Off the hook!

[Yaker]

I'm in my kayak,all alone in a great crappie spot,when storming down the lake came two brothers I have seen fishing on other lakes I fish.Both brothers are in their 70's,but in pretty good shape.They are known as the hillbilly Smothers Brothers,a never ending comedy act in a boat.
They bellied up not far from me,crashing deep into a floating log pile.they were using minnows under a bobber.The brother in the stern,continually snagged around all the overhanging branches,as the brother in the bow,brow beat him for snagging so much.
After a bit the brother in front began throwing a fit,every time he put a minnow on,he never got a bite,but his minnow was gone when he reeled back in, this went on for over an hour.After losing most of their minnows,they finally found the problem,they had bought barbless hooks by accident,the minnows were flipping off during the cast,or wiggling off in the water.....
These are the same guys who were trolling for trout and one of them had lost his lure,but still had a couple split shot on,he didn't know his lure was gone.His brother kept catching,and he didn't,nearly caused a fight.

[PawPaw Gene]

Yaker your story reminds me of my Father in law and his fishing buddy. My Father in law was a prankster and his buddy weighted around 300 pounds. That weight made him a little awkward in the small boats they fished. So when ever there was a problem it was for to FIL to fix. One day while fishing in a weedy canal throwing H & H spinner baits with double hooks FIL's buddy kept getting fouled by weeds and would hang the bait in front of FIL to remove the weeds. After about a dozen times FIL easily slipped off the hooks without his buddy noticing. No more weeds for buddy but FIL was catching a lot of fish and buddy was missing a lot of fish. Finally buddy got tired of this and decided to check his lure. When he saw what had happened he exploded. The verbal abuse my Father in law endured could be heard for miles. Father in law laughed about it until his death. Both buddies have gone to there rewards and I miss the stories of their adventures, a book could be written.
"gene

[slackline]

This reminds me of a couple old fellows, they were brothers, that duck hunted near us often. The wouldn't even try to hide or camouflage themselves or boat. They had the worst sounding duck calls I have even heard. This earned them the nicknames of the Bugle Boys. In all the times I saw them hunting they only killed 2 ducks that were both shot on the swing while working our decoy spread. For the first year or so my hunting buddies would get pretty mad at them, after that it was comical. Like Laurel and Hardy. When one brother died the other never hunted again. We were all saddened by the emotional loss of the surviving brother. The memories of watching them hunt are some my buddies and I still talk about.

[skeetbum]

I have a lot of stories of things like this. Trying to explain these to someone who isn''t outdoors oriented just doesn't get across the divide. The friendships I've made and funny stuff that has happened along the way is almost more important to me than the fish themselves. Someone said "Going fishing when it isn't the fish they're after." Nuff said.