I was fishing for chums on a peninsula river and I tossed my corky and yarn behind a tree. I was rowing the boat so I was side drifting and I felt the fish and set the hook. I was kinda horsing the fish in cuz I thought it was a chum(which we already caught a few of). The fish broke the surface and when I saw it was a steelie I almost $hit. I dropped anchor and fought the fish and landed the 14 lbs summer run. That was a great surprise, we finish the day catching a lot of chums and there were only 2 other boats on the river.

Hey Plug(Chris), I was fishing for cutthroat, in the creek, with a bobber and worm, and caught a 20 1/2 in steelhead. I remember it was in March 1974 and went over to my friends house after class in 6th grade. He sure was mad at me for showing him up.

20lb striped bass while fishing for searun cutthroat.
Or the 8 lb brown that took a floating jerk bait I was using for bass.

Let me see. The best fish that I accidentally snagged. Just kidding, relax. Where is the dead horse?

Seriously, I was fishing trout with my 4wt and a nice king liked my stonefly. You know who lost that battle. Next day I went back with my steelhead gear to get my fly back and the king did not grant me a visit

The best one I can think of right now is about a 2 pound cutthroat I caught out of the Kalama while steelie fishing last year.

I had a similiar experience to UFK. I was using a 5wt for sea-run cutts and hooked a king. I only had it on for about 15 seconds since I had 4lb test line. I wasn't using a stonefly though; I was using a spruce fly.

~ Dr Pepper

Hmm...hooking a 20+ lb king while fishing for summer runs on the fly can be a humbling experience...either commit to a 20 minute tug of war or break it off...

Landed a 35" by 22" coho in December while swinging a spoon over a likely steelie lay...the girth of that TAIL amazed me...

But so far this year I'd have to say my best incidental catch was a 37 lb white king which a grabbed a 2.5" pink buzz bomb right on top while fishing through a school of pinks this summer.

...not, of course, that's it's necessarily fish I'm after when I go out fishing...

Trolling the ocean bottom just off the Tillamook Bay south jetty for fall 'nooks I caught a 30+ lb. lingcod on a whole herring.

Got one of my guide clients into a chrome mid twenties springer 'nook around early to mid March well up the Clackamas River while fishing for winter steelhead pulling plugs on 10 lb. line.

My son caught about a 6 lb. walleye one July as we were backtrolling Wiggle Warts down from the green can along the Col. R.'s Ives Island near Beacon Rock for summer steelhead. Tasted great, and was less filling.

RT

when i was about 18 I was jigging some herring while we were salmon fishing and I hooked and landed an 8lb silver on a trout rod but my favorite surprise came while fishing for sailfish in cabo I hooked a 130lb yellowfin tuna we were using 30lb test outfits it took just over 3hrs to land and we never did catch a sailfish

wolf eel in sekiu

Shad fishing at Bonneville. I was casting a bare jighead that I had made shiny by scraping off the oxidation on the lead, and I had caught about 20 shad so far.

I casted out and hooked something that fought back a bit harder, it was a 20+ lb King. I got it to shore, touched the hook, and the fish was off. I landed it on my 6' Fenwick lightweight rod with 6lb test. The hook on the jighead had almost completely straightened out.

my dad caught an octopus fishing for halibut in neah bay the picture shows it in the bottom of the boat with the arms going up the sides and over about a foot we had a 21 ft bell bouy I couldn't touch both sides of the boat so those arms must have been 7-8ft long we took it back to the dock and a japenese guy paid my dad $50 bucks for it

There have been many excellent "incidental" catches. The most recent was C&Ring a 20lb+ Chinook while bass fishing on Lake Union. I was throwing a rootbeer-colored grub with 8lb line and it hit on the drop. I thought I had tied into a state record smallmouth until it started thrashing on the surface. Needless to say it was a sweet battle.

While mooching off the kelp, on the west coast of vancouver island. My brother hooked what we initially thought was a large chinook. We landed a 82lb halibut instead. The large fish had come in on the shoal to feed on the herring balls, with the salmon. Quite a sight to see the method we used to boat the fish, two gaffs guys, one guy in the center with a knife and rope.

[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: KORE ]

When I lived back east, I did quite a bit of bass fishing. One time, the giant "bass" I hooked at 11 am on a sunny day, by a log in 3 foot of water, turned out to be a 12 pound flathead catfish. The things are supposed to be nocturnal, but it hammered my spinnerbait and put up a great fight. Another time, a "bass" turned out to be a 10 pound snapping turtle (with attitude). Caught a watersnake too...all out of the same lake. Yes, there were a few bass around too. Been in Oregon 6 years now. My biggest suprise here was a chinook about 30 pounds I hooked in the Deschutes fishin one September for steelhead with a med-light spinning rod and 8 lb Trilene. Fought it 1 and 1/2 hours before it broke me off. Suppose I should've broke it off when I realized what it was. I'll know better next time.

I was retreiving a spoon once in some frog water and spotted something floating about 20' away. Asked my buddy on the oars of his drift boat to row over and see what it was, and I left about 5 feet of line in the water to keep my spoon from swinging around and lacerating my ear. Hooked an 8lb. silver.

Hooked a dinky 2 lb. (approx.) pink on a buzz bomb off of Prince of Wales Island in SE Alaska, on one of those sunny days you can see bottom in 20 feet of water with polarized lenses. A 20lb. ling shot out from behind a boulder and sucked that poor pink down whole, spewing scales out of his gills like flames from a top fuel dragster's pipes. Sawed off my 8 lb. test in a heartbeat.

Hiking through the olympics as a kid in boy scouts and fishing for trout.I would always run to the next camping spot to go fish wharever water was there.Pautxkie's eggs were the bait if choice at that point in my learning curve.I had caught I don't know how many trout when"BAM" a big spotted fish grabbed my egg and I mean big!This was even before I used any proven knots just over hand after overhand!I will always have the picture of that fish at my feet, single egg hook stuck in its nose,connected to my line by overhand knot after overhand knot,imbeded in my head.That was when I learned there were big dolly's back in them thar hills.

Fishing a north Puget sound river last July. Wasn't really a fishing trip, just camping with my wife and some friends. Thought there might be some dollies around so I grabbed my ultralight trout rod and tied on a small black roostertail. I made a cast into a pocket where a small creek joined the river. A few cranks on the reel, and my rod doubles over. Up to the surface, shaking it's head was a 20# or so summer chinook. That fish took off like no tommorrow, and fought like crazy on such light gear. About 45 minutes later, I landed and released it. I couldn't believe that the 6lb. test I spooled on for shad fishing held.

Fishing in northern Canada we where motor mooching for kings with a single action knuckle buster in about 250' of water. I had 30 pulls of 17# line out with 14# leader, when a big hali decided to take my herring. An hour and fourty five minutes later I landed a 178 pound hali. To this day I dont know how the leader didnt snap. I'm not sure of it was the luck or punishment, it was almost not fun after an hour.

steelheadman,
That is cool. I doubt that there is any steelies in there now. I fished for kings down there 2 times this year and got 3 but they were all nasty , you know what I mean. oh, well they are good fighters.