ever had this happen?

[fowlmouth]

This fall while fishing on Sanford I made a bad cast and hung up my Spro frog on a stump, it never touched the water. While I was shaking it to free the braid I got hit! twice this bass had my frog in his mouth and I tried to set the hook but it just buried the braid further in the log.

The bottom of the "legs" were at least a good 4 inches off the water so I would bet this bass was coming 8-10" out of the water to hit it. I didn't think they could see that well above the water, especially in Sanford lakes murky water.

[Genie]

Had this happen a lot on the upper part of the Grand River with spinner baits and smallies.  Sometimes the bait would get hung up in over-hanging brush and the fish would come right out of the water to crush it.

[HellaBass]

I had it happend when I was a kid...  Threw a weedwalker into a over hanging tree.....  I was yo yoing the bait to get it free and a 2-3lb bass jumped several times at the bait even though it was probably 18" out of the water 

[cameraguy]

No, never.  I've never made a bad cast!   

[Dan]

I have had several occasions where fish have come out of the water to hit a bait hung on a bush or more often a dock post. My son, who was probably around 10 at the time, and I were fishing the backwaters of Tippy Dam and we nosed up against a sand bar that had a pocket of deeper water near shore and my son threw across the bar and tried to hit the deeper pocket of water. Well, he hung up on a bush and as we sat there trying to figure out how to get over the bar and whether we would have to wade, about a 3 pound largemouth hits his bait that he had been yo yoing up and down. Was the only largemouth we ever caught at Tippy.
One of the most unusual, I guess that's how you would describe it, times we had was up on Duck Lake. Again he was preteen age wise and very eager to catch fish. Whenever I would hook up he would always throw right on the spot and try and catch one where I just had. Well this day, I was throwing a spinnerbait and hoping for a smallie. One hits and I hit him back to be sure I have a good hook set and snap the line breaks. I could feel that it was way up the line and sure enough my son hollers he sees the line floating so we troll over and pick it up and hand line the fish in. Doesn't happen often, but I have had this happen before. In any case, I retie and continue casting the spinner bait. Again bammm, a smallie hits and again the same confounded think happens, my line breaks. Being a bit slow on the uptake I check the end of my rod and sure enough the ceramic is gone so the eye cuts my line whenever I put pressure on it. As I slap the water the fish jumps with my spinnerbait in his mouth. My son who was standing ready casts right at the fish. Immediately he says he has hooked the smallie, but I tell him no way that it has to be a follower. Nope, he reels in the smallie with his hook snagged up in a mass of line that balled up around the spinnerbait when it broke. So, I get my spinnerbait back for the second time and we land two keeper smallmouths after they broke off in the span of about 5 minutes.  Should have retired that spinnerbait, and put it on the wall.
My youngest has always been lucky like that. He use to beg me to buy him a baitcaster, but I thought he was too young to handle one. However, one day while in the garage at the cottage he was bugging me again so I dug out an old baitcaster and gave him a half ounce spinner bait that was in the junk pile in the garage. This spinner bait had no skirt, rusted blades, barely any paint on it, just what I thought would be a heavy weight for him to practice with. He goes down to the dock and yep you guessed it. First cast he catches a keeper largemouth on the lure with the bait caster and no backlash. Had to buy him a baitcaster after that.  Over the years he and I have won a number of tournaments and he continues to be blessed by the fishing gods as I'm am blessed to be able to have the opportunities I have had with him on the water.

[djkimmel]

I've had similar things happen every once in a great while. It adds to the variety to spice up the memories for sure.

One of my favorites was a respectable daredevil largemouth I came across on the South Branch of the Muskegon Lake just up from the lake. Real shallow in there, and clear at the time.

I was at a loss for things to try so I worked my boat in there a short ways and was casting a weightless, Texas-rigged large plastic worm.

There seemed to be only a few dinks up there except this one nice bass that jumped over a foot and a half out of a shallow grass bed trying to intercept my lure in mid-air as it flew by heading for an opening farther down the river.

The bass actually hit the tail of the worm causing it to cartwheel off target. Pretty determined fish.

Last June, I watched a small largemouth on Lake Ovid cruising the inside weedline tight to shore in about 8 inches of water that would jump out of the water every time a big dragonfly flew over. The little tough guy actually knicked one dragonfly several times - why the dragonfly kept flying back over it beyond me.

I saw that 10 inch or less bass jump out of the water over a dozen times at various dragonflys before I moved out of the area. Ah, the energy of youth...

[rufus]

I have had this happen several times, also. There is a small chain of lakes near me called the Golden Chain (NE Indiana) that is a river system and there is overhanging brush all around the lake, so it has happened several times out their.
I do a lot of shallow water dock skipping in the summer around here and my favorite time that this has happened to me was in a Wednesday Nighter several years ago on Lake James. I skipped under a large platform dock with a tube and went over a large crossbar that was about 12 inches above the suface of the water. Right away I got bit (of course!) and I raised about a 13 incher up to the top of the bar. I saw that he wasn't a keeper and my partner was laughing at me asking me what I was going to do now. I just dropped him back in the water and tried shaking him off. Within seconds of him geting back in the water my tube got even heavier and I thougt he had got a little rambunctious. I tried raising him up again and finally succeeded only to find about a 5 pounder hanging on my tube now. I yelled at my partner who was now casting in the back out the other side of the boat to get the net! we are going in after him. Being the cutup he was he looked at the bass and he said drop him back in maybe the next one will be a 7 pounder. We did end up sliding the net under that fish and landing him. He ended up being big bass for the night at 4'13" .
God Bless and Good Fishin'!