Ok heres one..."What is the Dumbest thing you've ever seen a Googan do in the surf?"

[GP100]

Some great stories here. I don't have anything as good as launching a poodle into the bay but have seen some interesting things. I was fishing a sandy beach this fall. Decent schoolies were being cooperative. The surf was not super rough, but decent waves. This guy fishing off to my right was not wearing waders. He would run to the waters edge on a receding wave, cast, then run up into the beach to avoid getting wet. That was amusing, but what was really strange is that on the retrieve, when the plug was just at the edge of the surf, he would race to the plug while reeling in slack, lift the plug, and race back up the beach. Wash, rinse and repeat. No clue why he didn't just reel the plug in. I was getting tired just watching this guy running back and forth all morning.

 

Once on a party boat back when jigging up 10-15# bluefish all day was the norm, we were having a great day. All you needed to do was drop a diamond jig, reel up, and you would hook up. This guy tied a jig on, then tied a bank sinker above it. He just dropped his rig down and held bottom. They were so thick he did catch one fish, to my 30 or 40.

[scoobydoo]

21 hours ago, oc1 said:

I hate it when someone at the pier is using the clicker as a cast control brake.... over and over, all night long.

-steve

My bad

[Tyger92]

A few years ago there was a steady run of 15+ pound blues. While I was unhooking one a Russian guy walking by stopped and asked “is that a bluefish?”.. I said yeah.. Then he pulls out a butter knife (why he had a butter knife I don’t know) and said “let me look in his mouth”.. Okay... He looks around for a few seconds, really inspecting it thoroughly like some kind of fish dentist and says “I lost two lures last week” and walked away. 
 

Earlier this year I was catching/releasing some smaller 5lb blues while a group of guys next to me who didn’t speak much English weren’t having any luck. Eventually one of them asked if he could have one, I said yeah and unhooked my fish, grabbed it by the gills with one hand and the tail in the other. I handed him the tail first and said “grab it behind the head, they’ll bite you”.. he started to position towards his mouth and I kinda pulled back and said “watch out, they have teeth” and tilted it more so he could grab it properly - he shook his head and I assumed he understood this time. So I go to hand it to him again and sure enough he stuck his thumb right in its mouth. He had a plastic/medical glove on and it filled up with blood in seconds. Live and learn. 

[CLFish5]

3 hours ago, Tyger92 said:

A few years ago there was a steady run of 15+ pound blues. While I was unhooking one a Russian guy walking by stopped and asked “is that a bluefish?”.. I said yeah.. Then he pulls out a butter knife (why he had a butter knife I don’t know) and said “let me look in his mouth”.. Okay... He looks around for a few seconds, really inspecting it thoroughly like some kind of fish dentist and says “I lost two lures last week” and walked away. 
 

Earlier this year I was catching/releasing some smaller 5lb blues while a group of guys next to me who didn’t speak much English weren’t having any luck. Eventually one of them asked if he could have one, I said yeah and unhooked my fish, grabbed it by the gills with one hand and the tail in the other. I handed him the tail first and said “grab it behind the head, they’ll bite you”.. he started to position towards his mouth and I kinda pulled back and said “watch out, they have teeth” and tilted it more so he could grab it properly - he shook his head and I assumed he understood this time. So I go to hand it to him again and sure enough he stuck his thumb right in its mouth. He had a plastic/medical glove on and it filled up with blood in seconds. Live and learn. 

Dr. Bluefish 

[carangua]

This happened on a boat, a ferry leading us on an island for fishing, one passenger took the opportunity to troll a Rapala Magnum during the ride, why not? the area holds wahoo, sailfish, marlin and other pelagics.

As he tossed the big lure in the wash with his conventional reel on free spool, it went on over speed and a nice bird's nest formed while the lure is running about 90 yards away. 

So he grabs the braid forming loops with his bare fingers attempting to untangle the mess..

Had any strike occurred at that moment his fingers would have been toasted. Thankfully nothing hit and he got away with it.

 

Another real googan move I saw is when I was standing on a wall separating lake from land inspecting the area, two gents beyond retirement age fishing for pike with floater and live bait. One of them retrieves his line slowly and a decent 3foot + pike grabs his bait, the guy is not seeing what is happening and  thinks his rig is stuck in the weed, so he pulls gently but firmly to free it..the pike let the bait go and the guy resumed reeling in...then the pike goes back at it and grabs the fish a second time...the guy thinks he is stuck again and pulls softly to release what he thinks is stuck..the pike lets go again and the gentleman tells his partner cursing let's get out of here to another place, this spot has too much weed...

 

 

[PSegnatelli]

Once saw a guy drop an anchor in outflow of a dam that was really ripping. 

 

Thankfully the other guy on board was quick and cut it off.   

[ermghoti]

Second hand googan story from a bait shop. The proprietor used to regale me with stories of some of the more confused people that came through there. He tried to mimick accents, as appropriate to the tale. One guy showed up asking how to catch "strised batch." He set him up with a rig, tackle, bait, and a couple hot spots. The guy came back with his hand mummified in a bandage. The shop owner asked "what happened to you!?" He replied "strised batch... no strise!"

[Ebbtide231]

Then there was the guy in Capitol Tackle when they were on 23rd Street who picked up a rod from the rack & stuck it into the big pedestal fan.....

PING PING PING!

 

Or the guy on the open fluke boat out of Captree who insisted on casting even though he didn't know how and was too drunk to learn.

The mate tells him to stop.

PO'd the guy goes to cast again and throws the whole rig into the drink. Rod & reel gone daddy gone.

Of course it's the boat's rod.

Mate tells him that he'll get another but he's got to stop with the casting.

Guy takes the second rod and goes to cast it right away "Hochit!"

Tosses the second one in.

Calls the mate over and demands a third outfit.

Mate says no.

Guy gets loud.

Captain comes down and makes the guy sit in the cabin for the rest of the trip.

 

 

[jeffapeikin]

Brought a guy to fish the surf with me. Wanted to give him a try. Gave him waders amd a 11 surf rod. I recall him staggering across the sand to the surf in stocking foot waders walking in just the booties, fishing with the reel upside down, letting a swimmer float in the surf, casting the swivel through the tip, and breaking the tip. 

Another googan moment I can recall is from my childhood attempting  to filet a carp . Didn’t happen. 

Edited December 24, 2020 by jeffapeikin

[matt boyer]

Seen a couple at the beach casting high low rig with buck tails on top and bottom about 10 to 20 ft sometimes only a few feet in the surf and putting the rods in sand spikes then sitting 30ft away. Was pretty wild they caught nothing.

[Captain Ahab]

When I was maybe 10years old and crazy to fish there was a mill pond/lake a few miles from home.  My mom was the early riser in the family and I would convince her to take me there as early in the morning as I could.  

 

She would fish right with me.  One morning I am having a blast with earthworms and floats.  I think mom had enough of impalling worms and she went into the tackle box and found a mackerel jig tube and tied that under her bobber.  

 

I gave her a hard time as, even at ten, I knew that was not right.  As mom is reeling in a monster pickerel smashes the tube.  She lands what is still one on the biggest fish I have seen from that pond.

 

My mom was no Googan

Edited December 24, 2020 by Captain Ahab

[sea jay]

I snagged something, put up a pretty good fight, took me 10 minutes to reel it in, turned out to be a white beach towel, my buddies were hysterical with laughter!

[AirBend]

A few years ago I saw a guy huck a fairly large whole frozen mackerel maybe 15ft into the surf. His setup was a freshwater rod and he had no rig. It was just a hook and line. How he landed a near keeper class fish I will never know.