So I’ve caught a snail that put up a great fight. The clam was better. Also have hooked into a hellgrammite. Other than that an occasional rock or two. Turtles are a pain.

I caught part of a broken dinner plate a few months ago 😂 That was up there on the list of weird stuff. I've caught a few shirts and a flip flop one time over the years.

I get a lot of stupid softshell turtles when I'm catfishing. Most of them are pretty small, but once in a while a bigger one. Feels like pulling up a cast iron pan, tumbling in the water.

Caught the biggest golden shiner I've ever seen on a micro spinnerbait out crappie fishing on 4th of July.

A few years ago I caught one of the biggest crawdads I have ever seen that put up a decent fight. Was using worms at the time. My son caught a Chinese Rock Fish in Sitka, Alaska and on the same trip caught a 40 lbs. halibut when trolling for Kings.

Striped burrfish.

Mussel/clam whatever you call it on a beetle spin once. Line must have crossed while he was open.

Part of a rusty car door in the creek.

Reeled in a used condom from a local pond that has some good bass in it. I practiced catch and release! Lol!

Caught a set of brass cowbells (once commonly used for lake trout fishing) complete with brass dodger and weight, plus about 60' of steel line, in Munising Bay on Lake Superior back in the 80's.

Also back then, we would occasionally catch white suckers on the original type Rapalas, trolled for walleye and pike.

My kids still laugh about the time one if them reeled in a crayfish and it pinched me hard enough to make me yelp.

More recently, anyone fishing Little Traverse Bay in the Petoskey area stands a chance of hooking into the King salmon that took my buddy's 11" flasher and fly while he and I were trolling last week.

Trolling a lake in Montana about 10 years ago that I have fished often over the years... snagged a monofilament line and pulled it up to reveal an old rod, reel, and jig. Later cleaned it up to reveal a Loomis GMX cork handled spinning rod as well as a Shimano Spirex reel.The cork was rotting on the rod... I called Loomis and they said to send it in with $50 and they would send me an identical new rod, no questions asked! The Spirex cleaned up nicely and works well to this day!

Somebody had a bad day! I have as well (had a backpack stolen from a cleaning station that had pop gear, dodgers, and 2 Zebco Cardinal reels!) I figure I am about "even" overall. I have yet to take that rod and reel back to that particular lake! Bad karma...

Usually I just snag underwater branches.

Not a catch, but setting up for someone else to maybe catch...

Downrigger rod holder failed and we launched the rod/reel combo off the back of the boat like a torpedo! The line release held for a bit and we almost got it all back, but then that went too! Expensive lesson to learn, pay a lot more attention to rod holders now. All we could do is look at each other and shrug our shoulders.

My sister's old boyfriend caught a dead body. He could never touch the end of his line after that. He loved to go fishing but wouldn't bait his hook or anything to do with the far end of his line. I always felt bad for him so it never bothered me to help him out

Caught a boot once in Lake Anna Virginia. Luckily no foot still inside. Friend of mine caught a crack pipe in the Cherry river in Wva .

We used to fish walleye at night on this very popular recreational watercraft lake. My buddy would always set his line too deep and the only things he caught were stuff on the bottom. He literally caught most of an outfit one weekend. A shoe, a sweatshirt, a pair of pants. The shoe was awesome. He actually hooked a snell that was snagged on the shoe so the shoe could move back and forth and he thought it was a huge walleye. He was saying GET THE NET, GET THE NET! Then it came to the surface and he yelled, A [bleep] shoe! Wellibegotohell, a [bleep] shoe! I laughed for 3 days. This was 20 years ago and I still say I bet it's a shoe whenever he says to get the net. He found Jesus so he's a lot cleaner talking now.

This one is not a catch, but definitely a but strange. Earlier this year, my buddy and I were fishing Lake Michigan between Petoskey and Charlevoix, when we spotted dozens of water birds feeding along the scum line. I motored towards it with an eye on the graph. The hope was that there would be fish feeding there. Instead of fish, the only thing we found was a freshly dead whitetail fawn, floating in the blue water, about a mile from shore.

I snapped a picture and moved on.

Can’t believe it but caught another snail on Saturday and a couple of these snappers.

This.

