Funny fishy stories

'Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not
fish they are after.'  Henry David Thoreau

• Gone Fishing
• Funny Fishing Affair
• How to Get Really Smart
• The Ones that Got Away
• Learning to Fish - Classic Fishy Story
• Ten Interesting
  Trivial Fishy Facts
• Brit Angler Lands Record
  Fish
• More Fishy Tales
• Ten Amusing
  Fishing Sayings and Quotes

Gone Fishing

Alex had a terrible day fishing on the lake, sitting in the blazing sun all day without catching a single one.  On his way home, he stopped at the fishmonger and ordered four rainbow trout.  He told the
fishmonger, 'Pick four large ones out and throw them at me, will you?'

'Why do you want me to throw them at you?'
Asked the salesman?'  So that I am able to tell my wife, in all honesty, that I caught them.'
said Alex.

'Okay, but I suggest that
you take the salmon.'  Why's
that?  'Because your wife came in earlier today and said that if you came by, I should tell you to take salmon.  That's
what she'd like for supper tonight',
replied
the fishmonger with a grin.

Funny Fishing Affair

'Do you really believe your husband when he
tells you he goes fishing every weekend?'   Asks Vicky's best friend,
Myra.

'Why shouldn't I, Myra?' responds Vicky. 'Well, maybe he is having
an affair?' comments Myra. 'No way,' laughs Vicky, 'he never comes home
with any fish.'

Another Funny Fishy Story

How to Get Really Smart

A customer at Stingray Fishmongers marvelled at the owner's
quick wit and intelligence.

'Tell me, Simon, what makes you so smart?'

'I wouldn't
share my secret with just anyone, 'Simon replies,
lowering his voice so the other shoppers won't
hear.'
But since you're a good and faithful customer, I'll let you in on it. Fish heads. You eat enough of them, you'll be positively brilliant.'

'You sell them
here?'
the customer asks.

'Only $4 apiece', says Simon.

The customer buys three. A week later, he's
back in the store complaining that the fish heads were disgusting and he isn't
any smarter.

'You
didn't
eat enough, 'says Simon. The customer goes home with 20 more fish heads. Two weeks later, he's
back and this time he's
really angry.

'Hey, Simon, 'he complains, 'you're selling me fish heads for $4 a
piece when I can buy the whole fish for $2. you're ripping me off!'

'You see?' says
Simon, 'you're smarter already.'

Interesting Sailfish

Did you know that the swiftest fish in the ocean is the sailfish?
It can reach speeds of over 65 mph (100 km per hour).  Normally they
are 5 to 10 ft (1.5 to 3.2 m) long.

The Ones That Got Away

After a Tuesday fishing on the River Test, near Southampton in Southern England, Trevor is walking from the pier carrying two brown trout in a bucket.

He is approached by a Water Conservation Officer
who asks him for his fishing license.

Trevor replies to the environmentalist, 'I was not fishing and I did not catch these brown trout, they are my pets. Every day I come down to the water and put these fish
into the water and take them for a walk to the end of the pier and back. When I'm ready to go I whistle and they jump back into the bucket and we go home.

The officer, obviously, does not believe him and he
reminds Trevor that it is illegal to fish without a license. The fisherman turns to the warden and says, 'If you don't
believe me then watch, 'and he throws the trout back into the water.

The warden says, 'Now whistle to your fish and show me that they will jump out of the water and into the bucket.'

The fisherman turns to the officer and says, 'What fish?'

Terrible Fishy Tale

Joan Higgins, aged 66, has been selling pets and fishing tackle for years
from her shop in Sale, Manchester, England.  Then one day an officer
from the trading standards department decided to lure her into selling a
goldfish to an underage boy.

The first point about this surreal case is that it does not seem
unreasonable for a 14 year old to buy a goldfish.  You can understand
the police setting up 'sting' operations for shops selling cigarettes or
booze to underage youths, but why are they wasting £20,000 on operations to
trap shopkeepers selling goldfish?

So far, so bad - but it gets worse, the magistrate fined Mrs Higgins
£1,000, presumably as an example to other shopkeepers.  If you are
struggling to believe the story up to this point, then you will be
incredulous with the sting in the tail, 66 year old Mrs Higgins was told to
wear an electronic tag and was made the subject of a curfew order normally
reserved for violent repeat offenders.  Why was it necessary in this
case?

We wonder if Mr Iain Veitch, head of public protection at Trafford
Council, is sane when he said: 'Let this conviction send out a message that
we will not tolerate those who cause unnecessary suffering to animals. The
council will always try to support pet and business owners so that they are
able to care for their animals properly, but where they continually ignore
the advice they are given, we will not hesitate to use our statutory
powers.'

In case you are wondering, no animals were hurt in this true story; the
goldfish was adopted by an animal welfare officer.

Learning to Fish -
Classic Fishy Story

Mrs Baker wanted to go ice fishing. She had read
several books on the subject, and finally, after getting all the necessary equipment together, she made her way out onto the ice.

