Most Memorable Fights (with a fish)

[Mottfia]

I love these types of topics. a lot of fun and a little braggin. My dad and I were prefishing a tournament on the Alabama River. I'm doing my normal thing, pitching a jig at everything known to man. I don't think I knew that I was allowed to tie anything else on at the time. I was a youngin back then lol. well I drop the jig in a tree and the line slams down. I set back and nothing moves...cept me. The fish goes down through the tree and turns up, boils on top, and back down....6lb Alabama Spot. I'm freakin about at this point and pulling as hard as I can. That turd of a fish decides it would be fun to play with me and wraps itself up in the tree. for a minute I'm just holding the line tight thinking about the fish I just lost. I'm pretty devastated at this time. Daddy goes to move the boat to the tree when she made a mistake. She comes shooting out of the tree. I bow up, pull as hard as I can, and lead her to the open water side of the boat. Money! she makes a few more strong runs before she is in my hands. She was a beauty. Never got a picture because we always forget the camera in the truck. We smiled and laughed and set her free. Great fish.

[SirSnookalot]

Most memorable outing in recent times.

Fishing for Kingfish in 185' off the  Woolbright tower in Boynton Beach Fl I hooked into a Lemon shark on a 6000 series spinning and 25 lb rod 20# braid. The seas were rolling 2-4 so footing and balance was difficult, 1 hour 20 minutes later as I was unhooking this 6 footer one of my buddies on the boat hooked into another Lemon.  He handed me his spinning outfit as he is 78 and not capable of handling a fish that size, I'm only 63.........that's why they take me along, lol.  An hour or so later I was unhooking the second 150# fish of the day.

Happy to say the sharks left the area and now the Kings and Bonita move in.  I caught 4 Kings and 3 or 4 Bonita using a diamond jig.  One of the other fellows caught a legal Cobia( best eating fish out there).

A very memorable outing.

[fastcasterjo]

caught a 150 lb sailfish on my friends deep sea fishing boat. There is nothing more exciting than seeing a fish that big (though not big for a sail) jump 5-6 feet out of the water. All my movements were by instinct because I was so awestruck.

[fastcasterjo]

sorry i just realize i put 150. it was 50 lbs sry about the on. 150 would be huge for a sailfish probably a record

[TruiteBR]

It was 10 years ago. I was fishing in Culuene River after Trairao. I was having a hard time catching fish. I was almost leaving to the camp, it was almost sunset when I casted a buzzbait in a really shallow watter ( 4 ft ) near a log. I retrieved it for about 3 yards when I saw something I will never forget. A big Trairao attacked my bussbait and the fight was on. The fight lasted about 15 minutes, with 5 jumps and many runs. Every run the leaves on the bottom of the lake were lifted to the surface. Every jump the fish was almost entirely out the water. It was great. I was 13 years old and I am not sure if I will ever have a better fishing memory. The fish had 36 inches and weighted around 22 pounds. I sure miss that trip.

[SkilletSizeBass.]

Maybe 15 years ago, my brother and a close friend and I were fishing a local watershed. We wasn't catching much for awhile, so my brother had us drop him off on the bank to do some squirrel hunting in the surrounding hills. My buddy and I continued to lazily work our way up our favorite cove. All of a sudden, it was like Mother nature flipped the switch ! My buddy and I started catching one bass after another, many times we'd both have fish on, and my brother was shooting one squirrel after another. I had a huge bass, est. 7lb., hit my black/chart. worm and come up and bust the top of the water, shake his head, and threw my worm. I was so disguisted with myself.Ive caught bigger bass since then, but I'll never forget that bass busting the water  and tail dancing before spitting out my worm. This lasted maybe 20-30 mins., and stopped as fast as it started. At the time I was really disguisted with myself for losing the fish, but, looking back, man what a great day !

[basspimple]

ive got quite a few, but i will go withe my most recent. it was this past november, and i was fishing a small local creek. it was like 50 degrees, with the water not much warmer. i was casting a buzzbait around for some reason, when somthing rocketed out of the water a good 2-3 feet. i thought it was a smallie at first, but i seen that black tail and i knew it was a largie. the battle didnt last long on my mh baitcast combo, but it sure suprised me how hard it fought, only being 18 inches. those creek fish outfight a lake fish anyday.  

[32251]

I snagged a carp. Probably about 45-50 pounds. Right on the top of the tail.  Took me about 1 1/2 hours to get him to the bank to get the hook out and send him on his way.  I called my brother over in Alabama and we talked while I was fighting the fish. It was dark and I had no idea what it was.

Funny thing happened yesterday.  I was fishing on the lake behind my brothers house with 4lb test on a vintage light action Garcia rod using a Roadrunner crappie jig.  I felt the jig stop dead still. Thought I was hung in a tree for a second and then I felt the same "tail wag" that I did when I snagged the big carp.......took me about 40 minutes to bring up about a 30 pound carp!!!  Snagged in the exact place!!   It was much easier in a boat than on the bank.  I just moved the boat with the fish.  

