The black box thread got me thinking about this one.....

I'd say the best one recently was during silver season in area 4. We were sitting over a MAJOR school of bait and krill. The silvers were thick and only about 10 feet down, but agressively feeding. My buddy and I were casting and stripping clousers and getting nearly a fish a cast. My friend broke one off and lost his last fly. He has a tendency to get violently seasick IF he looks down for too long. So, being the good friend I am, I always tie a new lure/fly on for him rather than watch him puke for an hour or so.... I tied on a fresh clouser for him and he started casting. Bam! big hit, missed fish..... next cast....Bam! big hit, missed fish.... this went on for about five minutes. He was ranting and raving "%^&$ I saw that fish t-bone the fly and I missed him!" "I cant buy a fish right now"! Being the nice guy I am... I suggested he sharpen his hook. When he pulled it in and went to sharpen it, there was no point on the hook! I cut it off just below the barb! when he realized what happened and turned around to give me hell, I was laying on the deck doubled over laughing! It was a riot. I still laugh just thinking about it! (disclaimer.... we were IN the fish that day, so this was an appropriate time to pull the hookless fly out of the box...not recommended for tough days fishing...someone could get hurt when the only fish of the day is missed!)

One time a friend and I put in on the Wynooche at spot where access is a bit tough, requiring that the trck and trailer be parked a couple hundred yards from where you launch. While my buddy went to park the rig, I started fishing a sweet little seam right there and on the second cast got a good set on a nice little steelhead about 7 pounds. When I heard my buddy's footsteps I lowered the rod and gave the fish slack, and it settled into a hole. As he approached I told him that I was such a good steelheader I could catch one at will. He said something I can't remember what, and just after I reeled some and lifted the tip sharply and yelled "fish on!" The fish went nuts of course, and after a few minutes I had it on the beach. My buddy just looked at me wth a grin and said "You sonofa*****, you could have waited until I got back!" It proved to be the only fish of the day.

The scene:

First light on a PRIMO run fishing winter steelhead. Seclusion and it's only me and my partner. We KNOW the fish are there. We get out of the truck to pull waders on, eyeballing each other the whole time to see who would be ready first and thus, get first crack at the water. You've all been there and know the drill. You want to come across as gracious but you also want to be first to cast.

On this morning, I play it casual and offer to let my partner start first. He doesn't hesitate and upon making his first cast, watches his entire rig part ways with the mainline and go sailing into the trees. I say "bummer!" and cast, hooking a fish right away. He was displeased to say the least. Amazing what a carefully constructed nick in the mainline can do to an overzealous partner. After laughing for an appropriate amount of time, I clued him in and made sure he was given time to even the score with the next fish. We both limited so no harm done.

Now, I always see him running his fingers on his mainline before we start.........priceless.

We were down on the Columbia fishing for sturgeon and my buddy was having a ball catching subs all day, but he had been up partying most of the night before, so he would sometime doze off between bites, so my friend tied some line around my buddies mainline and strung it around the back of his seat and held the line in his hand until our friend came to a little. Then he gave it a little bump bump to catch the drowzy ones attention, then he just let her rip. My friend damn near fell on his face trying to get to the rod, he thought he had shamu down there hooverin his smelt. Needless to say he doesn't fall asleep in the boat so often anymore.

I like to clean up the blood in my boat witha sponge and a bucket. Save a quart or two for awhile and then piss in the bucket. You should see the looks I get when I empty the bucket.

Well a few years back my buddy and I decide that it is always more fun to go several days after the trout opener for a little competitive catch and release, so we are at the boat launch at a local lake… my buddy said he would go park the truck incase I needed to move the boat for another boat to launch… so I am standing on shore waiting for him to get back… I am looking at these lily pad and I see this Traditional Red & White Bobber slowly moving around amongst the pads…

So, my buddy gets back and I saw “Hey let’s make it fun this time… Let’s put $5 on the first fish caught and the $5 on the first fish in the boat…” and he bites like a winter starved brown… “Ok…!” he says.

