What's Your Best Newbie Story

[ThePatriot]

I love taking first timers out on my Sea Ranger. Here's a video from a Coho run with a first timer.

He almost lost his rod and I've never heard anyone grunt as much while fighting a fish :)

What's your best story?

https://youtu.be/XRhfVtiJ9xM

[Hunter]

I had a newbie out and we were graphing a LOT of suspended fish and bait at a slack tide so I tossed out the idea that we might try mooching for them.

He says...."What's mooching for salmon?"

So being myself....I said.... "Mooching is where we just drive up to other boats and say.....hey, got any spare salmon?"

He looks at me incredulously and says......"and they just give them to you?"

I said.... "yep"

He says....  "Let's do that!"   

[JDB]

Hmm, my boy, though experienced in catching pinks and sockeye, had a lapse of a brain when catching small rainbows.  We'd been catching nice size rainbow trout all morning long, when we got our first double.  My Pop playing the first fish saw the second one bite, my boy snatches the rod out of the holder, still watching Pop, and just throws the rod overboard*plop*.  Me, totally in disbelief just sat there watching, somewhat dumfounded.  I'm sure we just lost a fishing rod,pull up the downrigger and what do I see still clipped in?  The fish didn't release the line off the clip.  Me saying nothing, hand over hand pull in the line, pole, And the fish!  I think my boy was 11; we still tease him about it (he's 18 and off to WSU) and will probably do so for life.

[Crackerbox]

Had a friend from Idaho come fishing and he reeled in a huge red jellyfish.  I didn't know it but he was taking it off the flasher.  When he was done, he decided to go pee and not rinse his hands after taking off said jellyfish.  He was hurting for a while.

Joe

[Batsquatch]

Not a newbie on my boat but a guy I ran into on the water outside of Sequim Bay.  He was is a dinghy heading toward a sailboat beached on the shallow bar right outside the bay.  I swung by and asked if he needed any help.  He didn't think so since he was pretty sure the incoming tide would get him unstuck.  We talked for a few and he was obviously totally new to "sailing."  He needed a cheap place to live while he worked in town but admitted he knew nothing about the boat.  His question about made me fall overboard.  He said "I dropped the anchor but it didn't hold.  Does it need to go all the way to the bottom or just in the water?"