Your Best Fishing Story

[Gerry Zagorski]

I'll get us started here...

For probably 15 years we'd get a big group of guys, rent four or five boats, get some groceries and drinks stay at a house on one of the 1000 Islands in upstate NY.

We knew the place really well and always had great trips casting Benos, Mister Twisters Spinners, Spoons and drifting live bait for huge Smallmouth and Pike.
This particular year was different. 2 days into our 5 day trip none of us had a single fish after throwing everything we had in our tackle boxes at them.

I got really frustrated and decided to take one of the boats to town, picked up my car and drove to the 1000 Islands bait store looking for some advise. I tell my story to the guy behind the counter and he walks me right over to the isle and says, try these Panther Martins, we usually do well with them. So I picked up a few and headed back to the Island but was not very confident.

The very next morning no one is catching anything again and I put on a clinic with these lures. The same day everyone goes to town and we wipe out their entire stock of Panther Martins and they drove to another store 10 miles away and wiped out their stock too. Now everyone was bailing the fish and it saved our trip.

Needless to say me and the guys never go anywhere without a supply of these particular Panther Martins.

[thmyorke1]

one of the many Three Amigos adventures:

Camping by Adirondack lake for lake trout, before Brandon arrives, Nick is scanning the lake and picking apart some good areas that should hold lake trout for tomorrow's fishing adventure.

We wake up and have high hopes, Nick finds fish and we start to jig. But unfortunately, they're picky, sometimes reacting to jigs, often not.

Mark after mark on the fish finder, some big ones, the hours go by and nothing is getting happening. I recall a bite or two.

We take a break and try to regain confidence in shallower water for bass/panfish. Not a lot of bass and we end up just finding Yellow Perch. The size of 3-5 inches.
Out of desperation, I catch and keep a few of these smaller ones into an empty cookie container that we collectively demolished (we love cookies) and filled with water.
The perch are chilling in this container for just a few minutes when we go back out for lakers. Before putting one on a hook, nick is scanning around looking for lake trout to drop on. Moving around so quickly, the jig I had casted out is now essentially trolling at the perfect level and speed, and before I know it I am tight on a fish.
Everyone is going nuts, we finally cracked the code.

And before the fish is even at the boat, I look to the few perch in the cookie container and demand "screw live bait, BE FREE! Perch, you are liberated!" and dumped them back into the lake. We land the fish, and that was the only laker we saw that whole trip. Nothing else worked that day. Maybe the liberated perch would have

This moment was titled the great Perch Liberation of 2021

[crewchief2]

Over the years, i have taken countless kids fishing, whether it be nieces and nephews or just friends. So one Christmas, one my nieces who was around 10 at the time, bought me a lure for Christmas. It was one of the scariest, ugliest lures i ever saw, but being the good uncle, i ohhed and ahhed over it and even kept it in my tackle box, just is case she ever asked. It was the shape of a cigar, hard plastic with a prop on each end, and i cant even say what color since i have never seen the color anywhere before. So one day, out on the water with my brother and we cant buy a bite, throwing everything we have at them. So i look down and see the cigar, and figure what the heck. My brother says you're not really going to tie that on are you? Well, 15 minutes and 4 fish later, and now he's asking to give it try. Sometimes it just something they havent seen before.....And im sure they never saw that one.