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Posts: 32800
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | We had a few encounters on the Goon a while back. Were in a bay we call the Hawg Pen when we were suddenly attacked by a swarm of black flies like nothing I had ever seen. Immediately after that began, a really impressive bull moose crashed out of the woods completely enveloped in a cloud of flies, ignored us and walked out in the water until nearly totally submerged.
A while later, after finally losing the flies by running a half-mile with the motor, we saw what we thought was a black bear swimming across the lake, and went over to take a look. It was a wolf, and was not happy we were following.
The next morning we were casting around a back bay point that had a small cabin right on the water accessible only by boat. As we came around the point, the couple who owned the cabin was in lounge chairs sunbathing. They were looking for an all-over tan and just waved as we went by. Some people around the Goon back then seemed to be pretty nonchalant about wearing clothes. One old fella along the North shore seemed to like to take a bath while standing knee-deep in the water when Sue was out fishing with me. Looked right at us as we went by, and not only one time, either. Those who know what that water looked like back then would question anyone 'bathing' in it for motive.
Once coming around the back side of Andersen Island, Keith spotted a fox on the shore obviously distressed. We went in close, and a cormorant had gotten tangled in a walleye spinner, and the fox had gone for it. Ended up with a hook in the paw and was royally peed off. Keith managed to get the hook out without getting bit, and off went the fox without even a thanks. The comorant didn't make it.
Then there was crazy old man bay. He had wooden mushrooms of all sizes (BIG) along a path from the house to the lake, which I think was symbolic. Every single time we'd fish that bay, he would take 15 minutes to laboriously trek 100 feet down the walkway to begin screaming at us in German, with a grumbled 'hoook eeen my laaig' mixed in. Every time.
Was up fishing with friends, and we were doing really well on big pike in a bay up in Larson. A couple of ladies in a cabin would come down and swear at us like sailors, yelling to go fish Eagle. That Friday, before we left, we took a group polaroid and thumb tacked it to the dock with a 'We will miss you!' note attached. They sold the cabin that Fall. |
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Posts: 267
| Yep, I've seen bears and deer swimming. But the weirdest thing was a squirrel swimming across the river I was fishing. And I've seen it twice! Also had an osprey that wouldn't leave my fishing partner's topwater alone. |
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Posts: 157
Location: West Central WI | Up on LOTW and rounded a corner. Saw a big commotion on the water where a duck was being dragged while flapping his/her wings in shallow water. It managed to break free and tried to get to this small island about 10' away and it was hit again by an obvious muskie. Broke free a second time and made it to shore, although pretty ruffled and limping. We tried every day but never did catch that fish although we did have a nice blow-up. That spot is still in my GPS and is forever known as "Lucky Duck" |
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Posts: 3783
| Late June fishing LOTW out of Kenora. The sunset mosquitos are unbelievable. When they came up it sounded like a train in the distance. We're wearing rain suits, boots, Playtex gloves and head nets. Duct tape to seal the seams. Plus hosed down with deet. One time I took off my gloves, sprayed my hands and a moment later looked to see my wedding ring was covered with skeeters, they were sucking blood from under the metal. Close your hand in front of you face and open it to see 100 squished blood suckers. Clouds of skeeters. African Queen level #*#*, "Oh Rosy!"
So, about an 2 hours before serious skeeter time we see a convoy of yellow school busses roll into what turned out to be a girl/boy scout camp. The hundred or two kids bail out, we hear happy laughter, they are so excited to have arrived. Busses unload and leave. We hear the older scouts directing the kids to hurry and set tents but the kids are not moving very fast. Then the skeeters start coming up, the deep drone in the distance. Next thing we hear is the kids starting to scream, they are being eaten alive and there's nowhere for them to hide, the busses are gone. It was crazy and I don't know how it turned out because we had to book it back to camp.
The year before a guy in our camp got lost/stranded out by himself in his little boat after dark. He spent the night in the water, his 14' boat tied to shore and him hanging off the transom with just his face and an arm out of the water.
I hate skeeters. |
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Posts: 536
Location: deephaven mn | Fishing Vermillion in the chapter challenge, fishing the big reef in Daisy Bay.the one with 5 hazard bouyies on it and two rock stuctures sticking out of the water. I hear this hollering behnd me. I look back and there is a pontoon boat with four guys, They mooning us while one guy driving. I try to ignore them. They keep coming closer and are hollering "hey city boys check this out" they keep going and hollering. Wham they drive the boat up on to the rock reef that sticks out of the water. Loud crash, and they all fall on top of each other. I'm still laughing ten years latter. LOL!
I now call this spot four moon reef!
Edited by kap 4/20/2021 5:46 PM
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Posts: 8721
| This wasn't strange, but...
Fishing down near Osbourne bay on Eagle. For those of you not familiar: Stained water, LOTS OF STUFF to hit...