Earlier this summer I was fishing a deep bend where the ve caught a whole bunch of different fish and couldn’t be surprised to catch just about anything.

I was fishing a big tube and something long and sleek followed, and so instead of pulling it out of the water I let it drop a bit and BAM! I set the hook and it ran with power and speed that made me immediately wonder if the northern I thought had taken my lure was something else altogether!

My suspicion was confirmed when it got across the river from me and porpoised; it was a river otter!! I pointed my rod straight at it and the hook straightened a bit and popped free. I call that “otter bend” now!

Same spot this summer I caught a clam on a ned rig, and my son caught a soft shelled turtle there as well.

Caught a few snapping turtles over the years and bullfrog on popping bugs are fun

What is that?

Coyote, put up a hell of a fight that ended with a baseball bat to its head, PINS Park Rangers really don't like it and will fine you for coyote fishing now after complaints from liberels.

Striped burrfish. Weird bugger for sure. Caught on a Clouser fishing for Redfish. A bit of a disappointment. 😁

When I was a kid a bunch of us were camped out on the Fourche river north of town. We were drinking pretty heavy and decided we would fish a little with night crawlers. One of the guys caught what we thought was a 2 1/2 pound catfish. He swung it around and landed it on the bank and it raised up on 4 legs and ran down the bank and jumped back in. He pulled it back out and we shined a light on it and it was a huge salamander. We cut the line and let it go. It was an Ozark Hellbender. Protected species and rare. I have seen one other one in my life. It scared the heck out of us when the catfish took off on 4 legs in the moonlight.

Never caught one but I've seen hellbenders in Wva trout fishing a few times. Kinda wild looking, one evening at dark we were leaving and a friend of mine picked up his stringer with a hellbender hanging off one of his trout.

clam - Like the above, I figure that it was open and the hook dragged across it.

set of various-sized rusty tin cans all wired together - We figured that they had once been attached to the car of some newly-weds. Thought I really had something the way it fought coming in.

dead carp (mud-encrusted) - I had spun up a bait-caster with a red and white Dardevle attached to the line. When it settled to the bottom as I un-nested the reel, it must have dropped right on the open mouth of the carp.

I didn't know what it was but I saw several hellbenders in Mississippi years ago. I was pretty freaked out. It was years before I found out what they were.

I never found much. However, I fish a lake called Lake Winnebago and fish the south end . A man that fished it all his life , lives in Fond Du Lac ,one day pulled something up to find it was a flintlock muzzleloader . The wood was almost all rotten but the steel was in one piece.. The flint was still stuck in it . Not sure but was likely there for 200 yrs. I think you can google up the picture .

Pretty cool story . It was on half cock and likely was ready to shoot it.

Trolling a bottom-bouncer for walleyes and thought I snagged. But it started to come up and ended up being about a 30 pound log. The log had someone else's broken off rig on it. So I unhooked it off the log to keep it. Started rolling up at he line that was attached to the rig so some critter wouldn't get tangled up in it. Kept rolling and rolling and rolling then here comes the end guide of a nice Shakespeare rod & Shimano reel up out of the water.

They both cleaned up well and I still have and use them to this day.

Look at the barrel length on that thing.

Rubber on a downriver. Big fight....lol

I think they "fished", clams on the Mississippi River for buttons.

Some of these really funny.

I was surf fishing for steelhead last weekend and had a seagull fly into one of my lines and get slightly tangled. Seagull went into the water still tangled and I started swinging my rod tip around trying to free him. Eventually things unraveled and he flew off and I kept fishing.

Catching birds starting to become popular

Had this happen decades ago on the Outer Banks.

Was casting into the surf with one rod while I had a cut bait with a sinker off a rod that was standing up in a 5 gallon bucket. Seagull comes flying low up the beach with its legs hanging down. It hit the line between the standing rod and the water and flipped round and round, tail over tincups and was hanging there upside down flapping like a mother. It undid itself before I could get over to offer assistance.

not really fished, drag bars with balled hooks

I’ve caught a couple nice size freshwater clams using flies.

Here in Tn they were special boats and the "brailed" for mussels.That cloed out in the 70's they dive now.

Not exactly PADI or OHSA approved equipment!

