Although the story below happened while lure fishing for salmon, I thought if might fit this thread of funny, or in this case, weird...
The following event occurred August 24, 1983 off of Alki Point in West Seattle (notes taken from my old fishing log, "Diary of a Mad Fisherman!). I was buzz bombing for silver salmon. I started fishing my favorite spot at dawn. Lots of herring in the water. Small shakers taken and released. A few nicer sized-silvers followed buzz bomb in, but no hookups. At 7:35 am, I was mooching in ball of herring when I saw the huge head of something. It scared the daylights out of me. At first, I thought it must be the biggest shark I'd ever seen. Slowly, I realized it was not a shark at all. What I initially thought was the head of the shark, turned out to be the whole, odd-shaped fish. A later identification would reveal it to be a 15 pound sunfish, AKA, mola mola. It was sunning itself in the top layer of water. I was fishing in a14-foot aluminum rowboat; the sunfish appeared to be attracted to it. Maybe it thought it was another, bigger sunfish (they can reach gigantic sizes). Anyway, it got so close that I was able to scoop it up using my salmon net. After examining it (while keeping it in the water the whole time) to figure out just what kind of fish it was, I released it. It seemed in no way distressed as it casually and slowly swam away. It was the friendliest fish I've ever had the pleasure to meet. The summer of 1983 was an El Nino year. Truly one of the weidest occurrances while fishing for me! Fish on, my Friend. Danny McMillin