We're maybe 300 yards away from three guys in a 621 Ranger and they're running wide open. I look at my buddy and I say "wow. That takes a lotta balls. Not too many brains though, eh?" He looks up, back down and then jerks his head up again and he says: "oh ****! They're on the wrong side of that reef!!! They're gonna run right over the top of..."
Before he can finish his sentence, *WHAM!!* And then silence. Even from that far away the sound made my heart skip a beat. Okay, everybody's still in the boat. It doesn't look like anybody got hurt. We watch as the driver and passengers make their way back to the motor. The fact that they spent a good minute just standing there looking tells us all we need to know. They drop the trolling motor and beach the boat on the closest island. "All right. Let's fish out the spot and go get 'em. Not like they're going anywhere..." We turned around for a minute to make a couple casts and when we looked back they were on their way. Kickers are a good investment... |
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Posts: 1971
| Stupid things we've seen boaters do could be an entirely new topic I'm sure...Similar to Kap I saw two ladies completely high center a pontoon on Vermilion...to the point the prop was out of the water...I assume they thought I was waving frantically because they knew they were too close to where I was trying to fish....Felt bad went over and I tried to help, but there was nothing I was going to be able to do this boat was basically completely out of the water.. the cell phone call to their husbands didn't sound too pleasant  |
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Posts: 54
| On the Chip we saw the biggest snapping turtle. The shell was about 3 feet in diameter, the head about the size of two grapefruits , had to be older than dirt.
Back in another bay, just going in with the trolling motor, there's a bench on the far side with 2 teenagers getting it on. They finally realized we were there, he was not to happy he wasn't finished and she was putting her clothes back on!!! |
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Location: MN | A drunk waving at me as he ran over a trolling board going about 40. Headlock and board almost hit a lady in the head in the back of his boat.
A pike over 40 feet of water coming up to the boat mouth open with nothing in front of it and face planting the side of my boat trying to eat a ghost fish.
Saw some aliens night fishing at about 4 am. They seemed friendly. |
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Location: Vilas | On the Western Arm of Eagle in 1998....one big 30" wave came rolling ..... no boats around... no little waves before the wave or after.
1980ish, fishing Butternut Lake in Price county....was after dark and 2 disks hovered over the island, produced no sounds... a few dim lights on the bottom of each disk... didnt see them fly in, they were just there, hovered for about 7-8 minutes then they just disappeared |
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Posts: 20180
Location: oswego, il | I've seen rogue waves in the middle of LSC before. Boat wake type waves I think sometimes they collect and multiply. I seen a yacht a mile out from me once on lake Michigan bow to the sky and when his wake got to me while salmon trolling became 3 giant waves very close about 5ft high and had to really peddle them with boards out. I also don't think I've been on the big lake from Burnham or North Point and not several party balloons in the water.
Edited by ToddM 4/21/2021 9:30 PM
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Posts: 3136
| I saw bigfoot along the shore in a northern Minnesota lake!!! Then when I looked closer it was only Tony Grant,,, |
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Posts: 71
| Was fishing Lake Independence and saw an unmanned, runaway jet ski doing about 30mph go shooting onto shore, finally stopping about 25 feet up a hill. Luckily it found an area that wasn't developed. |
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Posts: 35
| In Canada like 2016, we had a Lynx swim across the lake like 1/2 mile in length. We video taped the entire thing. When we got too close for his comfort, he would face toward the boat. Then we would get further away. We certainly did not want that creature in the boat. When the lynx made it to shore it just sat there for a couple of minutes catching it's breath. It was a pretty large cat and really impressive to see. I had never seen one in the wild before. On our way back to camp that same evening we almost hit a buck swimming in the middle of the lake. Since there were no hazards we got almost on top of the deer before we saw him. We could see the fear in his eyes as he was trying to get away from our boat bearing down on him. That was a really cool evening and I don't think we even caught any muskies.
In N Wis I watched a bald eagle grab a seagull in mid flight and kill it. There were 2 eagles and a lone seagull following behind. The flew right over the top of us. The seagull was actually wanting a fish one of the eagles had. The eagle without the fish grabbed the seagull with it's talons and then let go. The seagull dropped in to the water like 60 yards from us. And it was dead when we got to it. Pretty crazy to see. Maybe crazier to see one seagull trying to get a fish from 2 eagles however? |
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Posts: 343
| Went out before light to try to hit it right for topwater bite. Drove past the turnoff, spotted an animal crossing the road just ahead. Looked closer and realized it was a mountain lion headed toward the part of the lake I was headed to to wade fish. Lots of brush and trees along that section of shoreline, decided to wait till after sunup to head into the water as I didn't want to become lion-chow. Foul-hooked a river otter one time, they are very ornery and not something you'd want on the end of your line, (but they fight very hard). Lucked out as it came loose before I had to deal with trying to unhook it. Had a bunch of barn swallows chasing a bug hatch where I was casting, on one cast a swallow chased my crankbait from behind as it headed through the air and grabbed it before it hit the water. Luckily it shook off, very impressed with the birds speed. |
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Posts: 1196
| Lots of the same stuff plus I saw a couple guys who ran out of gas and tried to ow there boat with a landing net. Gave them a tow to the gas station and when we got there my thanked us throw us a couple bucks and said "we did not fell like rowing"
Not a stick of wood in the boat . (paddle ECT) |
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Posts: 34
| I posted this on 4/17/2004.....
