Troutnut Forum > Fly Fishing Discussion > And then I hooked the friggin bat
| Martinlf | May 20th, 2007, 1:02 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 908 | on my backcast. I actually had to reel him in from the air, and with no water resistance to help, unlike the trout, he didn't put up much of a fight. Once we got to shore it wasn't too hard to remove the barbless hook, which thankfully, I suppose, was hooked at the base of his wing. He behaved much better than I had feared he would, and was more than ready to be on his way. Has this happened to anyone else? | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
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| GONZO | May 20th, 2007, 1:35 pm | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 876 | I can recall hooking three bats. The first is always the most memorable. }:0 | |
| RleeP | May 20th, 2007, 3:29 pm | |
| Posts: 67 | I've not hooked a bat while fly fishing. One probable reason is that (regrettably sometimes), I am usually off the water by the time they show up. I have virtually no vestibular balance function left in my inner ears as a result of something called Meniere's Disease and rely on my knee joints and eyesight for virtually all my spatial orientation and balance. Or in lay terms, if I can't see, I fall over...:) So, in the interest of not drowning, it's probably better. However.... When I was a kid in NW PA, my brother, dad and I used to plug Lake LeBoeuf in southern Erie County for largemouth. We were kids and got bored easily, so when dead a** dark would fall and my dad was getting the last few casts in with the Jitterbug, my brother and I would clip our lures off and tie 1/8 oz. teardrop sinkers on and whirl them around with a couple of feet of line off the rod tip. This played hell with the bat's radar and we used to have them smacking into the sides of the boat, doing mid-air barrel rolls and occasionally, sub surface dives. We thought this was great fun at the time.. | |
| Troutnut | May 20th, 2007, 10:08 pm | |
| Fairbanks, AK Posts: 1115 | I hooked a bat on the Beaverkill last year. I reeled it in a little bit but didn't want to get bit, so I just let it fly around off my rod tip for several minutes while I tried to figure out what the heck to do. It came loose on its own. I've also swatted a bat into the river with my rod on one very poorly timed cast. | |
| Jason Neuswanger The Troutnut | ||
| GONZO | May 21st, 2007, 2:53 pm | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 876 | One reason to always carry hemostats: Someday you may be forced to release a bat that you have fair-hooked right in the corner of the mouth. (Unlike Louis's unsporting foul-hooked example.) One drawback of tying very accurate flies: Bats, dragonflies, swallows, and ducks find them just as attractive as trout do. (Of these, ducks put up the best fight and make the longest runs.) | |
| Troutnut | May 21st, 2007, 2:56 pm | |
| Fairbanks, AK Posts: 1115 | I've got another one to add to the list: cedar waxwings. One of them grabbed my fly on my backcast a few years ago and, luckily, wasn't hooked very badly... it just got the line wrapped around it like a strange harness so that it could still fly around. I reeled it in, untangled it, and let it go. That was one confused little bird. Have you actually caught a duck? | |
| Jason Neuswanger The Troutnut | ||
| GONZO | May 21st, 2007, 3:12 pm | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 876 | One and only one, Jason. I learned my lesson about ducks eating bugs, but I've come close on a number of other occasions. Once, a momma mallard and her babies were paddling around a favorite pool on the Brodheads gobbling up every Drunella dun they saw. This bothered me more than it seemed to bother the trout, who were happily engrossed in the same activity. Unfortunately, every time I delivered my dry to the water, one of the ducklings would make a beeline for it, and I was forced to yank it back. Very frustrating, and just one of many times that ducks have spoiled my fishing. PS--If "caught" implies landed, then I'd have to revise my statement to "No." A 5X tippet is wholly inadequate for the average mallard. I'd recommend OX at least. ;) | |
| Spud | May 21st, 2007, 4:13 pm | |
| Posts: 7 | Had a customer come into the fly shop I used to work at (before it closed) that told us a nifty story... He said that he did something similar to what Jason did and knocked a bat straight out of the air on the West Branch of the Delaware. Within seconds, one of the biggest browns he's ever seen inhlaed the fluttering bat off of the surface. Take it for what its worth, but the guy was a pretty good customer that we knew well. | |
| GONZO | May 21st, 2007, 4:34 pm | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 876 | Knowing the size of some of the browns on the WB, I believe him. The late Joe Brooks once told a tale of a large brown that he watched eat a duckling. He took the brown with a large saltwater popper called a Skipping Bug. | |
| Earlfishman | May 21st, 2007, 9:43 pm | |
| Posts: 17 | It's amazing what you can catch on a fly rod, but as with many fish stories, the "ones that get away" are the most memorable for me. Late one night long ago, I hooked something that fought very well but didn't seem terribly fishy. I was chasing stripers at the time and I didn't know for sure that it wasn't a fish until I realized that sometimes, through the noise of wind and waves, I could here it breathing out in the surf. I spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to devise a safe strategy for releasing an irate sea otter. Fortunately for me, and hopefully not too unfortunately for the otter, it crawled into a hole on a nearby jetty and broke my tippet. I'll never know whether it was hooked fairly. I've also found that labrador puppies can fight pretty well if they jump out of the drift boat after you set the hook. | |
