What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you while fishing?

My story involves a big bass, two worms, and one hook

If you fish often enough, you’re bound to have some crazy things happen while on the water. I’ve had a few strange occurrences myself, but one really stands out as the craziest I’ve ever experienced.

Let me preface this by saying that I stopped telling this story years ago because not only did people not believe it, it caused them to question everything else I said. If I’d fib about this, what else was I fibbing about? The truth is, it wasn’t a fib at all.

I was fishing for bass in a Lee County, South Carolina farm pond with my friend Richie Boykin. We had the bass dialed in that day. If they weren’t hitting my weedless red plastic worm, they were hitting his, and these weren’t small fish. We were catching 4 and 5 pounders, 3 pounders were a nuisance, and whenever we got a 2 pounder close to the boat, we were trying to shake them off to get to the good stuff.

But the crazy thing happened as I released a bass just as Richie set the hook on one in some lily pads about 20 feet from the boat. I decided not to make another cast so that I could watch the show. This fish fought on the surface, and it became obvious this was a bigger fish than we’d tussled with so far that day.

Just as it looked like Richie was getting the upper hand, the big fish jumped, made a huge splash, and Richie’s line went slack. As he reeled in with his shoulders slumped, he held up his empty hook.

“He got my worm,” Richie said.

I made a cast to the exact spot I’d last seen his fish. Bam! I was immediately hooked up. The fish fought at the surface, causing lots of splashing and commotion. An even bigger splash halfway to the boat and ugh! My line went slack.

I reeled in, defeated, and my jaw dropped when I saw my hook. It not only had my worm still on it, it also had Richie’s worm.

I fell to the bottom of the johnboat.

“He put your worm on my hook!” I said.

The only thing stranger happened when I told Richie nobody would ever believe this story.

“Yeah they will,” he said as he put another worm on his hook and prepared to cast, “why wouldn’t they?”

What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you while fishing?