Some fishing photos and videos will cause many anglers to react in horror, surprise or disdain. Here are 10 worthy contenders that will make you cringe.
Fishing is an activity that is performed by human beings, and since human beings are prone to doing stupid things, having accidents, behaving badly, acting silly or otherwise doing the inexplicable, there are plenty of opportunity for cringe-worthy fishing photos and videos.
Here are 10 that ought to narrow your eyes, make you smile or frown, have you utter "yuck," give you a good laugh, or make you go "whoa!"
Here's a tried and true meme-worthy photo that's been around for quite a while, but it's still funny and still makes any angler with a modicum of experience go "Oh brother." Hold that reel the right way!
Losing a big fish right at boat side or at the net is enough to make grown men cry, as this video aptly demonstrates. My heart goes out to this guy. He is so earnest, so intense and so bummed out when the bass spits the hook. Classic.
Okay, this has got to be one of the most egregious examples of holding a fish super close to the camera to make it seem bigger than it really is. I mean, come on...really!?
It's a common act and we all do it. But sometimes it's just laughable.
Every angler lives with the slight fear of getting hooked, but getting hooked in the face has got to be the worst...and in the eye the very worst of all. This photo honestly gives me the creeps.
Fishing rods break, and they always surprise when they do. A couple of these are pretty darn funny, especially the last guy, who reacts with more rage than is probably healthy. I think he has anger issues. Haha!
This photo is just sad and infuriating. So many sharks, caught only for their fins. What a horrible, stupid waste of an animal. This pic speaks to humankind's sometimes unthinking tendency to greedily exploit the natural world. Definitely cringe-worthy.
Along similar lines as the photo above are the greedy and selfish acts of a few anglers within our own ranks, who take more than the law allows and who in turn give the rest of us a bad name by poaching.
The fishing photos, like this one, that state game departments publish after they catch a poacher always make our blood boil.
This photo of Louie Spray's world record muskie from yesteryear is pretty cool. But it reminds me of a conversation I had with some anglers on a forum about holding fish. It seems that there is a strong contingent of "fish holding nazis" out there who quickly criticize any angler if he doesn't hold a fish exactly how they think it should be held.
There is certainly some validity to properly holding a fish for release, but a lot of these guys really go overboard with it, in my opinion. They blast folks, even folks who are going to keep a fish, if they aren't holding it "properly" in photos. So yeah, if Louis Spray were alive today and shared this pic on social media he would be absolutely savaged for the way he's holding that musky.
Ice fishing can be a risky business if you take your vehicle out onto the ice. No ice is completely, 100% safe all of the time, and every year a lot of vehicles go through the ice and lives are lost.
There are dozens of fishing photos out there of vehicles that have gone through the ice, and they always make me cringe a bit and hope that everyone got out safely. But this short video is kind of funny.
Anytime you see a monster fish floating or dead on the side of a body of water it's bound to make you sad. This dead behemoth bass is enough to make any angler just go "damn..."
Like what you see here? You can read more great articles by David Smith at his facebook page, Stumpjack Outdoors.
NEXT: Using the Freedom of Information Act to Suss Out a Guy's Secret Fishing Spot
