rest his soul) told me to stick the end in my ear , and the wax would hold it better...I tried it today and got some funny looks.

Man was I naive.

Grantspastor · 01-09-2003, 05:00 PM

NO! NEVER! Not in a million years. And you can't prove it did either!

justdave · 01-09-2003, 05:11 PM

My son and I were fishing the south jettie in Newport a couple years ago. He's using this micro pole, (nothing expensive) We're doing ok on perch. He gets hung up and gives it a good jerk to free it up. The thing snaps, leaving the big eyelet and not much else. Not to be denied, he re-rigged with the short rod. Got a great laugh out of watching him huck this big weight out. Damed if he didn't continue to catch and land fish.

Just Dave

Thumper · 01-09-2003, 06:00 PM

COR --- ear! ear!. He said ear.......

Hogmaster · 01-09-2003, 06:18 PM

One fine spring day in March (which means it was basically miserably cold and wet) Dick I and I fished out of Bayport for springers. We ran down to the then deadline at the tip of Sauvie's Island and fished hard all day without so much as a nibble.

On the trip back to Bayport, Mr. Itcher got this great idea to take off his terminal gear. As I was driving the sled upstream, he starts making his finest flyfishing motions with his favorite Kunan Rod. Back and forth, back and forth he goes, grinning at me so impressed with his prowess when the front half of the rod on the next "forth" went forth about 37' into the slough and disapeared.

He said nothing. I just about fell out of the boat from uncontrolled hilarity, but somehow managed to keep my composure and said nothing either.

It was a classic standoff. Neither of us said a thing as we drove the sled into the marina, got the rig, trailed the sled and went home.

As we were driving on the highway, ocasionally I would turn red with internalized howling while Dick I was turning red from anger. The next time out I noticed he was down to one rod in his arsenal, but still said nothing. He did give me a "hair in the soup" side glance as I started spontaneously guffahing a few times.

Nothing was said for a long, long time after that. This happened well over 10 years ago. Just last week when I was out on the river with him, he commented on how he had 1/2 a Kunan in his garage. I started to ask why, when I remembered why and held back telling reeldick the story until right now! :grin:

RvW · 01-09-2003, 06:22 PM

THUMPER...hindsight is....err, nevermind.

So thats why they all ran screaming?

[ 01-09-2003, 07:23 PM: Message edited by: cirrhosis-of-the-river ]

RvW · 01-09-2003, 06:29 PM

Hogmaster...Hilarious.

I could tell a similar story, but couldnt touch the prose and wit...could picture each event

Thanks for the laugh!

P.S. THe photo above was taken today at about 16:00. In Neskowin. Thought you folks who dont get here much might like to see it...was a gorgeous day.

[ 01-09-2003, 07:31 PM: Message edited by: cirrhosis-of-the-river ]

wet-net-32 · 01-09-2003, 06:33 PM

Hogmaster, fishing with Mr. D. Itcher? Pretty funny man. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

wet-net.

Hogmaster · 01-09-2003, 07:54 PM

COR -

I'd say your prose and wit are just fine. I followed your rod right across the stream. Not going there on the last part though! :shocked:

Wet -

There is, of course, a story there. :grin:

He has been a lurker for quite some time and swears he is going to join soon. But for some reason he says that won't be his handle here!

Dr Strangelove · 01-09-2003, 10:19 PM

I can beat all of you. I was halibut fishing of the rocks in front of the Malibu Charthouse one night with my friend. He wanted to try my surfcasting pole (12.5ft) so he cocked back and as he slung forward, he hooked an eye on his shorter surfrod/reel combo and cast it 20yds out into breaking surf. Gone.

Later that evening, using my rod, he hooked a halibut. I climbed down the rocks to net it and a sneaker wave took me off the rocks into the dark and deep surf. The next wave deposited by onto a higher rock with only a few scrapes. But no net and no halibut.

Do you ever get the feeling God doesn't want you to fish some days?

bigshark · 01-09-2003, 10:41 PM

Had a friend break a rod and the first half went down and hit the sinker swivel, The fish was up at the boat and took off like a racehorse. He got it back in close to the boat and we got it just before we almost drifted to the tip of the north jetty of the CR. Dumb, dumb, and even dumber. Sometimes I think God looks after the strangest of his creations..............fishermen.

Snapset · 01-09-2003, 11:45 PM

About 20 years ago I took my pre-teen brother to an overgrown log pond near Alpine. In order to get to the fish, you had to balance on old floating logs, and work your way out to open water. Jeff thought there was no better way to catch Cutthroat than on a Pautzke under a big red and white bobber so that is what he was using. I was doing just fine with a small frog Flatfish, and after I caught a few, Jeff scrambles out to the log I was on and gets it spinning. He even then was more coordinated than I am, so I jump off the log, onto an adjacent log, and catch my balance. He stays on my former log and continues to fish. I make the mistake of turning my back to him and on his second or third cast smacks me on the head with that big red bobber. This time I lose my balance, my log spins and I am in the water. I yelled at him, and later felt bad about it.

