Have you "stolen" someone else's fish?

[Graham Scott]

Ever hooked a fish only to lose it and watch someone else catch it?
This happened to me on the weekend and wonder if it's common.
There were big queenfish everywhere, I hooked up almost immediately and as usual the queenie raced around being silly. A mate at the back of the boat sees all the action and lets rip with a pathetic cast right over the top of me, in fact not much past my rod tip. I'm tangled with an aerial popper at the front of the boat, the queenie's under the boat somewhere near the prop, my mate at the back is laughing.
Next thing I'm busted, no fish no popper no leader. Old mate at the back is now onto a good fish?
By the time I get to the back there's a popper off his rod tip, a metre of my braid, my trace, my lure,and a big queenie foul hooked.

Mate reckons I'm a useless fisherman and he's fantastic, can catch fish without his popper ever getting in the water.
The guy in the photo is not the culprit, the thief was too weak from laughing to hold up his (my) fish.

[Graham Scott]

I think that's the wrong photo as the lure is still attached to the rod....I was sure I had a photo, hmmm, maybe he stole that too.

[Graham Scott]

I found one of the perpetrator, and he's laughing, not sure if that's the fish though.

[Warwick Joyce]

 

Havent had that experience however its like a race to get the first cast in to likely fish holding spots when Travis and I head out. This usually ends up with no one driving the boat

[Graham Scott]

Travis,
That would be BIG worry with my boat. I can't push it back off the rocks

[Jay Burgess]

I've had a GT hit my popper and then lose interest only to crash tackle a mates popper a few meters away... not so much stealing but can be a bit annoying sometimes.

When we used to bottom fish sometimes you'd get bricked by a big trout and then a few minutes later your mate pulls it up with all your tackle hanging out it's mouth 

[Brandon Khoo]

I'm not sure my incident is stealing.........

I use to be a very keen fisho for jewies (mulloway) and I had one capture on Fraser Island that nearly got me lynched. As any one who fishes for jewlies know, they often follow the tailor. The beach must have had 50 fishos catching tailor when I went to the end of the gutter which the fish had come from and cast in a tailor fillet. Within minutes, I hooked up to a solid jewie. Unfortunately, the fish was big and it ran the full length of the gutter. I tangled up with some twenty plus tailor fisherman. Boy, I've never been so abused in my life! Guys were swearing at me like crazy and because the tailor were biting their heads off, they just cut their lines, re-rigged and got back to fishing. When I landed that jewie, I collected four tailor and another dozen ganged hooks. The jewie was over 20kg and the tailor were about a kilo each.

[Stephen Polzin]

haha that's a good way to meet people Brandon!

cheers,

steve

[Graham Scott]

Brandon,
You win. You stole 4 fish and a heap of gear...amazing theft.

Widening the topic on theft. we had a local guy charter a boat with 3 of his mates who were all lawyers from around the country. They caught a stack of red emperor, trout and nannygai, filleted em all, shared them out, packed them in eskies and headed their separate ways.

 Then the local guy gets a call from his mate at the airport. "They won't let the fish on the plane". "What a shame" says local guy "I'll come and get them to save wasting them."  He gets another 2 similar calls the same day and I think he is still eating red emperor while all his mates got were photos. I reckon he probably stole 30 fish

[Brandon Khoo]

When I was on the beach collating all the ganged hooks, I had two guys walk past me and abuse me again! Not one person congratulated me on the jewie!

[Greg Burt]

You shoudn't have been laughing so loud 

[Peter Morris]

I'm not sure my incident is stealing.........

I use to be a very keen fisho for jewies (mulloway) and I had one capture on Fraser Island that nearly got me lynched. As any one who fishes for jewlies know, they often follow the tailor. The beach must have had 50 fishos catching tailor when I went to the end of the gutter which the fish had come from and cast in a tailor fillet. Within minutes, I hooked up to a solid jewie. Unfortunately, the fish was big and it ran the full length of the gutter. I tangled up with some twenty plus tailor fisherman. Boy, I've never been so abused in my life! Guys were swearing at me like crazy and because the tailor were biting their heads off, they just cut their lines, re-rigged and got back to fishing. When I landed that jewie, I collected four tailor and another dozen ganged hooks. The jewie was over 20kg and the tailor were about a kilo each.

Thats a good one Brandon,
The QLD tailor fisho's are a passionate bunch....I have never been into tailor much...
Jew on the other hand...Well yes I love those silver grunting slabs.

Pete

[Brandon Khoo]

I wasn't laughing per se - I was just happy with the fish - and sixteen ganged hooks, not to mention the tailor! 

You shoudn't have been laughing so loud 

[John Campbell]

   
   what !!  they did'nt congratulate you    thats a bit rude 

   maybe you could have offered to sell the tailor back to the highest bidder 

[Brandon Khoo]

Some of those guys looked like they were from redneck city. I wasn't game to try to go back for another fish.

What was really funny was that with all the fishermen, bait and bleeding tailor in the water, the inevitable happened and the sharks moved in, which hardly improved the mood of some of those angry bastards as they all had to stay in really shallow water. You could see them there hurling abuse at the shark.

I actually wanted to go get my shark outfit (very agricultural in those days - a Senator 6/0 on a 10 foot Butterworth) and try to catch one but I would have been killed and thrown in, I think.