| DMM | May 21st, 2007, 11:37 pm | |
| Posts: 141 | All the bats that I've attracted with flies released the fly before putting it in their mouths. I can't say the same for the neighbors' cat... | |
| David | ||
| Shawnny3 | May 22nd, 2007, 6:47 am | |
| Pleasant Gap, PA Posts: 541 | David, does that mean they catch their prey in their claws and then eat them? I had just sort of assumed they catch prey directly in their mouths like a swallow does. This is a really funny thread. Nice one, Louis. -Shawn | |
| Jewelry-Quality Artistic Salmon Flies, by Shawn Davis www.davisflydesigns.com | ||
| Greenghost | May 22nd, 2007, 8:27 am | |
| New Brunswick Posts: 10 | Can't say I've ever hooked a bat,though I did snag a seagull out of mid-air while spincasting a Rapala on a Lake Ontario breakwater.The gull flew by just as I cast and the line went over his neck.I seen my lure flying away,dangling 10 ft. under the gull.Not wanting to get spooled by a gull,I flipped the bail and the crankbait slid up and caught him under the far wing.Now the battle is on,geeesh,what a racket.To make things worse,I was at a busy lakeshore park and instantly drew a crowd of spectators,along with cheers and jeers.After a short battle and reeling the bird halfway back,the bait pulled free which seemed to appease the bunny-huggers that had gathered. | |
| DMM | May 22nd, 2007, 10:57 pm | |
| Posts: 141 | Shawn,...does that mean they catch their prey in their claws and then eat them? In reference to if bats catch insects in their mouths, a wildlife prof once told me "they're good, but they're not that good." What they do is catch the insect in the webbing between their legs and kind of scoop the insect up to their mouths. Realize, bats are not as agile flyers as swallows. Also, while precise, I'm not sure quite how precise their radar is. | |
| David | ||
| Spud | May 22nd, 2007, 11:16 pm | |
| Posts: 7 | I actually took an honors seminar once on the biology and ecology of bats. Probably one of the best classes I've ever taken, and YES, their radar is that good. The professor taught the class a real neat trick - If you see a bunch of moths hovering around a light or something, take out your keys and jingle them. If you're in the right area and its one of a few species of moths, they will start flying extremely erratically and dive to the ground because they think the keys are the bats' radar. | |
| DMM | May 23rd, 2007, 1:23 am | |
| Posts: 141 | Does that mean they sometimes catch them in their mouths? I know I've seen video of them catching the moths in the webbing between their feet, but I've never seen them actually grab a moth with their mouths. I've seen them (video) scoop the moths you were mentioning (they drop at the last minute to avoid capture, and will sometimes end up in the water) out of the water too, but not with their mouths. | |
| David | ||
| GONZO | May 23rd, 2007, 1:50 am | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 876 | I'm enjoying this exchange. I've always wondered how bats scoop something off the water because it seems like a dangerous maneuver, especially if they do it with their mouths. However they do it, the first bat I hooked took my dry fly right off the water. I thought I saw a rise and set the hook. Then something came waterskiing across the surface as I brought it in. (No fight, just a strange little wake on the surface.) That little fly-snatching fledermouse was hooked right in the mouth. After I realized there was no way to avoid doing what I had to do, I managed to grab the fly with my hemos and shook the bat off like a little chub. Of course, it flew right at my face, and I nearly fell in. I think bats enjoy doing that anyway, just to make us flinch, but this one had provocation going for it. PS--Right now I'm wondering which put up the better fight, David's neighbors' cat or my mallard. There's probably no way to make a fair comparison though. Cats hate water, and mallards do that waddle thing on land. | |
| Macgruber | May 23rd, 2007, 4:48 pm | |
| minneapolis Posts: 7 | last summer i was out late on the manitou river fishing a royal wulff to some eager brookies...... i took the back cast and before i started forward i noticed that i never felt that famliar "tug" when the line has extended all the way back...... checking my rod, i notice the line is extended straight above me, apparently circling above my head on its own..... it was getting dark, so i couldn't ascertain what was causing it........ i stripped it in really gently and as it got closer, i saw a large dragonfly with the wulff clutched in its grasp..... apparently those things have some decent wingpower, cuz i had about 30 feet of line out and he was keeping it airborne....... not quite the fight of yer average bat or mallard, but funny nonetheless...... | |
| GONZO | May 23rd, 2007, 6:54 pm | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 876 | Mac, Somewhere in another thread you'll find an account of something similar happening to a fishing partner of mine (except the dragonfly took the fly off the water, and then towed his fly line into the air). So, I can attest to the amazing lifting power of a big dragonfly--they are the sky-cranes of the insect world. | |
| Windknot | May 24th, 2007, 10:56 am | |
| Apalachin, NY Posts: 2 | Hey Guys, This is my first time here and nice to have found you! Great stories and good to know of you using barbless hooks. I do crush all my barbs. Too many times in the past I caused harm to a trout removing a hook and wonder if they survived. Should I catch a bat, I would like to release it quickly. Many will watch birds swooping to indicate a hatch during the day, and when they retire for the evening the bats come to tell us the same. | |
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