Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 07/99) - Sometimes it's not the one that got away that's the story: occasionally, it's what you managed to hang on to.

Fishing is a favourite pastime for a lot of Northerners. With so many lakes, rivers and seas around us, finding a good fishing hole is usually not much of a problem.

Sometimes, however, whether it be fishing for some dinner or for that big prize lunker or just for the fun of it, some of us catch more than we bargained for.

For today's Northern Lights, we thought it might be interesting to ask Northerners from several communities what might be the strangest thing they had pulled out of the water while out on a fishing trip. After all, you never know what might be at the bottom of the dark abyss until you pull it out in the light of day.

Pelagi Sharp in Pelly Bay was surprised to discover a little fish at the end of her line with an appetite too big for its own good.

"I caught a stickleback while fishing for landlocked char," Sharp said. "I caught it on a five of diamonds. It was bigger than the fish."

Shelly Hendrick almost lost her lunch when trying to catch some near Inuvik.

"I thought I had a fish on when I reeled in a really dead jackfish," Hendrick said. "It was really gross."

Meanwhile, Leah Katokra in Repulse Bay found that she didn't have to go to the store to find something to boil some tea in.

"My husband tricked me into believing that I had a fish on," Katokra said. "He found a tea kettle on the ice and put it on my hook when I wasn't looking. I thought I had a fish on, but when I pulled it up it was the tea kettle. We used it to make tea that night."

Lloyd Chicot from Kakisa got a bigger bang for his buck when he saw what he retrieved from the depths.

"I snagged an old musket," Chicot said. "It wasn't like any gun you would see these days."

When asked if he had kept the old relic, Chicot said, "Naw, I threw it back. I doubt that it would work anymore."

Ivan Bourque from Fort Smith and his dad probably wished the one that didn't get away had.

"He fought it for half an hour," Bourque said. "Every time he pulled up it went right straight down. We thought it was a lunker trout. When he finally got it to the surface, it turned to be a big 20-pound rock."

Leonie Tulugak from Iqaluit had a regretful afternoon one day when she accidentally pulled something into the water rather than out.

"It was a bright day and I put my glasses on a rock while I was fishing," Tulugak said. "When I took a cast I accidentally hooked my glasses and threw them into the water."

Oops! Maybe someone will pull them out of the murky brine one of these days and look Tulugak up.