Out on the Fox Chain today I saw the #*^@dest thing. No not water skiers or jet ski's but an Audi out in the water. Up to about the top of the front tires. Now I guess that isn't so strange, but the only way the Audi could get to the water was to go through about 40 feet of grass, in between two trees (just wide enough apart for the car to get through) off a 5 foot retaining wall and through about 10 feet of "beach". The women driving the car (and yes it was a women because as we were viewing the car the tow truck showed up and the driver told us) tore off both side mirrors not to mention a ton of front end damage. Went and fished for a while and caught nothing. Went back to see the car, still there (just up the shore line from the Sand Bar on Marie by the channel to Bluff) but no tow truck. It will be interesting to see how they get it out.
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Posts: 375
| Two examples come to mind. Fishing at night usually after midnight have definitely seen UFOs on several occaisons. Second one involved fishing a shoreline around 6:00 in the morning. 2 elderly couples well over 65 walk down to the water, strip naked and go swimming. Did this on most mornings the week we were fishing. Reminded me of the movie Coccoon. |
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Posts: 102
| One early morning I was out fishing, super calm quiet day out. I was hearing this strange quiet sorta chomping noise in the bushes. I wasn't sure what the heck it was. Next thing you know, a big poplar tree comes crashing down about 50 yards up the shoreline from me. Busy beaver chomping down trees. Was pretty cool to see.
Another time I was guiding some kids in my boat at the lodge I worked at. We were fishing in a bay for pike. I saw something surface a cast length away from us and told them to cast over to whatever that was. Well, we didn't get any bites, so I slowly was moving closer, and saw it surface again. We got closer and closer, until right beside the boat was a massive pike with a huge whitefish in it's jaws struggling for life. And right under that pike, was an even longer pike that looked like she was waiting to steal that fish. It was so cool to see. We couldn't entice them to bite anything, they were quite preoccupied with their catch. So we just followed them around for about 5 minutes and watched as the bigger fish kept trying to slide up beside the other one, and steal that whitefish. Eventually both of them just slid down into the depths, I always wondered who ended up with the meal. |
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Posts: 20180
Location: oswego, il | I was fishing teal lake in Hayward for the first time. Stayed at a resort on the southeast corner of the lake. It was the last weekend for the resort before it was sold to a private owner. A another couple came to the resort as well. Casting after dark we started down that shoreline, as we went by the resort we could hear "oh #*#*" "oh #*#*" "oh #*#*". I kept a spotlight in that boat my dad wall all to happy to shine it under the swim platform to see them huddled naked under it hiding. Had to tell my dad to turn the light off. We never did see them the rest of the weekend, we were all spared that awkward moment.
At another resort on teal I was going back out for the afternoon/evening after going into town in the middle of the day. Swimming around the dock was a young couple with their daughter. All over the inside of my boat was handful globs of wet sand, one of them landed right in my Shimano reel. When I confronted them they completely ignored me like I wasn't there. They were gone by the time we got back from fishing.
