I went on a fishing trip with my uncle and cousins and a couple of their friends. It was a 10 day trip in a Winnibago (sp?) down to the rivers and streams below one of the Great Lakes. Near Buffalo, and Oswego NY in that area, fishing for king salmon.
Can't remember what day it was but a few days in we had stopped at a little stream and there was a place for campers to park. My cousin chris made steak and eggs and we were watching the movie Legion.
One of my uncles friends went down and tried fishing the stream just for the hell of it and within minutes had a rainbow trout on the line. So some of us stopped watching legion and went out with our gear. I decided to walk upstream a bit and possibly find a secret fishing spot.
So I'm walking, and I'm walking, and finally I get to a really shallow sandy area with like, the best way to describe it is a sand bar in the middle of the stream. Just a really shallow place where it's so shallow the sand comes out of the water. And sitting there in all of its glory, was a king salmon. It had beached itself and was sitting there just chillin.
I thought it was dead. I take off my shoes and socks and walk along the sandbar type thing over to the fish. I looked at it for a while. This was the fish we drove 10 hours from maine to catch. It was literally sitting at my feet! I couldn't help but feel washed with adrenaline.
I get myself ready, reach down ever so carefully, and try to get a firm grip on the tail fin with both hands. I managed to pick him up about waste height and he wasn't moving, completely motionless, but when it did finally decide to move it was two squirms and boom, out of my hands, onto the sand and then frantically "swam" it's way off the sandbar and into the depths, and it was gone.
I just stood there for a moment and collected my thoughts, which we mostly fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!!!! And then walked back to the winnibago and ate my steak and eggs if defeat. To this day I have no proof of that ever happening but it was very real and it stays with me as my best AND worst fishing story ever. So there you go.
TL;DR went on fishing trip, ventured off and found epic fish. Failed horribly.