So, I say “You launch and I will row”… In we go, I start rowing out between the pad and he is quickly getting his gear ready, with a grin and thinking that I must be a fool volunteering to row after the bet, because he will be able to cast as soon as we get to “our spot”…

Now, I am watching that bobber… and casually making some intentional rowing errors to put me close to the bobber… then as he looks down one more time to finish a knot, I make 2 quick strokes, slide to the side of the boat and grab that bobber! Up I start pulling the line all the while that trout is kicking and fighting… My buddy just sits there looking at me… I finish the retrieve and pull in a nice 14 rainbow right into the boat…

I look right at him and say “Well you owe me $10!” and start to laugh…

At this point is when the back peddling started for him… trying to change the bet… saying I cheated… I couldn’t stop laughing…

Never did get the $10 but… remind him in front of friends all the time about how he doesn’t pay up on bets…!

A couple of years ago over on the Hoh I was fishing with my main fishing partner. We came to the pullout with no fish landed. He had to take the truck up to get the trailer, so as he left I told him I would have a steelhead in the box when he got back. I had been telling him all day to try a corkie with roe, and he wouldn't. Right after he leaves, I catch a nice 9 pound hatchery hen, and put it in the box. He gets back, we put the boat on the trailer, and I said to him, " You might want to look in the fish box" The names he called me.... when I told him I caught it on--a corkie and roe.

After a good day of fishing on the carbon and limiting out on pinks one of my fishing buddies came walking up with his stringer of fish. I looked at his fish and said hey you can only keep four fish. He says I know that's all I have. I said you need to recount there. So he looks and counts, "one, two, three, four....five?...five?" Then he found the one that had been dead for about a week with the skin sloughing off and no eyes that I slipped on his stringer when he wasn't looking. I did have a heart and told him before he humped it all the way back to the car. I'm waiting for the payback.

My Dad and I were fishing on the Satsop. We pulled the boat up to a gravel and made it sure it was secured well. We walked alittle ways down the bar and start fishing. I tell my dad that natures calling and I'll be right back, so I queitly sneek up to the boat. I push it of the bar so it is in the current then I hop in. I'm lying down on the floor of the boat, My Dad looks up and sees the boat floating down so he runs out in the water, so he is now up to about chest as he grabs the boat, just as he grabs the boat I pop up and just start crackin up. He still hasn't gotten me back yet but I'm sure he will.

We were fishing the Chehalis for kings many years ago, nice warm weather, using eggs and floats. We catch about 25 Squawfish during the day, and Paul makes me keep them all.

As we row up to his dad and friend, Paul grabs a squawfish and hucks it at his dad. Apparently this is common between Dad and son, because Dad starts huckin' squawfish back at us, a few at a time. They must have had twice as many because it seemed like a never ending shower. Yuck!

Later that day Paul asked me if I had found all of the squawfish. Unfortunately I hadn't, as he had tucked one into my tackle box. I found it three week later. Can you say stinky jerky?

I got him back, 4 years later. Same thing. Revenge was sweet!

Fished the Willapa many years ago with some non-fisherman co-workers who were not equipped (in more ways than you might imagine).
Anyway, when it came to discussing boots, one of the guys complained that he only had knee boots and wouldn't be able to cross the river with the rest of us.
Naturally, I suggested that he duct-tape his knee boots to his rain pants.
He did!

Up north at the resort I work at (with 24 other guides) we've been known to play a few practical jokes, 1 that I've pulled off a time or 2 is to zip tie another guides net to his hand rail (when he's crew fishing, not with guests) with a little bearing grease on the handle.

While fishing with other guides you never turn your back on any of them while fighting a fish as your reel my be thrown into free-spool at any time.

Any time you get the chance to smash another guys freshly baited hook, you take it, especially if there's a hot bite going on.

Two years ago I was fishing for pinks at Kayak Point out of my drift boat with my wife and then-five-year-old.

I was doing alright casting flies, but the guy in the next boat over was absolutely slaying them with a light spinning rod and pink marabou jigs. I mean just fish after fish. Unfortunately, his buddy couldn't buy a fish. Our hero did everything he could for the poor guy, switching sides of the boat, giving him jigs, I think they may have even swapped rods.

Nothing worked for the poor guy. That's when things got funny, and I hope I can describe this right. I look over and the guy has another fish on. His partner can't even look anymore he's so bummed. So our hero holds his rod close over the back of his partner's head, so that the fighting fish makes the rod repeatedly slap the guy on the top of his head. It took the poor sap a few seconds to realize what was happening to him. I think he thought a bird was attacking him. Talk about adding insult to injury!

