Your Favorite Fishing Stories

[sqerl]

OK.. Here's a thread to talk about your favorite stories. Be it something you did, what an animal did to you, a close encounter with mother nature, etc... You know, the things that make fishing, well... fishing!
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There's many stories out there, but I'll start with my most recent.

Taking advantage of the cool weather that just came down on us, I decided to take a trip down to the Gorge to see what was going on. My normal little walk entertained me with the usual Great Blue Herons, mink, assorted bugs (both real and artificial) and so forth. Seeing a variety of bugs in the air, I decided to get a line wet before heading off to work. While I was trying to find something the trout would take, there was a Great Blue Heron on the other side of the pool looking for some breakfast. Having no success with anything, I decided to tie on a fly I had just learned about (this one: http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flyt...61598fotw.html ), meanwhile, the heron moved to the rock in the center of the pool - apparently having as much luck as myself. Anyway, I threw this "fly" out there and said to myself "I need to learn how to proportion better." This "fly" looked more like the titanic floating down the stream that it did a drake. Well, wouldn't you know it, a nice 12" brown slams the thing. So as I bring this fish to shore, he decides to start jumping and makes quite a commotion. All of a sudden, I hear this "WOOOMP" sound right behind me - I was like " "
I turn around and find myself looking almost eye to eye with the Great Blue Heron. This thing was no more than 10ft away and scared the shit out of me. If this thing could talk, it would've said "hey buddy. nice fish. gonna keep it? no? can I have it? whadda say buddy.. oh come on.. PLEASE?" After regaining composure, I said "shoo."

Please understand, the last time I heard a sound similar to that was when I was deer hunting in PA. When I turned around, it turned out to be a bear about 30 ft away. The "whoomp" sound was the bear plodding along the soft mossy ground. There's a big difference between a 30-30 and a fly rod when running into mother nature's creatures.... not to mention that funny feeling of deja-vue!