‘Caught’ a bat with a 6” Rapala while fishing at night for browns on the Upper Delaware River.
Was there when a salmon angler fishing on the high wall behind the Post Office foul hooked a beaver in the Oswego River. The beaver made quite a run downstream.

I cough a strang gizzmo last summer, I posted a picture.

Trolling at night for walleye, I caught a Rapala fillet knife, my hook caught the belt loop of the sheath, and on another night, I hooked, and landed, a pair of blue jeans. This was way back in 1984.

More recently, I snagged a rod/reel in the rod guide. Cleaned them up and they work fine.

My wife caught a sea gull, on a Rapala. The bird picked up the lure and when my wife pulled on the rod, the bird dropped the Rapala, but it hooked a leg. That was an unhappy bird, by the time I got it released.

They dove here for mussels in the river. Had a place that bought them about 50 miles south. They used them for buttons and what was left was ground and seeded into oysters to make pearls. Talk about a hard dangerous job for no money.
To sell them you had to boil the mussels and clean the meat out of them. A 55 gallon drum full was 20 bucks last time I heard a.price. I have seen people diving for them. 2 guys and a big wide John boat. Automotive air compressor. Garden hose to an ancient diving helmet. Imagine breathing the air out of an oiled air compressor. Guy in the water picking them up and filling a metal basket. Lifting them into the boat with a home made crane. They were filling the boat up but between the whole operation they had to be making below minimum wage.

Had a guy on the crew, he and his dad went to Florida fishing. His dad got sick over the side losing his dentures.
When they docked that afternoon people were weighing cleaning and photo fish. Someone held up dentures out of tuna.
Just amazing.

Great stuff- I hooked another line in the water with my hook thru the swivel that was attached to a 30lb salmon. My fishing buddy had just lost the fish up river. We landed and tagged it.

Yes. Over 50+ years of angling I've hooked into 3 beaver. Two on trout gear were off in short order. I was almost into the leader with one on steelhead gear and wondering just how one might put the grab on him when it came unhooked.

Several ducks and coot across the years.

I just had one this morning. Snagged a crankbait off the bottom of a pond that still had a cheapazz Zebco combo attached to the other end of the line 🤣

Many years ago I was fishing a small coastal lake in Oregon with my dad. We heard the lake had Kokanee so we were trolling with Ford Fenders and worms. Hooks were size 8 bait holders with about half a worm threaded on the hook, maybe 18” behind the flashers.
I had a hell of a strike that darn near defeated the pos Zebco but a few minutes later my dad netted a 4 lb largemouth bass. For those of you who don’t know, that a very respectable bass for Oregon.





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Snapping turtles, bullfrogs and a muskrat. Caught my best dog ( a dear treeing feist )on back casts using a fly rod , TWICE. heck of a fight and got bite each time. Crabs in ocean and my buddy on the neck with a jitter bug when we were kids , messing around.

I thought about my strange catches over the past 65 years while fishing last week.

Had a young sea lion grab a crankbait near San Pedro Island in Mexico. He tore off at full speed, lost most of my line.

Was trolling along on way back from Tortuga island in Sea of Cortez. Suddenly the reel started singing! By the time we turned the boat around and gave chase the thing had stripped off half the line, 150 yds. We chased it for 45 minutes gradually gaining line. It wouldn't stop or turn. Finally got the boat close and discovered the lure had caught the very tip of the tail of a gigantic 10 foot basking shark! We had used up some time and it was getting close to sunset, so I cut the line and left the area.

Like others I caught a few birds. A blue footed booby and a western grebe.

Not sure if these qualify as strange catches or not:

Lost a floating rapala to a largemouth bass and caught the bass several hours later and got the lure back. (10 acre pond)

Was flyfishing Honoeye lake in NY in front of where my grandfather's cottage used to be. Caught a small sunfish on a popper. Stripped it in quickly and a 4 lb largemouth grabbed the fish! The sunfish fell off the hook and the popper hooked the bass which I landed.

Hard to say what's on the bottom of many lakes.

Think it is a freshwater lamprey. Was pretty beat up.

Cast in middle of about a dozen very large tarpon and of course this was what I caught. By the time I got the bastard off the hook they were gone