Edited by ToddM 4/24/2021 10:11 AM
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Posts: 2236
Location: SE, WI. | ToddM - 4/24/2021 10:04 AM I was fishing teal lake in Hayward for the first time. Stayed at a resort on the southeast corner of the lake. It was the last weekend for the resort before it was sold to a private owner. A another couple came to the resort as well. Casting after dark we started down that shoreline, as we went by the resort we could hear "oh #*#*" "oh #*#*" "oh #*#*". I kept a spotlight in that boat my dad wall all to happy to shine it under the swim platform to see them huddled naked under it hiding. Had to tell my dad to turn the light off. We never did see them the rest of the weekend, we were all spared that awkward moment. At another resort on teal I was going back out for the afternoon/evening after going into town in the middle of the day. Swimming around the dock was a young couple with their daughter. All over the inside of my boat was handful globs of wet sand, one of them landed right in my Shimano reel. When I confronted them they completely ignored me like I wasn't there. They were gone by the time we got back from fishing. Todd; Now U Know why they call it the Big OH ;)
Edited by jdsplasher 4/24/2021 12:16 PM
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Posts: 2236
Location: SE, WI. | My dad And uncle took me on my first fishing trip to Pelican when I was 7. We stayed at the old Hitching post in mud bay. We fished for all species. We would fish perch with crab tails, and red worms. We went in for dinner. After finishing , went back out for the evening bite. Started to approach the pier as there was a Raccoon in our boat eating our live crabs. Dad threw his tiparillo cigar at the rascal. Coon picked up the cigar in his mouth, and ran under our cabin....sheesh. Didn’t sleep all night in fear the cabin would start on Fire;) True story! JD
Edited by jdsplasher 4/24/2021 3:58 PM
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Posts: 33
| Last year, a kit fox standing on a dock watching me fish |
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Location: Neapolitan Chain Of Lakes | First off..... Sudszee I wish I could unread that. Second, I understand and have a love/hate relationship with birds. I'm motoring to a spot and a handful of geese are flying overhead and as I admired their ability to fly and wondered about the possibilities if I could fly I felt a bean bag hit my foot. "What the %$#^?" I looked down and saw that the "green beanbag" destroyed my brand new kicks and obliterated my boat carpet. At that moment I hated geese. So later that day I'm trolling to another spot and going over an unmarked submerged rock pile that is 30 yards from shore. As I approached I see a goose directly over the rock pile gronking loudly and swimming as hard as possible but not going anywhere? I literally drove within a few feet of the angry goose flapping insanely and I was thinking "Ya know you have some gigantic goose stones to take a bomb dump on me from height and then defend an unknown rock pile from me ya turd!" As I slow rolled by I saw and realized that the "unknown" rock pile had an accumulation of baits wedged in the rock pile below and all that broken line from untold amounts of lures had ensnared the poor guy and he wasn't going anywhere. This is the part where half are thinking yea that serves him right and the other half are wondering if I did the right thing. I chose the latter and after pulling out my Buck knife slowly motored back to the struggling goose. As a side note, a mother and her young child were on shore watching this and I believe they were discussing what a man with a big knife was going to do to a gronking, flailing, angry goose tethered to something under water. I had no idea the cost and how wet one gets while cutting free a freaking out goose at close range! As the goose swam away to his awaiting gaggle further down the lake I swear he looked back at me as if to say "Thanks". As the mother pulled her hand from covering her child's eyes realizing the goose was saved rather than murdered (Joking of course) I realized how drenched I was and that all was well and in order once again on the lake. As I sat there thinking if taking my shirt off to dry would scare people I thought I should call my girl as she would be happy about this story and would score me some points with her. At that moment I realized somewhere in the midst of that battle my phone (Which was on the bench seat) somehow ended up in the lake. Dejected, I decided it was time to call it a day as I was pretty sure luck and fate had waved bye bye a long time ago. At least good luck! As I slowly motored back to the dock DEEP in thought I threw out a bait and promptly caught a 49 3/4" beauty pushing 40 pounds. Losing your phone setting a goose free = $400. Forgetting about everything because you caught a very nice musky = PRICELESS |
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Posts: 20180
Location: oswego, il | We booked a nylon rope today and on the other end was a 10lb Buffalo. Kept the rope which was very nice and fresh, released the fish.
Edited by ToddM 4/30/2021 6:17 PM
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Posts: 1126
Location: Minnesota. | Prolly shouldn't admit this out loud as it doesn't totally fit the topic but, I was in a jovial mood. Was in my Pro V, on plane with a buddy and my son on Lac Suel, early 90's. We were traveling between some islands and saw a few guys on an island having lunch (???).
Motored by and well - you know how sound is out on the water - above the motor noise I yelled to my son.."Wow, wonder if those guys saw that big ol' bear with her cubs in back of that bush!!!!" 11 seconds later all those boys were in their boat and blasting away from shore! Hilarious...
When we stopped to fish a few miles later my 10 yr. old looked at me told me I was a bit of a di..."Richard"... doing something like that. My buddy just smiled.
First time I think I've told that in nearly 3 decades.
On Vermilion 2 yrs ago we spotted a dog way out in the open water and figured he was in danger. He approached an island after we trolled up nearby to help him, which he didn't take to and kept swimming. He couldn't make it up the slippery rocks and seemed to struggle a lot. I was going to net him with my musky net but he kept at some distance when we got close. Nearing the island his owner whipped out another stick and off away from the island he went.
Poor critter. The guy just said he's okay as they were playing. Still think I should've questioned that...
Edited by Jeremy 5/2/2021 2:17 PM
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Posts: 115
| saw big cow stuck on a narrow patch of land not more than 2-3 feet, "trapped" between a steep rocky cliff and the wide river. so concerned I called the Police non-emergency number who said somewhat patronizingly "sir, I'm sure if the cow found a way to get down there it will get back fine". Guess I sounded to them like a city slicker in the country, one who never saw a cow stuck between a cliff and the river. |
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