America's Funniest Angler Contest!

Thank you so very much, Earth Sports, for this win. I am thrilled and excited....laughing and crying at the same time. It was so much fun retelling this story, and it makes me want to write even more stories!!! Just hearing I won is enough for me, but my winning an IPAD is very wonderful for my son, who I am giving the prize to for his birthday....he is a computer geek, after all, so it's fitting. Thanks again. I love you!!

Hi all - the contest did officially close on September 30th, so unfortunately entries that were posted after the deadline won't be counted in the judging. But thank you so much for your posts, we really enjoyed reading them. It's been extremely hard to choose a winner and we've been trying to decide between Tamsiracuse and CarynFleck for the past week. We were hoping for a few more votes from the fans before we decided. As of right now, they're both tied at the most amounts of points and we love both stories. Please go to the blog entry and let us know who you think should win: http://www.earthsports.com/blogs/entry/America-s-Funniest-Angler-Contest&sa=approve . We'll be choosing a winner sometime early this week! Thanks for your patience and good luck to our finalists!

I was a guide in Key West for many years. As many of you know the Keys Guides get kind of territorial and cranky towards the end of Tarpon season. Well, one day I was poling down the southern edge of the Marquesas I witnessed a hilarious event. A good friend of mine who is rather portly and has a very noticeable silhouette, if you know what I mean?, was poling a few hundred yards behind me. Just as I finished the flat and started to idle into a channel I turned and noticed another flats skiff rounding the corner at high speed and on a perfect trajectory to intercept my friend and his clients in the other boat. The Skiff driver was obviously ignorant of the fact that he was in fact blowing hundreds of tarpon off the flat with his shallow water escapade and ruining the fishing for my friend and his anglers. As I looked back to see what the outcome was going to be of this confrontation I witnessed a hilarious site. As the driver of the skiff passed by my friend poling along, my pal lifted up his 24 foot push pole like a javelin and hurled it at the other guide. As the pole hurled itself toward the offending skiff the "foot" of the push pole, which is shaped like a Y, caught my friend in the back of the head and knocked him clean off the 4 foot high platform causing him to somersault into the water. The javelin/push pole never reached its target and the offender having seen the guide fall off the platform actually turned back around to see if my pal was OK. The best part was seeing this all happen from afar. My clients and I could not stop laughing about the scene we were so fortunate to witness.

One day,my grandfathers boss told him that he could go fishing on his ranch in a huge pond. so we get out there in to john boats and tied on to this stick coming out of the water catching crappie all day.But i kept switching back and forth between boats and so my dad finally had enough so he said you left your tackle box over here so i went to switch over and then he separated the boats and i did a full split and fell face first in the water! he could not stop laughing! was so ashamed

It wouldn't fit on here so here's a link to the blog. It's called "My greatest fishing adventure..............I think?" http://www.earthsports.com/blogs/posts/Riverrat/

One day i was out on kentucky lake with my dad and his friend and i had this spot that a pro showed me so i thought we should try it out and we caught a 4 pounder two 5 pounders and then i hooked this big fish that was prabably 10 pounds, it was a stud but i get it to the boat and had my dad's buddy try and grab it and when it gets to the boat almost in his hands the huge bass goes strate down to the deep water and breaks my line it was the bigest bass i have ever seen, a monster fish gone in just a few minuts

I was fishing big pike in Canada with my boss, who also happens to be the head of the North American Fishing Club. We got on some bruisers, and wouldn't you know on one excited cast my rod flew into the water. What a way to impress the boss. But I found a way to keep the story from spreading - I told him I knew it was a mistake to go fishing with him because now that's the story he'll tell everyone about my casting prowess. The story went no futher, until now come to think of it. D'oH!!!!!

1 STRIPER = FREE SUDS.... One Sunday afternoon a friend of mine who lived in Bristol, Rhode Island, but worked in Newport, Rhode Island was out for a Sunday drive with his wife, and decidied he would take a side trip to Pourtsmouth ( Thats a town between Bristol and Newport), to show his wife where he fished at night after work with his friend, (that being me) before arriving home often late at night fishless, but claiming to have been fishing. I know a few other guys who spent a lot of time night fishing to no avail who had this problem. It often caused great suspicion with the wifey. Anyway today was his LUCKY day, because this Sunday afternoon I was bait fishing there at our favorite spot in Portsmouth, and as luck would have it.just as they were getting out of the car, I was landing a 35 pound STRIPER. He came runing over and helped me land the Striper, Turned to his wife and said "HONEY this is my fishing friend I was telling you about". Her reply was "HONEY you can go fishing with him at night afterwork any time you like". After that I never had to BUY the BEERS. :)

Me and a friend, who basically taught me how to trout fish, were fishing up in Big Bear in Cali , and not having a very productive day at first. He talked a lot about how he's mapped the lake on his own, and determined where all his favorite spots were and showed me the map. He was all about that lake, and it seemed, quite an authority on it. He was smoking cigarettes quite frequently, and me being a non smoker, told me I had a better chance of catching fish than him because fish do not like the scent of cigarette smoke. He carried in his tackle box a bottle of Oil of Olay, which he told me I was welcome to use, he read that it was the favorite scent for trout, even better than the products they sell in tackle stores. Well after a few I pulled in a fish, and I was feeling pretty good about it because he usually catches three to my one. He then had an idea, and it made sense, to cut my fish open so we could see what the fish had been eating, so we could have an idea as to what to use for bait. So I took my fillet knife and cut into it exposing the inside of the belly and lo and behold.......this fish had a cigarette butt in its stomach!! I couldn't help but laugh and say " this kinda blows your whole cigarette smoke theory right out of the water aye????"

True story. I was out ice fishing in southern Michigan one January evening. Sunlight was fading and there were a few fishermen sitting out with their lanterns, and also a handful of Ice Shantys. We were about 1/4 mile from shore and I could see the shape of someone walking on the ice with a briefcase in his hand. He stopped by each fishermen as he got closer to me. I thought, that the guy must be with the DNR and checking licenses. As he talked to fishermen when he got closer I could see them shaking their heads in a "no" gesture. He finally got to me, he was wearing a nice jacket and tie, with an over coat, a briefcase, and he had golashes on his feet so he wouldnt slip. He said don't worry, I am not with DNR - I am with Jehovah's Witness and wondered if you would like an informational track. HOLY WOW!!! I, like all the other fishermen before me, shook my head no, He proceeded to knock the doors of every shanty out there. Impressive to say the least.