[crappiekid24]

I have a few. One would have to be when I tail hooked an 8lb Coho Salmon. It got tail hooked in the leadcore line (300ft of lead filled dacron+ 50ft leader + 75-100ft of line out to the board). I made a huge first run and almost spooled me. I could see the black of the spool. Well we didnt start counting the time until maybe 15-20mins into the fight but nearly an hour later after we started counting the time we finally got the fish in the boat. I thought this was going to be a new PB fish of 20lbs that I have been looking for. I remember it well because I was dead tired after getting the fish in.

[jdw174]

I wouldn't call this a single fight, but rather a single morning.  I was fishing Lake Erie, just trolling around a spot looking for a rockpile when I spotted what looked like a layer of "hooks" on the bottom in 20' of water.  I tossed out a marker buoy and picked up a rod with a 1/2oz Silver Buddy.  In the next four hours, I landed 24 smallies.  The smallest was 4lb, the largest almost 6.  This isn't counting the ones that I hooked and lost.  The school never moved and neither did I.  I stayed within 10' of that buoy the entire time 8-) .  By the time I quit, my right arm was like a limp noodle.  The power of those fish are amazing.  I've had several 100+ fish days on that lake, but nothing to equal this one in size of fish caught.

For a single fight, I was fall fishing on Kentucky Lake, throwing a Spook along a drop off when I got a strike.  I simply could not get that fish in the boat and it actually towed my Ranger around.  When landed it was only a 5 pounder, but I've never had a LM give me a fight like that before or since.

[rally]

One was in a tournament last year. My brother and I already had a 2, 3lber, and 4lber in the livewell and that is doin pretty darn good for us. We're on a very good shallow jig bite..So we're working down this 50 yard rip rap bank all day long back and forth getting bites every time we turn around. I decided I wanted to move down a little more so we motored down another 3-400 yards to this point with a tiny pocket next to it. We worked the point with nothing and when we moved into the pocket I flipped my jig into about 2 feet of water. I waited for a second and my line was on a b line out of there. I slammed the hook and could feel it was a great fish. Dove under the boat and I'm yellin for the net and getting the line around the trolling motor. The fish comes up and it's a giant. 6lbs. My heart is racing and I finally get it to the boat and my Brother scooped her up. She was up there spawning, most likely on a bed. Tail all cut up and still had some roe in her.

[Paul Roberts]

I've had lots of memorable fights. I love speed on scaled tackle: smallmouth's, chain pickerel (awesome!), pike, steelhead, and false albacore are my favorites. But there are also conditions that bring out the best in species: certain water temperatures and individual fish in prime body condition.

Largemouths are rarely spectacular but I've had some memorable ones. LM's often duck into cover, which has lead to some interesting battles: One I remember well was a ~15 on UL tackle in a pond with no cover. There was no place for him to go except for the depths. As I steered him to shore he spied a muskrat hole just as I did, and he just burrowed into it. All I could see was the end of his tail fin sticking out! He was too deep to reach and the pond edge too steep to wade in. I waited a long time before I finally broke him off (4lb line) trying to coax/pull him out. I had to laugh and figured he deserved to win that one.

I've caught some largemouth's that have fought exceptionally, and that stand out. These have been fish caught in ideal LM fighting conditions: no cover (so they can't bury), and water temps in the upper 70s. In such conditions LMs may almost reach smallmouth ability, and they jump more than fish that have cover to head for, or in colder or warmer water. One pond stands out in my memory: It was a pond built for swimming primarily and was spring fed. There was no cover. The water appeared almost blue I remember. The LMs in it were metallic silver-sided and blue-backed pelagic coloration like you might see with pelagic trout. Very cool looking fish. Some reached almost 4lbs there. These were the hardest fighting LM I ever encountered. They would not give up very smallmouth-like.

The temperature thing I think is important. At certain temps certain species perform best. I always called 57F-58F brown trout "jumping temperature". And it seems that at ~77F LM (in open water) is LM jumping temp, in which they are apt to jump often and high.

OK, I know the post is the most memorable LOL, so...

It would be steelhead, hands down. They are SO fast, and SO spectacular like a smallmouth, times 10 . Others, like false albacore, are ungodly fast but they aren't spectacular too. Steelies, in proper temperatures, have it all.

