it's so cold there are not real fishing stories here, so sure why not   

Here are a couple to get started. I'll try to keep up with them & get 1 a day posted for you all to enjoy!    

Also, if any of you have an interesting/incredible story to tell, here is the website you can send your story to & possibly get it listed in next years calender! www.incrediblefishingstories.com


In 2007, off the coast of Kenya, an enormous black marlin was caught in a commercial fisherman's net. The marlin was too big for the scales, so it was cut into peices. The combined weight was an incredible 1,320 pounds. When factoring in the loss of fluids due to the unorthodox weighing, the marlin was estimated to weigh more than 1,400 pounds. Had it been caught on rod & reel, it would have set the new Kenya world record.


How well can a fish smell? Well enough to turn their noses up at certain man-made scents. Researchers at Outdoor Technologies Group tested fishy noses & discovered that fish do not like the smell of perfumes, sunscreens, nicotine, insect repellant, or alcohol. Keep that in mind the next time you're fighting off both bugs & a looming sunburn while pinning a worm to a hook.


There's a reason that most fly fisherman always wear sunglasses, even on cloudy days. In the spring of 2001, Joseph Daniel was in Baja, California, photographing a guide double-hauling a saltwater streamer into the surf. He'd taken off his sunglasses to better focus on the wide camera lens when the hook whiplashed off the sand & into Daniel's left eye. Hours later, after a frantic 2 hour ambulance ride, the hook was removed at a La Paz Hospital. Days later, Daniel flew home & underwent more surguries to repair his vision.

When eleven-year-old Devonte Martinez went fishing for crayfish in Coal Creek, Colorado, he caught a bundle of loot, two thousand dollars worth to be exact. Martinez hooked a stolen bank bag with the checks inside. He also found two other empty bank bags. Apparently, robbers had held up a Boulder restaurant the night before, & tossed the bags into the river, minus the thousands of dollars in cash. Martinez, however, was rewarded for his unusual catch with gifts & coupons for free meals at the restaurant.

Fourteen year old Cody Pierce was thirty minutes late for school on March 22, 2000, but his father didn't mind. That's because Cody had just landed the largest largemouth bass ever caught by a junior angler. Caught in San Diego's Lake Murray, the 17-pound bass set the International Game Fish Association's junior boy's world record, shattering the previous 7-pound 11-ounce record.

Jackpot fishing is a tradition on most open-party fishing boats. Dozens of anglers ante a small wager in hopes of winning the pot. But most charter boats require the jackpot fish to be cleaned & gutted after the official weigh-in to discourage cheating. Over the years, jackpot fish have suspiciously "swallowed" lead sinkers, extra-large & overly fresh baits, bananas, & even oranges - anything handy to increase the weight & win the prize.

Did you know that the most common Southern California party-boat catch is the barracuda? Back in 1985, there were only about 75,000 of these toothy brutes caught. Ten years later, it had risen to mare than 350,000. The trend continues today with calico bass & barred sand bass coming in second & third.

Did you know the Lake Meredith, in Texas, has been responsible for three state-record fish? What makes this distinction more incredible is that none of the tree fish is a nativ Texas fish. They are northern cold-water species. The records are for a smallmouth bass that weighed nearly 8 pounds, a walleye that weighed nearly 12 pounds, & a yellow perch that weighed just over 1 pound.

A 4-foot-long mako shark, tagged in Southern California in 1997, was recaptured by a Japanese commercial boat two years later in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The female shark had traveled more than 1,500 miles & grown 2 feet in length. It set the new world record for mako shark travel.

In 1993, Johnny Jensen had the chance to fish Russia's famed Ural River for sturgeon. Reports of water carpeted with the highly prized fish were rampant. Jensen was a bit skeptical, but remained hopeful. He wasn't dissappointed. The sturgeon were so thick, they were crashing the boats in search of bait. After boating a 200-pounder, Jensen hooked into a fish of a lifetime. Four hours later, after being pulled more than a mile into the Caspian Sea, the fish surfaced. It measued 12 feet in length. Minutes later the line broke, but not before the guide estimated the fish to weigh more than 1,700 pounds.

An incredible twenty-six of the thirty-one members of the all-tackle world record bass family have been caught in American waters. The largestis the now-protected giant sea bass, which was caught off Anacapa Island, California, in 1968. That fish weighed 563 pounds 8 ounces. The smallest all-tackle world record bass is the Ozark bass, which weighed 1 pound, & was caught in Bull Shoals Lake, Arkansas, in 1997. There's also the all-tackle Suwannee bass. This record bass weighed 3 pounds 14 ounces & was caught in Florida's Suwannee River in 1985.

Cole McClure thought he'd snap the picture of a lifetime when a group of free-jumping marlin broke the surface near the local charter boat Tracey Ann. McClure was fishing near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, when he raced onto the deck with his camera. Moments later, a free-jumping marlin crashed onto the boat & landed on McClure. The deckhand quickly subdued the marlin, but not before McClure suffered a bruised cheek & a black eye. No word yet on the state of the camera.

Texas fishing guide James Tremble was ecstatic when two of his anglers had each caught a tarpon in record time. Usually it took all day to find, hook, & land even a single tarpon. Not long after, sharks appeared & both anglers were hooked-up again. One shark, a five-foot spinner, was almost to the boat when the line went slack. The angler was reeling frantically when Tremble spotted something he'd never seen in all his years of fishing: a shark head.....& nothing else. Usually sharks attack smaller game fish like kings & tarpon, but this estimated 500-pounder had cleaved the spinner shark in a single bite!