Something ATE my entire spinnerbait?

[Koz]

Fishing has been completely lousy here the past week. We had 3 or 4 days of nighttime temperatures in the 20's and 30's with daytime highs in the 40's and that was followed by 4 days of nighttime temps in the upper 50's and 60's and daytime temps in the 60's and 70's. A little rain, but mostly clouds. I haven't caught anything since two days into the cold snap.

 

Anyway, I soldier on and head out to fish for a while in a lagoon that's been decent fish all winter. With this one in particular, the larger body of water has a "finger" that extends for about 150 yards and is about 60 feet across. In the summer, where it dead ends has a lot of good shoreline and aquatic vegetation and we've caught our fair share of 5 pounders there.

 

So I'm down near that end, toss a 3/8 spinnerbait with a paddletail trailer and while reeling in I feel the vibration and thump-thump of a strike. I motion to set the hook and come up empty. I mean really empty. No fish and no more spinnerbait. And there was no pull or any type of resistance when I tried to set the hook. Nothing was there.  I had just tied on so the know was fresh. I'm fishing 40 pound braid and when I reel in the line I see the line is shredded. Since I cut the tag end cleanly with scissors I'm pretty sure it wasn't a poor knot that caused my to lose the lure.

 

Our lagoons are man made and we don't have rocks or stumps or anything like that in the water. Except for the occasional bowfin we don't have toothy creatures. We have carp as well, but if I snagged a scale I think I would have felt a lot more. Well, we have gators but they don't have sharp line cutting teeth and they usually just grab the bait and hold on, so it was definitely not a gator.

 

I tied on another spinnerbait and made about 20 casts back to that area thinking maybe there was some unseen structure in the water that cut my line but didn't feel the bait hit anything. If I was fishing 20 pound braid I could see the line rubbing against something and the line being cut. I guess the most logical explanation is that the line had previously been nicked and I did not notice it and when the fish hot the bait the line broke. I just hope the bait fell to the bottom and it isn't lodge in the mouth of a bass.

 

But it certainly was weird to try and set the hook and not even my lure was on the end of my line.

[MN Fisher]

Sounds like something a Northern or other 'toothy finned-critter' would do.

[newriverfisherman1953]

Yep I’ve come up empty like that a bunch of times, but we have musky. 

[moguy1973]

Pihrana?

[N Florida Mike]

Is there any chain pickeral in there? Mudfish can be real agressive too. I dont think it was a gar- Ive never had one hit a moving bait of any kind.

[Koz]

No pickerel here. We have largemouth, catfish, bowfin, bluegill, and white crappie. 

 

I’ve seen a few small (less than one foot) gar in one other lagoon but nowhere near this one. I’ve never seen gar in any other lagoon and I’ve fished about 300 in this area. A few lagoons have striped bass.

 

Toothy fish like pickerel and walleye can be found in the northern part of SC.

[MN Fisher]

5 minutes ago, Koz said:

No pickerel here. We have largemouth, catfish, bowfin, bluegill, and white crappie. 

 

I’ve seen a few small (less than one foot) gar in one other lagoon but nowhere near this one. I’ve never seen gar in any other lagoon and I’ve fished about 300 in this area. A few lagoons have striped bass.

 

Toothy fish like pickerel and walleye can be found in the northern part of SC.

Bowfin are toothy enough - and they're related to Gar. That's probably what took it.

[gim]

4 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Sounds like something a Northern or other 'toothy finned-critter' would do.

I can’t even try to estimate how many times this has happened over the years. I’m reeling in and then thump! and everything is literally gone. I avoided it all season until August this year and then it happened 3 outings in a row. About 60 bucks worth of lures, gone.

 

It’s funny when it happens to someone else but when it’s you it’s not all that funny. Even 40 pound braid sometimes gets sliced through.

[MN Fisher]

1 minute ago, gimruis said:

I can’t even try to estimate how many times this has happened over the years. I’m reeling in and then thump! and everything is literally gone. I avoided it all season until August this year and then it happened 3 outings in a row. About 60 bucks worth of lures, gone.

 

It’s funny when it happens to someone else but when it’s you it’s not all that funny.

