The one that got away...

[405z06]

Ok, let's here some stories of the one that never made it in the boat (or to the bank) and broke your heart.

[KU_Bassmaster.]

Where do I start..... ;D

One that come to mind was the first time I went night fishing this summer.  I had a world record largemouth .................. well at least a state record .............. lol .............. actually I have no idea because I never saw it, I just heard it.  I was fishing with a HUGE jointed jitterbug.  I hear the loudest attack on a top water I had every heard and the fight was on.  Then all of a sudden nothing.  I reel in my jitterbug and the whole back end had fallen off.  That one has stuck with me a while.  I have nightmares about it.

[playmaker47]

I was fishing a pond and was walking along the edge of the rocky dam. I noticed a tree laying strait out in the water about 5 ft from the shore. Nowi hadnt planned on fishing this pond until right before i got there and I only had 1 rod and spinning reel with 8 lb mono. I had a small jig on and i had noticed some ripples coming from beside the laydown. I Pitched the jig about a ft past where i noted the ripples and twitched it twice and somthing nailed it. I must have had to light of line and not enough line out because i set the hook and got the bass to surface and it was a good 25" and by far would have broken my personal record. well when he surfaced he turned and snap. I just stood there speechless. I still wonder about if i had caught that fish what it would have weighed.

[basspro48]

One time me and my buddy were fishing at a local private lake. He was just whacking me with a suspending rogue, we were having a tournament so we were actually weighing our five-fish limits. He already had 4 keepers and I had one that was about 2lbs. So out of desperation I tied on a 1/4oz. pumpkin/craw finesse jig with a tiny trailer and I proceeded to catch 6 keepers in 6 casts. But with 15 minutes to go I pitched the jig way up under a dock and felt a tap..tap...thump. I set the hook hard and this thing just took-off down the lake ripping drag the whole way. It jumped 8 times and I fought it for 9 minutes. I got it to the boat and I go down and grab it's massive mouth and lift it into the boat. But then it clamped down on my hand and fell overboard. It was estimated about 10 1/4 lbs. I actually  still have scars on my hand from its teeth.

Lets just say I didn't take it very well... > > #**% @%#  

[405z06]

I started the thread, but I don't really have a good one, I guess that's good, as I wouldn't sleep for a month if I lost a monster. Here's the closest I have:

My father and I were fall fishing at the Lake of the Ozarks. We found a main lake point by PB#2 that was stacked with fish. Fish 10 feet to the left or right of the point and nothing. On the point, however, fish after fish. We would fish, catch about 6 or so, leave and come back periodically and catch some more. We were throwing wiggle warts and my dad hooks into one that obviously has some serious pull. Then the line broke. My dad always takes this sorta thing mcuh better than I. He re-tied and we continued to fish. Then i saw a line floating/moving in the water. Sure enough, we grabbed it and reeled it in by hand and it is still to this day the biggest spotted/kentucky I have ever seen in person.

[Raul]

Imagine that you are in one of Mexico 's BIG BASS meccas, where a 10 pounder is just a good fish, to brag a little you have to be in the teens, you make a cast witha a zara spook and send the bait flying into the next lake to work between those monster elodea patches where you now BIG MOMMA lurks, so there you are with a slight breeze ( just enough to ripple the surface ) twitching your rod tip and walking the dog when suddenly you see a huge wake approaching your bait at warp speed, 30 ft, 20 ft, 10 ft ( oh boy!!! oh boy !!! ), your palms get sweaty, you begin to perspirate, your eyes start popping right out of their sockets, the emmotion is overwhelming !, 6ft, 4ft ( you 're about to dump a brick right there on the boat ! ), the sound of the music from JAWS starts pounding your ears, WHAAAAAAAAAM !!!!, the strike is vicious, water and elodea splashing all over the place, you wait a couple of seconds and set the hook hard.......the MONSTER starts to pull, you 've got Nessie on the other end of the line, it runs to an elodea patch you turn it 's head, it sees another patch and it runs for it you pull and punish the critter, this battle goes for what seems endless hours ( actually minutes ), it pulls, runs here, runs there, the drag screams and slowly but surely the KREATURE starts gettting closer and closer to the boat, ten feet from the boat it suddenly realizes thet the boat is near so it takes a good pull and goes underneath the boat, there you are running all over the boat like a monkey with pequin pepper smeared on it 's rear end trying to pull the beast from underneath the boat, finally the beast gives up and................... HOLY COW ! just as you 're about to lip it you realize that the beast has more teeth than a chainsaw and an ugly mean look on it 's eyes.