After positioning her comfy stool, she started to make a circular cut in the
ice.

Frighteningly, from up above, a voice boomed, 'There are no fish under the ice.'
Startled, Mrs Baker moved farther down the ice, poured herself a large coffee, and began to cut yet another hole.

Again, from the heavens, the voice bellowed, 'There are no fish under the ice.'
Mrs Baker, now became very concerned so she moved way down to the opposite end of the ice, set up her stool, and began again to
cut her ice-hole.

The voice rang out once more, 'There are no fish under the ice.'
Mrs Baker, stopped, looked upwards and said, 'Is that you, Lord?'

The voice replied, 'No, this is the Ice-Rink Manager.'

Ten Interesting Trivial Fishy Facts

1. A biologist who studies fish is called an ichthyologist.
2. The most
   poisonous fish in the world is the Stone fish.
3. The more sardines that
   are placed in a can, the greater the profit as sardine oil costs more
   than the sardines.
4. Minnows have teeth in their stomach; the better to
   digest their food.
5. The sturgeon is considered the largest of all
   freshwater fish and have weighed in at 2,250 pounds.
6. All the sturgeon
   [the fish from which we get caviar] caught in British waters are
   property of Elizabeth II, Queen of England.
7. Atlantic salmon are able
   to leap as high as 15 feet.
8. The largest known fish in the sea is the
   whale shark. It weighs up to 20 tons and can grow to a length of 40
   feet.
9. Fish can get seasick when kept aboard a rolling ship just as
   much as people.
10. The red fire-fish can fly and emits sounds like a
    crow.

Brit Angler Lands Record
Fish

Ian Welch, an angler from Aldershot, Hampshire, England, has landed a
record stingray while fresh water fishing. Ian, a biologist was working on
the Mae Klong river, in western Thailand.

Will and Guy have learned that this rare giant stingray, weighing 55
stone, took some 90 minutes to land and 13 men to heave it out of the water.
Ian commented, 'It dragged me across the boat and would have pulled me in,
had my colleague not grabbed my trousers.'

The giant freshwater ray is listed as a vulnerable species by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature. This particular one was 7ft
long and wide, with a tail of 10ft; it had its venomous barb wrapped in
cloth on the bank.

The ray was placed in a children's paddling pool to
allow the marine biologists to take its DNA, tag it and return it to the
water. Mr Welch delighted us with his next statement that, 'I was exhausted
afterwards. I did very little for the rest of the day - and just had a cold
beer.' Lovely!

Five Short, Funny, and Surprising Fishy Tales

• We have heard that when Dutchman Cor Stoop leaned over the side of
  his fishing boat, his false teeth fell into the North Sea. He never
  thought that he'd see them again. Apparently three months later another
  fisherman found the dentures inside the stomach of a cod.
• A businessman who lost his mobile phone on a beach was amazed when
  it turned up - in the belly of a giant cod.[fisherman Glen Kerley said
  he'd found the phone in a 25lb fish.]
• The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his
  name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while
  fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn, USA. The finder has remained anonymous.
• A gold ring turned up inside the belly of a fish caught by an angler
  off Fort Victoria, near Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, UK.
• Biologists at the University of Manchester, England, want help in
  cracking their "miracle" discovery of three fish inside a sealed egg.
  The group found the duck egg in a small pond on a field trip to the
  French Alps and noticed something moving inside it. When they cracked
  open the shell, three live minnows were inside. They have enlisted the
  help of other experts, but despite their extensive combined knowledge,
  the biologists admit they are "baffled".

Angling Is Britain's Most Popular Sport: Now We Know Why!

Ten Amusing Fishing
Sayings and Quotes

1. A bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work. -
   Author Unknown.
2. An angler is a man who spends rainy days sitting around on the muddy
   banks of rivers doing nothing because his wife won't let him do it at
   home. - Author Unknown
3. The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in
   fishing. - Babylonian Proverb
4. The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad. - A.K. Best
5. All fishermen are liars; it's an occupational disease with them like
   housemaid's knee or editor's ulcers. - Beatrice Cook
6. There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore
   like an idiot. - Steven Wright
7. Calling fishing a hobby is like calling brain surgery a job. - Paul
   Schullery
8. The only reason I ever played golf in the first place was so that I
   could afford to hunt and fish. - Sam Snead
9. Smoked carp tastes just as good as smoked salmon when you ain't got
   no smoked salmon. - Patrick F. McManus
10. If I fished only to capture fish, my fishing trips would have ended
    long ago. - Zane Grey

Ones that almost got away:

• Fly fishermen are born honest, but they get over it. - Ed Zern
• Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone
  looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl. -
  Ernest Hemingway
• The fisherman's golden rule: the one that got away is always bigger
  than the one you gotta weigh.
  

Funny Fish Bowl

'I broke up with you and you're still hanging around - you are so
pathetic!'

More Fishy Stories

Footnote:
Please send us your funny fishy stories.