I've only lost one lure to a Northern the past few years. That one bit off a lipless just before I was about to net it.

[gim]

4 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

I've only lost one lure to a Northern the past few years. That one bit off a lipless just before I was about to net it.

Oh you just wait. They’re merciless. I started using some specialized seaguar flurocarbon leaders after I got sawed off three times in a row. One lure was a discontinued storm subwart which is about 40 bucks on eBay to replace, if I can find one.

 

The smaller annoying ones that are so abundant here are lure wreckers, but the bigger ones take the entire lure just like the OP is describing.

[@reelChris]

It's funny, I've caught pike on almost every kind of lure except full size plastic worms, but they really zero on in on TRDs.  At some lakes I've given up using ned rigs because all I catch with them are pike.  I'm not sure what the appeal is, it's such a tiny bait relative to the size of the fish. 

[Michigander]

Also could have been a turtle. 

[Bluebasser86]

Gar rarely cut line as they have needle teeth for holding fish. Turtles don't cut line either. A big bowfin has some nasty chompers and they're jagged enough to make quick work of braided line though and they'll inhale a bait for sure.

[livin2fish]

I'm betting on the bowfin.  By the way, glad to see you are back in the Beaufort County area.                  

[Koz]

10 hours ago, Michigander said:

Also could have been a turtle. 

I once had a large turtle, I think it was a box turtle, come up from underneath and hit a topwater with treble hooks. It ended up getting hooked in the top and bottom of its mouth.

 

It took me probably a good 30 minutes to get the hooks out of him, mainly because he kept trying to pull back into his shell. His neck muscles were strong and we had a tug of war until he got tired enough for me to get access to remove the treble hook.

[Michigander]

2 minutes ago, Koz said:

I once had a large turtle, I think it was a box turtle, come up from underneath and hit a topwater with treble hooks. It ended up getting hooked in the top and bottom of its mouth.

 

It took me probably a good 30 minutes to get the hooks out of him, mainly because he kept trying to pull back into his shell. His neck muscles were strong and we had a tug of war until he got tired enough for me to get access to remove the treble hook.

Turtles are interesting creatures. I've had long nose turtles chase down swim jigs and I've hooked a couple tire sized snappers. Nothing like reeling in a dinosaur.

[J Francho]

You answered your own question saying there are bowfin in there, and were using braid.

[Koz]

2 hours ago, J Francho said:

You answered your own question saying there are bowfin in there, and were using braid.

We have bowfin in some lagoons although I haven't seen or caught any in that specific lagoon.

 

I've caught bowfin before and they usually hit the bait very hard. In this case I felt the resonance of a strike that was a thump-thump like something nipped the trailer and not the bait. When that happens I stopped reeling for a second simulating a stunned baitfish. Maybe in that brief pause is when the line severed. It would have to be a big bowfin to engulf the entire bait, but maybe as the bait fell the bowfin hit the line instead of the bait.

 

Anyway, I've been fishing for 50 years and never had that happen before. It was weird, but as I see now it has happened to others.

[TnRiver46]

Bowfin. They’ve done it to me a lot 

[Bird]

I don't think it would have been a snapping turtle as I caught likely a 30 pounder while catfishing, using braid and fought it for quite a while before landing it.

 

Only fish around here that has done to me as you described were Musky and was also throwing spinnerbait. 

[NoShoes]

Bowfin or gar. I’m not far from you, happens to me quite a bit. 

[Munkin]

Happens all the time with Pike and Muskie around here.

 

Allen

[Koz]

6 hours ago, Munkin said:

Happens all the time with Pike and Muskie around here.

 

Allen

I grew up fishing in New England and in Canada and we fished for pike but with live bait and not lures so I never experienced that.

[Sam]

A small alligator?

[Koz]

2 hours ago, Sam said:

A small alligator?

No. Gator teeth are spaced apart and even if it grabbed only the line the line would settle between the teeth then the bait would have slid up against the snout and I would have felt that. The gator would also instinctively have kept his jaws shut at that time.

 

Somewhere on BR in a post I made 3 or 4 years ago is a video of a baby gator that I reeled in when it would not let go of a soft bodied frog that I was throwing.