Flying Fish caught by hand

I am a first time poster, long time reader.

A few weeks ago, I was telling a story to a few people about the time I had caught a flying fish with my bare hands on Rottnest Island. Most of them thought it was a tall tale, so I went on to google, thinking that I would find people with similar stories, so that I could show people that it wasn't so unusual. I couldn't find a single one, so I signed up to the forum for the sole purpose of telling this story to see if anyone out there has ever had a similar experience.

Basically, around December 2010, I was on a 21ft centre console travelling from Thompson Bay back to where our friend's boat was moored in Geordie. I can remember thinking we were probably speeding, but I'm not sure exactly how fast we were travelling. To our amazement, we started seeing flying fish leaping out of the water all around us. They all seemed to be going basically the same speed as the boat. At one point, two or three of them seemed to be right alongside our faces. They seemed to be floating there for an eternity - so I just reached out and grabbed one. Has anyone had anything similar happen? or was this just a freaky/comical incident?


rigpig's picture

Posts: 507

Date Joined: 21/11/12

 I worked on a Tender

Wed, 2013-10-02 09:15

 I worked on a Tender Assisted Offshore Drilling Rig off the coast of Borneo for a couple of years and along each side of the barge there were long boat decks where you could crewchange by boat. When the weather was rough and the waves would come up over the boat decks we would sometimes find flying fish on the deck. One day I was standing down there with a couple of roustabouts waiting for a crewchange boat to back in when a flying fish came out of the water and hit one of the rousties in the chest. He actually took the mark when he put his hands up and trapped it against his chest. Funniest thing we had seen in a long time..

tailor marc's picture

Posts: 2979

Date Joined: 27/09/06

Thats gold haha!

Wed, 2013-10-02 09:18

Thats gold haha!

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Swompa's picture

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Date Joined: 14/10/12

Sailing back from Exmouth to

Wed, 2013-10-02 12:53

Sailing back from Exmouth to Fremantle in 2002, i was having a chunder off the back of the boat whilst we were sailing into 35 knots of south easterly, with big chop.

 

Half way through my chunder i had a thump in the back of my head. Before i could murder it for disturbing my ralph, it managed to get off the back of the boat so i proceeded with my chunky yawn.

11kg's lost in 6 days and 21 hours. Painful trip

 

When we're racing at night, we often hear them hitting the sails or the hull.

dkonig82's picture

Posts: 2091

Date Joined: 06/07/10

sounds horrible!

Wed, 2013-10-02 15:52

sounds horrible!

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craig_johns469's picture

Posts: 29

Date Joined: 06/03/12

Recently...

Wed, 2013-10-02 14:24

I was cruising along up at Jurien, regularly seeing flying fish, but hadn't this particular morning. I heard a thump at the back of the boat, looked around while still moving, thinking a sinker may have dropped on the floor etc.

About half an hour later, I'm reaching in/under the transom and had the fish looking at me, by this stage, obviously dead, but the wide eyes looking at me had me guessing!

It was a bit dry by that stage, but I still put a hook through it and floated it out. Kept checking, nothing, after an hour, pack up time and it had been taken but no line had been stripped.

I've not had the chance to take a mark on the chest though...

:P

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bitten's picture

Posts: 803

Date Joined: 07/04/10

 nope prety normal see

Wed, 2013-10-02 15:20

 nope prety normal see fishwrecked record holder board :) should've measured him u mighta knocked me off

not uncommon to get up in the morning andf find 40 - 50 of them on the deck make prety good bait

 

dan

Leemo's picture

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Date Joined: 22/02/07

 Had them at the back of the

Wed, 2013-10-02 23:25

 Had them at the back of the boat at the abrohlos attracted by the lights. Had a few classic catches most nights hahaha

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carnarvonite's picture

Posts: 8622

Date Joined: 24/07/07

Morning count

Thu, 2013-10-03 07:26

While fishing off the NW coast it was common for there to be up 30-40 flying fish on the deck each morning.

The best we had done was 5 Spaniards in one night, with all the flood light on the schools of small baitfish would gather round the boat for safety and the mackies would spear up through the schools expecting to land back in the water as usual but found themselves on the deck of a 24 metres fishing vessel.