about a twenty pound snapper turtle....thought it was a monster bass

yeah, luckily it came unglued at my feet...pretty freaky looking though...

good story Baldwin.

I caught this strange fish down in the keys till this day I have no idea what it was it was kinda shaped like a fat angel fish with whiskers like a cat fish and black and silver stripes....

Wish I had a pic. I didn't want to touch it at first wasn't sure if it had spines in secret areas

I snag a Butterfly kite with my Kastmaster off of the Canal two weekends ago.. Got a Skate this weekend on my firends boat (not too strange, but was my first ctach this year)..Then got three schoolies after around 20 inches... All released...

I was doing a little nightime freshwater bottom fishing from a canoe down in Peachtree City, Georgia on Lake Kedron landing 1/2 to 3lb catfish left and right on unpeeled raw shrimp. It was about 2 am, and I was out with my teenage cousin. It was midsummer so the water was about about 15 - 20 degrees warmer than the still night time air, so you can imagine the steam wafting off the surface, very eery. All of a sudden, my cousins rod doubles over hard!!! The run, was nothing like that of a bluefish or bonito or even a hooked channel cat, it was more like a keg of Heineken down a sloped drive way. We were only using 10lb line test so it was good 10 to 15 minutes (An eternity in the Freshwater fishing world) before what we thought was a huge catfish began to tire. As it neared the boat, I reached out to grab the line to haul the fish aboard, and out of the muddy water comes the biggest F****** Alligator Snapping Turtle I have ever seen! It had to be at 20lbs; the circumference of an office chair cushion. Its mouth, gaping wide, could have easily engulfed a softball. We were so startled we almost tipped the canoe. Needless to say we hastily cut the line and immediately went home. Breakfast was great next morning considering we brought home a nice bucket full of catfish.

The 50-foot Metal Wahoo
 

There've been so many, need to get rid of the cobwebs ... but the first thing that came to mind wasn't so freaky in a gross way, rather it was a freak accident ... I was fishing along Route 41 (Tamiami Trail) in Southern Florida with a buddy, we were targetting snook and baby tarpon and redfish in the canals on the Western side of the penninsula ... it's a well known adventure ... but this guy had gotten it down to a science ... I had borrowed his 5-weight fly rod with his prized Hardy fly reel ... my back was to the road and then some snook started popping in front of me ... I quickly went into a back cast at which time a giant Winnebago or other motor home came cruising by ... my prized Trail Minnow tied by another friend Mike Conner that had taken tons of fish in this type of situation wrapped around a pole latched to the motor home ... it all happened in slow motion ... I watched that fly wrap around and around until reality set back in and the motor home traveling more than 50 miles an hour zooomed off attached to Steve's fly rod, the reel handle was spinning a million miles and hour ... not wanting to break his Sage RPLX or his Hardy fly reel, I bowed to the vehicle and kept the rod as level to the road and in line with the fly line as I could until the leader the line parted - I think the leader broke, Steve was over my shoulder screaming at me to grab the reel, but I didn't want to break a finger ... the fly line was ruined and some parts inside the reel (I think it was the Pawl) essentially melted due to the intense friction ... Steve had to jury rig his reel to get it back ... I happily coughed up the dough to replace the line and contributed what I could to get his reel back to working order ... Steve yelled out, you hooked a 50-foot metal wahoo!

... also was fishing with my tarpon guide when he caught a brand new 12 weight Sage RPLX fly rod and Abel 4.0 fly rod ... we were pushing along an inlet and he looked over and said what's that? As I turned, he grabbed the tip of the fly rod and pulled up an outfit he still uses today ...