Having a great evening catching some nice fish on a popper then this.  I thought it was just some maple leaves until I saw the leaves were flapping. Apparently a bat decided to attack my popper. Yes, you heard that correct somehow I caught a bat on a top water. This is a first for me and honestly the first I have ever heard of it happening? 

 

Allen 

Yikes.

 

When do you start your rabies shots?

Get your rabies shot. ???

Did it attack it while the lure was on the water or did you hook it mid air? 
 

Bats are creepy. And they carry all kinds of disease, including one that was rumored to start a recent pandemic.

Being a really big night Basser in the summers, I can't tell you the number of times Bats hit the top of my pole, or the exposed line above the water line......thousands.

 

I'm pretty sure I'd have caught a bat by now if I threw treble baits.

 

Sometimes they wig me out because they're mere feet away from your head when they tag the end of your pole.      

 

That's crazy though, once in lifetime deal for sure.   You spend enough time on the water, and you're going to see things most other humans never do.  

5 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Did it attack it while the lure was on the water or did you hook it mid air? 
 

Bats are creepy. And they carry all kinds of disease, including one that was rumored to start a recent pandemic.

Yeah they'll hit stuff in the air all the time, but if OP caught it while working it on retrieve that's very weird.  

7 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Did it attack it while the lure was on the water or did you hook it mid air? 
 

Bats are creepy. And they carry all kinds of disease, including one that was rumored to start a recent pandemic.

Hit the lure on the water,  I have had them dive at lures but never hooked one.

 

For everyone asking the bat was not released unharmed. It was dead when I unhooked it so no rabies shots.

 

Allen 

Whoa

I've been divebombed before but this is a new one. Wowwww

I have also caught a bat with a jig and plastic. On my home lake, bats keep me company and I enjoy watching them whizzing around eating the bugs. 
 

I had finished my retrieve and propped my rod on the dock rail and so my jig was dangling. Then after watching some bat acrobatics, it swooped down and went for the jig. The hooks point caught the middle part of one wing but it was so lightly hooked it freed itself before I could react. It was a cool but strange experience one in which I’m glad I didn’t have to free it. ?

Hopefully, for you, you released it as there is a length and creel limit on batfish and that one is undersized. 

That's wild. 

Cut the line and give it the popper hahaha holy cow 

There you gave those unscrupulous lure companies another way to milk more money out of us anglers.. the bat chasing popper lure.  Catches trophy anglers.

Coming from an avowed multi-species angler, that is quite a catch!

 

Pretty wild man! Thanks for sharing.

 

I have a friend who saw a bass grab a bat that was skimming the water for bugs.

2 hours ago, Bazoo said:

Pretty wild man! Thanks for sharing.

 

I have a friend who saw a bass grab a bat that was skimming the water for bugs.

That's what I was thinking!  Rig it up and see what it catches!  Something in that lake eats bats, I bet.  

 

But yeah, if you ever get bit, get your rabies shots.  There's no cure for rabies once you've shown symptoms.  And it's 100% fatal.  Once the virus touches your brain, you're dead.  It's only a matter of time.  So that's one disease not to mess around with.  Fortunately, it travels slowly and along your nervous system, so you do have time to seek medical attention and get treatment after getting bit.  And the vaccine works, so it's pretty easy to treat so long as you catch it in time.  

 

Also, bats are of great interest to scientists because their immune systems make them pretty much immune to all viruses.  Which is why they carry and spread some of the nastiest diseases out there like Covid, Sars, Mers, Ebola, and a whole bunch more.  Probably a bunch we don't even know about yet.  And since they don't die from these diseases like just about every other animal might, they live to spread and keep on spreading those diseases.  But if scientists can ever figure out how they do that and find a way to share that trait with humans, we might have a method to effectively eradicate virtually all viral diseases.  So for now, they're one of the most dangerous animals to the human race.  But in the future, they could be one of the most important to us, and potentially liberate us from disease.  

They are hard to fillet. 

Facts. So many tiny little bones to deal with, and there really isn't enough meat on there to make it worth doing.

23 hours ago, Bankc said:

But if scientists can ever figure out how they do that and find a way to share that trait with humans, we might have a method to effectively eradicate virtually all viral diseases.  So for now, they're one of the most dangerous animals to the human race.  But in the future, they could be one of the most important to us, and potentially liberate us from disease.  

 

Ozzy's delivery method to the human system proved to be non-effective. There is hope for one day though!

OP more the likely snagged a dead floating bat as it was dead when retrieved.

Tom

I've had them hit my line many times when night fishing, but never actually hooked one thankfully. I've caught plenty of birds though. 

Allen can catch 'em.