A true fishing story (kind of long)

I was just wondering if anybody else has had an experience like I had.
To start the story my father first took me to Canada on a fishing trip when I was 10. Over the years we made quite a few Canadian trips together. We both love casting for pike, and he taught me what he knew and gave me the fishing bug at an early age.
As I grew older my father did not go on his own trips, but was always willing to go along with me and whoever was on the trip.
This is what happen ended to me 2 years ago. It starts with my father passing away in March. I had a Manitoba pike trip planned for June, which I went on as planned. My father had been with me to this place several times and he loved it there. Every day on the boat ride to one of our favorite bays I would look to the heavens and say to myself “Dad I hope you enjoying this trip with me.” We had been fishing 5 of the 7 day trip. We always keep a log book of the big pike we catch. That 5th night I was looking at the log book and realized we hadn’t caught a 17lb fish yet. We had many 15,16,18all the way up to 20. The next morning on the boat ride I asked my father “if you are with us I need a 17lb pike today. My buddy weighs the fish the whole week we are there, and he knew nothing of my speaking with my dad. About 45 minutes later I land a decent pike and my buddy puts it on the scale…17lbs. In the next 4 hours the I caught 2 more 17lb pike. I was sure my dad was with me. Then I told him let me catch a 25 pound pike. I’ve fished my whole life and always dreamed of a 25lb pike. Then I said to my dad “I’m not going to be greedy, I don’t need a 25. How about beating my biggest pike to date by 2 lbs. Just to make sure it is my personal best.” My biggest pike at that time was 21lbs. Well believe it or not I landed a really nice fish. My buddy took it out of the net and weighed it. 23lbs my biggest pike ever.
Nobody will ever make me believe my dad wasn’t with me on that trip. The odds of all this being a coincidence has to be huge.
Have any of you ever experienced anything like this? I’ll be interested to hear what some of you say.

On October 18 of last year I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer. I made a promise to her that I would look after my dad. Well fast forward to October 18, 2015. I was at my dad’s for my weekly trip to his house in Iowa to clean, cook, pay bills and visit. My dad was out of town so I went about my normal cleaning etc. After being there about an hour or so, I heard this music playing in my dad’s bedroom and went to investigate. Upon getting to the bedroom I heard my mom’s jewelry box playing music. I had not heard that box play music for at least 35 years. I didn’t think it worked. It sent a chill throughout my body. I believe she was there as well!

Incredible stories… Thanks for sharing

Nice stories guys (sincerely). If you had to classify me as something most would probably consider me an atheist. That being said I hope your parents were truly “with you”. Then again at the end of the day all that really matters is how your experiences impacted you.

Strong(er) believer after this day in 2010.

Explain it how you want. I want to believe.

Cool story, and it makes perfectly logical sense to me…….the same kind of sense the dragonfly story BK posted makes.

There are too many of those tales around that some people try to explain away the meaning when the whole time the meaning is right there slapping you in the kisser.

We have a story in my family that I chose not to type up, but trust me – you that believe would just nod your heads like it is normal, and the non-believers would try explain the heck out of it…….

While at the cemetary for my Dad’s burial 18 yrs ago, in SW Minn,
a lone bald eagle slowly circled overhead during the entire
ceremony. As we walked back to the car I noticed the eagle slowly
gliding away. To this day, every time I see a bald eagle I think of Dad.
And it seems like I see one every time I’m in on a high stress cattle deal.
I look up and there’s my eagle.
I’m in northern Wisconsin as I type this on a BIG cattle deal. and guess what.
There is a picture of a lone bald eagle soaring on the wall of my motel room.

WKW

My dad’s brother passed away just days before WI gun hunting season. Sat on the same rock every day, saw does – but never shot a buck on our property.
My dad and I placed one of the fake flower stands from the funeral at his favorite place to sit on opening day as a small memorial. That afternoon, and every day of passing that rock for a few years (until the plastic flowers were gone) I would see a small buck walking or bedded at his old stand. I never shot a deer there, and I haven’t seen a deer near that rock since those plastic flowers decayed away. No explanation on how or why – just the way it is.

My father-in-law lived north of Rapid City and for years he fought to get the lilacs to grow in his yard. The soil was bad—more rocks that soil really— and no matter what he did he struggled just to keep those darn lilacs alive. Several years back he passed away on Halloween night in the VA hospital in Minneapolis. By the time we got back to his place it was November second and when we pulled into his yard one of his lilac bushes had a bloom on it. We are talking on November second. He was buried with the bloom in his hands. First time any of his bushes had a flower on it too. Explain it any way you want but I choose to believe the big guy upstairs must give some darn good gardening advice.

I knew you guys would have some good responses. Interesting hearing what other people have experienced. Thanks for sharing your stories. Doug

In many ways I think we want to keep a dream, spirit, or memory alive and its easy to tie it into a coincident. Its when those coincidents can not be explained by reasonable circumstances that you believe and not question.

Here’s mine. My mother in law passed away in May of this year. My wife and daughter were both having a bad time with this. My mother in law loved hummingbirds and had feeders in her yard along with hummingbird sun catchers. On our first fishing trip of year in June, a hummingbird comes to the boat and hovers by my wife then moves to each of our 2 grandchildren and hovers and finally takes a look at me and hovers and then flies off. My wife calls my daughter immediately to tell her about the experience and before she can get a word out, my daughter tells her she just had a hummingbird hover in front of her face. Both my wife and daughter needed a sign to comfort them and this experience really helped. Whose to say it wasn’t my mother in law.

Randy Wieland wrote:

In many ways I think we want to keep a dream, spirit, or memory alive and its easy to tie it into a coincident. Its when those coincidents can not be explained by reasonable circumstances that you believe and not question.

I agree. And when you read through these stories with an unbiased mind, you get the same feeling.

I have a similar story only this happened before my dad passed.

Since my dad introduced me to fishing he was obviously always the teacher or leader. When he introduced me to fishing from a canoe, first he told me that the person who steers sits in back. So, he was always in back.

Until one day when I was 21 and I wanted to go to a small lake I heard about from some friends. When we got there he told me to sit in back and drive.

He passed away suddenly about 2 weeks later of a stroke and that was the last time I ever fished with him.