History Main / FishingForSole

* ''Psycho Pike'' opens with a fisherman making a late night catch, only for his prize to turn out to be a severed hand. This shocks him so much that he falls into the water, and resurfaces short while later with his head bitten off.

* Parodied extensively in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "The Deep South", when the crew goes fishing. Leela catches a boot with a ''harpoon''. Then she gets something that must be good, since it's 20 times heavier than a boot... and it's a crate containing 10 pairs of boots. She gets confident about the next one since the thing is clearly moving... and then pulls up a boot being eaten by Zoidberg. And they were fishing this at the exact center of the Atlantic Ocean.

* The UpdatedRerelease of ''VideoGame/Persona4'', the lowest-rank "fish" you can catch at Shirichi Beach is a tire. It's completely useless, but fishing there can also net you the JokeWeapons for every party member. This results in the protagonist fishing up objects like bus stop signs, benches, a ''drill'' and '''an antique flintlock pistol'''.

->''"Alright! I caught a boot! I hope someone lost this and DIDN'T TOSS IT HERE ON PURPOSE!"''
-->-- '''The PlayerCharacter''', ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing: City Folk''

->''"Alright! I caught a [[AC: boot ]]! I hope someone lost this and DIDN'T TOSS IT HERE ON PURPOSE!"''

* It can happen in the ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' series. You can get boots, cans, and tires. It's impossible to know that they're junk ahead of time, since they look and fight back just like real fish. (No idea how or why they fight, but they do.) In ''City Folk'', some villagers may end up locked out of their houses, leaving you to fish for the key. In ''New Leaf'', you can prevent this by enacting the "Beautify Our Town" ordinance which, among other effects, keeps you from fishing up garbage. In ''New Horizon'', there's a number of DIY recipes that use the junk you fish up, making them genuinely desireable for a change; for instance, a tin can is recycled into a planter, while managing to catch two boots allows you to refurbish and wear them.

* It can happen in the ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' series. You can get boots, cans, and tires. It's impossible to know that they're junk ahead of time, since they look and fight back just like real fish. (No idea how or why they fight, but they do.) In ''City Folk'', some villagers may end up locked out of their houses, leaving you to fish for the key. In ''New Leaf'', you can prevent this by enacting the "Beautify Our Town" ordinance which, among other effects, keeps you from fishing up garbage. In ''New Horizon'', if you fish up a boot you can get a DIY recipe to make "recycled boots" if you manage to find a second boot.

* It can happen in the ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' series. You can get boots, cans, and tires. It's impossible to know that they're junk ahead of time, since they look and fight back just like real fish. (No idea how or why they fight, but they do.) In ''City Folk'', some villagers may end up locked out of their houses, leaving you to fish for the key. In ''New Leaf'', you can prevent this by enacting the "Beautify Our Town" ordinance which, among other effects, keeps you from fishing up garbage.

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* In ''TheSmurfs'' comic book story "You Don't Smurf Progress", a Smurf who is using one of Handy's robot servants to go fishing ends up catching an old sock and other bits of junk from the river.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'' has a guy fishing up a "necklace" belonging to the local mermaid (in the Japanese version, it's her bra).

* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', you can fish while roaming the Plains of Eidolon on Earth. There's a small chance of you catching a boot as VendorTrash, and in contrast to the triumphant tune that plays when you catch a fish, [[Funny/{{Warframe}} catching a boot will play a brief banjo tune]].
** This can also happen on the Orb Vallis on Venus. You get a small electronica tune when it happens.

* ''Series/{{SCTV}}'' parodied ''Series/SiskelAndEbert'' showing them reviewing Robert Altman's "Henry", soon after his ''{{Popeye}}'' movie - the clip was a drawn-out scene picturing this trope. They weren't impressed.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', it is possible to catch worn leather shoes. So is catching raw leather [[note]]Which can be used to craft books which in turn can be used to craft bookshelves that can boost enchanting table's power.[[/note]], bones[[note]]Which can be used to tame wolves or as a fertiliser[[/note]], poisonous pufferfish[[note]]Which can be distilled into a [[ArtificialGill potion of water-breathing]][[/note]], enchanted artifacts as well as actual edible fish. You can even enchant your fishing rod to catch ''better'' random objects -- the "luck of the sea" enchantment decreases the odds of "junk" items like sticks, and increases the odds of "treasure" items like enchanted books.

* The cover of Volume IV of the Mag Garden ComicBookAdaptation of ''BreathOfFire IV'' depicts Ryu catching a boot when trying to fish. This is actually an inversion of a ''very'' long-running trope in the series where the various Ryus are depicted as expert fishermen (''BreathOfFire'' as a series is famous, nearly ''infamous'', for its {{Fishing Minigame}}s--especially ''IV'' which actually had ''its'' FishingMinigame spun off into a NoExportForYou Japanese smart-phone game). The same manga (in Volume III) portrays Ryu's LiteralSplitPersonality Fou-lu actually ''catching'' fish, adding insult to injury...

* A José Carioca comic book short features a sort of inversion. Being as poor as he is, he fancies the idea of a free pair of boots, and continues fishing for the other boot. Cut to an annoyed Joe sitting in front of a large pile of ''fish'' but still just one boot.

-->'''Ogre:''' There used to be a time when you could be sure of catching old boots, cans, hatracks, boxes...now it's ''prawns'' alla bloody time! Lousy ole ocean!

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## One version is to haul up a crab pot belonging to another boat, dump out whatever crab is already in said pot, and load it with other stuff (garbage is one common example). Sometimes, to add on more insult, the pot would also be tampered with (welding the door shut is common; one boat also slipped a section of pipe down a crab pot's line so as to essentially make it difficult for the targeted boat's crew to haul it up).

* It can happen in the ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' series. You can get boots, cans, and tires. It's impossible to know that they're junk ahead of time, since they look and fight back just like real fish. (No idea how or why they fight, but they do.) In City Folk, some villagers may end up locked out of their houses, leaving you to fish for the key. In ''New Leaf'', you can prevent this by enacting the "Beautify Our Town" ordinance which, among other effects, keeps you from fishing up garbage.

* {{MMORPG}} ''VideoGame/{{Mabinogi}}'' has a fishing skill and minigame. Aside from fish, catches include any number of different items, including quests, clothing and armour, crafting items, etc. Some items can only be found via fishing. The higher the player's rank, the more valuable the items (and fish) that can be caught.

* ''VideoGame/{{Torchlight}}'' and the ''{{FATE}}'' series involve fishing minigames where the fish sometimes contain items. It's usually jewelry or gems, but sometimes other things. There are also actual fish, which when fed to your pet turn it into a [[PowerUpFood powerful]] PetMonstrosity.