So later in the sring I take him to Thompson Valley Reservoir to catch some big rainbows. We were flyfishing with big black weighted woolly worms, and catching quite a few. In fact we were catching 16-20" trout on every cast.

Jeff picked up the flyfishing thing pretty quickly, and was only one or two fish from a limit. He makes a long cast, and the tip of the flyrod flies out into the water and begins to sink. I tell him to hurry and get the tip reeled back in before a fish hits his fly. He reels fast, but to no avail. The bottom half jerks sharply down, and he has another hard fighting rainbow, on 3lb. tippet. He continues to reel fast though, and the line breaks, and we see the bright yellow tip of the flyrod slowly sink, where it remains to this day.

ripper · 01-10-2003, 08:58 AM

OK. I have my own rod destruction story.

Back in college a couple of friends and I had seen a TV show on big channel cat fishing on the Connecticut River in New England. We thought it would be great fun to hook into a huge channel cat and wrestle one to the shore. So we decided we would meet at the appartment of one of my cohorts at sun down and fish after dark. We gathered our gear, bait and few adult beverages for the adventure. We had picked a spot basically by driving along a stretch of the river in the dark until we found a spot that looked big enough for the 3 of us to cast and set our rods up on forked sticks. The little piece of intelligence we missed was the topolgy of the bottom around the spot we chose. As a side note one of my buddies and I happened to be fishing the same rod and reel combo.

The night progressed very slowly with little action. At one point I decided to check my bait. I started reeling up and low and behold got snagged. It was a nasty snag on the bottom. I pulled and tugged and pumped and pulled some more. Now in all my wisdom I decided to pull straight back on the rod and see what happened. Prehaps it was the dark or the adult beverages that influenced my poor judgement. As you can guess the next thing I heard was "gasnap" of the graphite rod breaking at about the thrid eylette from the top. My companioms thought this was amusing. I proceeded to throw a tantrum. Throwing the remains of the rod and reel to the ground, stomping it oblivion while swearing like a truck driver. After my anger and verbal assult had passed there was silence until one of my companions decided to check his bait. In the dark I hear, "hey, this isn't my rod..." "what the......" "you ******* , you broke MY rod..." Needless to say, I was amused. He was less than happy and we did go shpooing for a new rod the next day.

papa bear · 01-10-2003, 02:06 PM

Oddly enough I have never broke or lost a rod in the field but HAVE tip-snapped three rods around the house, all in the last year, too. Getting blind, I dunno.

But I did CATCH a not-too-bad brand-new rod-reel combo in eight feet of water on the reservoir. Wonder whose story THAT was???

Still usin' 'em, too.

tipndwater · 01-10-2003, 02:33 PM

i love to hear stories like these, thanks for the laughs.

i can picture them as if i was there too!
so hears my story. i had a im6 gloomis 8#to 12# and my brother always want one, problem was that they stopped making the im6 :depressed:
i told him if he would get me imx that i would trade, so he did, when he brought it over i had to compare the arc, so he grab both tips and i rared back one in each hand looking at the arc. i put a little too much presure on the imx and it slide out of his hand and slammed into to the gutter on my house :shocked:
it shattered it before it ever seen a reel. we did end up trading, i had to get a story together and head up to gloomis. shame on me.

tipndwater

RIPPLE · 01-10-2003, 03:04 PM

one of my favorites was watching my brother-in-law snap his pole in half while setting the hook on a commorant, (tough little bird!) we haven't let him forget it, in fact I think I better call him right now [img]graemlins/icon_argue.gif[/img]

:grin: RIPPLE :grin:

RvW · 01-10-2003, 04:26 PM

Well, I figured I would keep the "grown up" story to myself because I am STILL embarassed every time I think about it, but what the heck.

I took my son to the Newport fishing dock to kill some time, my xwife worked for Rogue Ales and she wasnt quite finished the day so I asked her to walk over and let us know when she was ready.

When I got there, theres about ten people fishing already, and I set up one of thse nylon crab deals with the loops on a spinnin rod, and a chicken wing for bait.

There was a "hole" at the very end of the dock where I saw an op to squeez in and rather than cast onto the other anglers lines, I stood behind them and let it rip over their heads hoping it would clear thier lines and rest out where the "big one" was.

Same as the first time, like a freakin rocket, the end of my rod went "pop" off the lower half, and sailed like a javelin through the air about 100 yards with a crab snare attached to the front. It was strippin every inch of line off my spinning rod...snap!, took all my line too, and splashed where I was praying would be too far for anyone to notice...uh uh...the 10 other people just happened to be lookin in my direction, and of course with the funny pop of the rod, and the 100 yard trailer of monofilament, they rubber-necked that half of my rod all the way to the water and each one chuckled in harmony.

Just so happens that my wife was 15 feet behind me when it happened, and she laughed too!

I looked at my son and said "now the next step is to go down to the marina and look at everyones propellor for the crab"!

God I was embarassed, so much that I stopped at freddys on the way home and purchased another rod.

A one piece!

[ 01-10-2003, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: cirrhosis-of-the-river ]