I’ve caught up. And I’ve caught on. I’ve caught a cold and I’ve caught a break. And I’ve caught some things that were not a fish. Today we honor some of our Nekid Fisherman friends who have caught a host of unusual and unlikely trophies and thereby gained admittance to the “Not-A-Fish” Hall of Fame (NAFHOF).

We have strict rules for submitting a NAF application. First, you have to be actually trying to catch fish. Second, you have to hook a live critter (boots, tires, logs, boats, etc. do not qualify for the elite NAFHOF). Third, you have to land what you’ve caught. Some of our honorable mentions go to fishers who’ve hooked flying, hopping, swimming, and running animals--but haven’t landed them.

My friend, Rob, was the first inductee to NAFHOF. He and I were fly fishing on a stream in northeast Iowa (yes, there are trout in Iowa!). It was getting on toward dark. I had decided to call it quits because I couldn’t see anything. But Rob wanted to try one more cast. All of a sudden his line started screaming out—AND UP!! He fought his “flying fish” for a few minutes before bringing it to ground. It was dark enough that we had to get our flash lights out to see what he’d hooked. It was a BAT! Try getting a fly out of an angry bat’s mouth–in the dark! That’s how Rob earned his stars and scars to join the “Not-A-Fish” Hall of Fame.

And then there was Dusty. Dusty was fishing for rainbow in Alaska. The fishing was great, but the activity in the air was nearly as great as in the river with all the sea gulls scavenging for a free lunch. On one of Dusty’s back casts, his fly hung suspended just long enough to entice a sea gull! The battle was short-lived, however, since the gull proved stronger than Dusty’s tippet. So Dusty only gets an honorable mention because he didn’t actually land the “not-a-fish.”

Another honorable mention goes to the grandfather of Shaun’s friend who was enjoying a day fishing beaver ponds in Northern Utah. Gramps qualified for NAFHOF on two of the three criteria: he was fishing and the beaver he hooked was a live animal. But snagging the beaver in the tail did not result in much of a fight. As the beaver slapped the tail and dove below the surface, Gramps got his fly back–with along enough beaver hair to tie his own leech pattern. Sorry, Gramps. You have to land the “not-a-fish!”

RoundRocks’ very own Bryan earned his admission by catching a swallow while fishing on Utah’s Green River. It seems that birds and bats are taken most frequently on the back cast when the fly pauses for the brief moment. Bryan felt the tug and a brief frenetic pull before his fly pulled free. However, the swallow that took the fly had been stunned enough that it was on the ground. So, as the official reviewer for applications to the NAFHOF (and the business partner of a potential inductee who does take bribes), I judged that the bird had been landed. Bryan, now known for his St. Francis-like attitude toward all creatures great and small, gently took the stunned bird and laid it in the branch of a tree until it revived enough to be on its way. Bryan also gets a pat on the back for applying a catch and release attitude to both birds and fish!

Billy, our friend from Louisiana, has earned the highest honors to date in NAFHOF by catching a duck. Now I know many of you have hooked ducks, but Billy is the only person who has reported in as having landed one. He was fishing for big bass and dropped a streamer off a lily pad to begin his retrieve. Out of nowhere a duck went after his streamer and Billy hooked it. It took a while to get the duck to shore. Billy covered the duck with his jacket and was able to get the hook out with only a slight indentation in the duck’s bill.

There you have it–this month’s NAF Hall of Fame winners!

The Nekid Fisherman