Ever caught a 12 pound really ticked alligator gar ?

One thing is for shure, they do fight with a lot of spirit.

[Lightninrod]

My best friend Bill and I were bank fishing at a cotton-field farm pond down in Tifton, GA. The Bass are active and biting ;D. Bill's already caught a few throwing his usual bait, a 5", color #222 weightless Senko...................

I don't remember anything else about that day except for the times I threw my first swimbait, a Matt's Red-ear Sunfish:

My problem was I didn't know the proper way to set the hook on a swimbait bite(it's completely different from the rod position and the type of rod/reel movement needed) at that time. I've since learned the correct way and have caught several Bass with swimbaits but that day, I had Big Bass after Big Bass grab it, hold on for a second or two, leeping in the air too, just to release it............. :-[

Btw, Matt makes a 'hael' of a bait!

Dan

[Fisher of Men]

Lightninrod, Just how do you set the hook on a swim bait? I was looking at those Matt's baits earlier today and they really do look good. I've often considered using a swim bait. That may be something I try next spring.

My story is as follows:

I was about 8 years old and using the old Zebco 33 (I learned to cast an Ambassador 5001 a year later).

I was fishing a little hole of a pond on a place where we used to hunt and shoot. The little hole of water was only about 50 feet in diameter and I could see the shadow of a fish in the middle of it. My dad commented on the fact that it was a carp or gar and I would probably never catch it. I kept casting an H&H spinnerbait at it. I'd real it this way and that way. I'd throw in front of it and on top of it. The water was just murky enough that I all I could see was a shadow. I'll bet I casted 100 times at that shadow in the water. It was perhaps my 101st cast, I felt as if I'd snagged a limb or something. I reeled it in slowly and never felt a fight. As I reeled closer, I soon began to make out what I had on the line. I reeled the fish to within about 3 feet of the water's edge and saw the biggest spotted mouth I'd every seen. The bass looked three feet long to me (of course, I was only 8 or so). I had never seen a spotted bass before. I reeled for a couple of seconds more and WHAMMMO!! The bass made a turn and SNAP! The line broke. I wished so much that I had jumped in and caught it by hand. That was the biggest bass I'd ever seen in my life. Who knows how big it really was, but it gave me a fever that has never broken. I always imagine that if it was a spotted bass, it might have been a world record. At least that's what I like to think. Don't we all?

[Panamoka_Bassin]

Unfortunately, I don't really have a fresh water big bass story, but I do have a salt water striper story...

2 years ago, my friend Katy and I were fishing Shinnecock Inlet for stripers, using live eels and bunkers.  There were quite a few boats around us catching fish, but up till then we'd been skunked.  With only 2 eels left and 3 pieces of bunker chunks, we were thinking we'd been beaten.  "One or two more drifts", she says, so I toss out my bait and start the fish prayer ("Here fishy, fishy, fishy").  Just as I look over at the fish finder and see a HUGE pile of rocks, I feel my weight get hooked up on the bottom, or so I thought.  For what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds, I thought I was out of luck and got ready to cut my line, when all a sudden the tension lets go, so I start reeling.  Problem was, I wasn't reeling as fast as the line was moving at the boat.  I dipped down and yanked back hard to set the hook, and the bass took off the other direction, litterally screaming line off my Finore reel.  I cranked as hard as I could for a few more minutes, and started bringing up the biggest cow I have ever seen; even during my commercial fishing days I haven't seen a bass this big.  Granted it was in the water, but this thing must have been 50 inches plus.  I yelled for the net, "No not that one, THE BIG NET!!" and as Katy looked down at my fish, she gasped with surprise, missed the fish, and hit the end of my line, which promptly snapped and hit me in the face.  The tears, however, were not from the pain of the line hitting my face.

I still haven't forgiven her for that fish, but she hasn't missed a netting since, either.

[Peter E.]

Old Japanese  ;D Proverb,

      "The fish is always bigger for having been lost  :'("

Peter