I laughed my butt off, mostly because I couldn't believe it had never occured to me. I mean, it just made so much sense. I'm still waiting for the opportunity to try it out. It seems like to make it really pay off you should wait until you're absolutely bricking your partner.

man zip tying the net to the rail is great....leads me to think of zip tying the rod into the rod holder.

When my brother was alive he used to fall asleep all the time on my boat. I used to drop herring in his mouth head first when he really started to snore with his mouth open.

I've done this a couple of times when my buddy's taking a leak in the boat. Have a length of line with a snap swivel tied to one end. When he's busy preparing to whiz, slip the open swivel over his line between the reel and the first eye and give it a couple of hard tugs once he gets a good stream started. Fighting a non-existient fish with your pecker hanging out. Pretty funny.

Warning: If you're in the boat with me, NEVER take your eyes off your pole.

Oh you guys are killing me! This is some great ammo for the coming season.
The best thing I ever pulled was slipping a sand shrimp in my buddy's ham and cheese sandwich... It still makes me laugh just thinking about it. This is the kind of guy that smells EVERYTHING before he tastes it and won't touch left-overs more than a day old. he is always screwing with my drag while the rod is in the holder when I am not looking and I always try to throw him off balance with erratic oar stroke when he is least expecting it, you know the usual immature stuff while you are fishing.

This joke was pulled on my 10 year old son by guide on the Kenai a few years ago. My son a freind and his son Jake went fishing on the Kenai with a Guide R.W.
Fishing was slow the Boys had curled up and had fallen a sleep on the boat seats. So the guide says it looks time for the Bucket trick. So he reeled in my sons line and clipped on a 5 gal. bucket lossen his drag and turned on the clicker. He gunned the kicker motor and yelled fish on!!
Both boys jumped from their sleep my son grabs his pole and starts reeling with drag set losse the bucket was making a hell of a run. We told Jake the other boy to get the net ready and told my son it looks like you have a big king, so after about 10 min. he statrted to gain on this bucket and the other boy sees the bucket and" says it's a bucket". By the look on my son face you would have thaught someone had just shot his dog. The Guide says maybe there is a fish the bucket my sons reply was there better be. We got the whole thing on video we still look at every once in while and get a good laugh.

I played this one on my best fishing/hunting bud several years ago and I had him hook line and sinker. We had been catching a few steelhead and heard of some big runs coming in on the Cedar river. I took a week day off and went fishing with my dad, next day I told the story to him. I told him that we had went to new spot just up from the lake by a boeings bridge. We hooked one fish after another. I would hook one and fight it on down river, then my dad would hook one and this went on and on. The fish just kept moving into the hole. I think I said I actually landed 15 steelhead and my dad landed 19 and we lost a few others. And the fish were all big and wild. I told him he should have been there. I think it was the last day of the season, which is now closed. I had him on the edge of his seat (literally) when I dropped the APRIL FOOLS on him. It was great, best joke I ever played cause it worked.
Kerry, do you ever think you can get even with me?

I was at Katmai Lodge with Bill Herzog a few years ago. The fishing was phenomenal. We landed absolutely chrome bright chums, one after another for four days. Still I was bummed that I had to leave on a morning flight while my buddy got to fish all that day. While waiting for my flight and Bill was at breakfast I removed all the line from his reel. Then I carefully refilled the reel with five sections of line that were not attached to each other. It was a pain getting the line wrapped on the spool without any loose ends sticking out. But I had several hours to get it done. The last piece I spooled on was about 75 feet from the end to the first cut. The next was and all the rest were about 100 feet between cuts.

A few days later Bill called to tell me that on his first cast he lost all the first section of line and his lure. He figured it was some sort of nick and simply tried on a new lure. The second time it happened he knew he had been had. I know he will work out a payback some day.

I used to go to Buffalo Lake on the Colville a couple times a summer with my dad and brother and a couple cousins. We'd be sittting in the boat in the middle of August stillfishing and just cooking(pretty hot in the summer). I decide to slip over the side and swim out away from people's lines to cool down when I notice my cousin is just fixated on the tip of his rod. He has no clue what's going on around him so I quietly swim back toward the boat, slip under the water and grab his line heading for the bottom. We've caught trout up to about 7# there so he thinks he's got Walter on for a few seconds until I come up just howling. Couldn't hold my breath any longer I was laughing so hard.
To this day I'm still known as the Dickfish!