What are some of your most memorable newbie mistakes made while fishing?

Everyone is bound to have a few. If you're not too proud to share them I'd love to hear them. Doesn't matter if it was you or someone elses. This might likely end up pretty funny!

2008-05-12T16:54:33Z

So far great stories from all---Lori H you got me crying here...Funny stuff!

Anonymous2008-05-12T16:27:18Z

Favorite Answer

Trying to get a lure out of a tree.......................Holy Crap!!!!!
Forgot snakes are in trees, son of a bit..biscuit eater.
Broke rod all to pieces beating snake while trying to balance on motor. Made him real mad. I would be able to afford many boats and rods if I only had video. Finally pinned that sucker's head to the floor and jumped on it and then was scared to get off of it, you know they still move even after death. I ground that snakes head into the carpet until it was grease.....sh....shucks it still moved even when the head came off due to excessive grinding.
I just went home after that.

Anonymous2008-05-13T10:54:46Z

Wow newbie, it was a long time ago, even though it doesn't seem it, mainly fly fishing involving hook ups in the back of the head with an ultra light and equally as sharp dry fly, always use barbless, even now we can still have problems, and that applies to all of us. Not so long ago i lost a whole sage performance taper 3wt to the trees on my back cast at my favorite brook, but because of the large amount of brown trout and very little people fishing it it does pay off, i tried for an hour and 30 minutes trying to untangle that fly line, should have used my shorter brook trout rod and not got so excited to cover a rising trout,even though Ive been doing it a long time there is still that rush you get which just keeps fishing that little more exciting. Ive also thrown allot of car keys into many rivers and lakes, i always make sure they are in a safe pocket in my fly vest, some how they always find a way out, Ive even clipped them to a zinger and they still come out, i always have spare car/truck keys but the electric key immobilizer etc can get expensIve to replace when you lose it three times a year, there must be a better way, ive tried the floating key buoys but the river carries them away.

Chimp Dancer2008-05-12T17:17:38Z

I have a few Exert, I'm not too proud of some but it's just too darned funny to not share.

1) I was fishing for Snook at a local spot and decided to freeline a live mullet. That bait swam around for a good 15 minutes before my clicker on the reel starting sounding. I'm rushing to get to the reel, I set the clicker, set the lever from free spool and the battle began. I'm hollering," oh yeah, it's a nice one...I'm eating good tonight!" Well, all that changed when my supposed fish took flight...turned out to be a Comerant swimming under the water that stole my bait. I went from battle mode to shock as I was now fishing a bird from out of the sky. Every one is laughing and saying, " sea chickens don't count!!" I had to leave, it was torture! This is the most recent, about 2 months back.

2) I go fishing with a friend of mine on Card Sound road. There's no lights out there so it get's very dark fast. The only lights are either from a lantern or a passing car.Well, we caught our limit of Snapper and decided to head home. As I reached the car, I turned off the lantern. We were blinded and couldn't see anything. He starts freaking out and says," hurry up man, open the door." I make a loud grunting sound and move my feet fast in the dirt and then all I hear is stuff dropping and fast foot steps. After what seemed like a minute, I turn on my flash light to see the key hole. I open the door and look for my friend. He's no where to be found but there's all his gear on the floor. I'm calling out to him and nothing.I start getting worried and crank the lantern and do a full search of the area. After awhile I jump in the car and start looking with the high beams and sure enough, there he was about 1/4 mile up the road running in the dark. TRUE Story!! HE was so freaked out that I had to assure him that I made that grunting sound by replicating it several times. He never went back there again and I think he's still pissed about that one, hasn't called me back in 4 years.

3) last one in hall of shame.

I make a cast and the line slipped off my finger. The line flew backwards and I ended up catching a woman by the shirt. She's freaking out because she now has a large, dead, butterflied mullet hanging off her back. She's running and pulling drag of the reel and all I can do is hold my fishing rod while she runs. It was insane, she wouldn't stop running around and all I could do was play her like a fish. I was about 20 years old when that happened.

There ya go Exert, the good bad and ugly from the Chimp Dancer. LOL.

MR. T.2008-05-13T05:56:07Z

Newbie mistakes huh? well I am to old to remember that far back. But I made a classical mistake about 3 months ago, that can be considered a newbie mistake repeated. Friends and I went to a trout (stocked pond) for a day of bank fishing, after I caught the 1st fish I realized I didn't have a basket, or stringer. As I was about to improvise using fishing line from my tackle box my friend gave me a stringer to use.
Keep in mind I had 2-3 poles, and 2 big tackle boxes and another fairly large tackle box with nothing but power baits of every color in the rainbow everything but a stringer in them (way too much gear)!

PITX52008-05-12T15:58:34Z

I had just learned a "new method" for fishing for salmon in the Pacific Northwest. It involved using a piece of glow tape or a lure that glows. Kastmasters, larger sized little Cleo's and others are popular lures for this method. I had just used a camera flash to "prime" my lure. I drew back to make my first cast and promptly buried my Kastmaster in a bush behind me. If you have never used a casting real then you can really not appreciate the quality of "bird's nest" which resulted from this error. My two fellow anglers, also both "veterans" had difficulty casting after this, due to excessive laughter at my expense. However, there was a happy ending! I used a spare rod and reel, with the same lure and promptly landed a 25 pound King salmon. They stopped laughing at that point and concentrated on fishing.

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