One in particular, one day in particular, really stands out. I came on an early surge of brilliant fresh-run steelhead in the very lowest end of a large river, just above the estuary. The water temp was 50F that's warm for steelie runs in the East! They were mirror bright, mint metallic silver, with blue-green backs, and there were some big ones too. I hooked a bunch that day, on a 6wt fly-rod (too light) on wet flies swung down to them. The takes on these flies, especially in warm enough water, is a sharp aggressive nip! and then your off to the races! The weird, truly uncanny thing is how fast these fish are, even trough or under strong current. They pass whitewater like it isn't there. You hook em 30 feet below and across from you and in a split second they are across the river! It's...just...unbelievable. Your fly-line is still pointing to where you hooked em, but the fish is jumping 70feet away and 90degrees to one side. Your reel is spinning so fast you are afraid it will come apart. They make spectacular 3 to 4 foot high leaps, cartwheels (yup, end over end), or in rapid succession.

I hooked maybe a dozen fish that morning and brought only 4 to hand, and none was my fault I simply had NO control for the first 5 minutes or so. I hooked two slobs, a ~16lb I tailed, (she was gravid and relatively slow and I could keep her in the pool) and another as close to 20 as any steelhead I've seen just a huge buck that came unpinned on a head thrash almost immediately after hook-up (Oooooo...I wanted that fish).

The most spectacular fish were the mid-sized fish (6 to 10 lbs) and they just cooked with such abandon that I couldn't do anything. They usually broke me off in wood, or around boulders, or just took 80yards of line out and I just couldn't catch up with them in that fast water and slippery bottom. I remember realizing, despite the fact that I had never learned to ice skate, how well I stayed upright charging downriver in strong current on what felt like an iced bottom. Adrenaline does amazing things.

One fish, a ~8lber, kept crossing the river back and forth I couldn't tell where he was by where my rod or line pointed; he was always somewhere else! He never jumped but I began ignoring my rod and looking for a flash of silver or a snaky out-of-place ripple in the white-water out there. Twice I caught up and freed the line from impending disaster by throwing a mend over an offending boulder. I eventually caught up to him in another pool, recovered my line, thought I had him (I saw his eye), but he then bolted across the cut, under a deadfall, and was gone.

I guess what hangs with me about steelhead in warm water is the complete lack of control. They dominate that white-water, the powerful river looking tame around them.

[Bankbeater]

Had to be when I caught my PB. I was at a lake that I thought only had dinks in it. I was palming my baitcaster and when I felt a tap I figured it was another little one. When I set the hook the fish headed out into deeper water and it about pulled the rig right out of my hands.  

[jimmieO]

The first time I caught a 9lber. Fishing with a strike king red eye shad lipless crank. Cranking it, then letting it die. When I felt the bite, I set the hook and it immediately started taking drag. Man, the excitement. Fought it for a couple minutes, and when she got to the boat, she was a big ole ugly drum! Still, a fun fight!

[K.Fox]

For me it was the third bass I'd ever caught. I was 11 years old fishing a pond on Long Island. My best friend and I hadn't caught anything so we each decided to throw on spinner baits(which at that time we hadn't caught a fish on a spinner bait). By noon we had become so bored we decided it would be fun to  cast out and see if we could snag each others spinner bait.  It had become a game and we both forgot about the fish. On ten casts we had hooked up three times. We would just unhooked the spinner baits and do it again. On the twentieth cast I threw out and SLAM!! A largemouth bass took my spinnerbait and the fight was on. We started screaming! As I was reeling my cheap reel broke and I had to walk backwards up the bank until the fish came up on sure. We couldn't believe it. I had to buy a new reel but it was well worth it. According to his scale it weighed 5lbs. Ill never forget it.

[nickb]

Mine would have to be in Idaho last summer. My grandfather and I were fishing on a river for Rainbow Trout with 6lb test and regular spinning tackle, when his drag just started going nuts and his pole doubled over.  We saw this three foot salmon roll over in the water.  He fought that thing for about 7 minutes before being able to bring him to shore. It was pregnant, so we realeased so there will be more in the stream.

[DawsonH]

First, a story about one I didn't catch. Then one that I did catch.

One day last July, I was fishing on the Sabine River near Hawkins Texas for gator gar. Me and my friend were using live bluegills for bait, with soda bottles for bobbers. I decided to reel mine in and was going to see if my bait was still kicking. As I was reeling it in the float acted a little strange, but I could still feel my bait and nothing more, when I got it closer to the boat, like maybe 15' the bottle started to submarine from the front first, but not with anymore weight, understand, it just looked like the bottle was diving a bit from the weight of the bait and sinker, HOWEVER , when I got it to the side of the boat suddenly the float takes of 90* from the side of my boat, I nearly get jerked out of the boat and then suddenly slack line. I'm thinking crap leader broke, but no when I reel it up the hook had somehow gotten one curve hooked around the leader wire so that the hook points all pointed at the bottom of the boat when it was hanging straight. So basically, this one managed to unhook itself through a case of extreme bad luck. I weigh about 190, so a fish that can come close to removing me from the boat is big. It also tightened down about 30 yards of line on my reel so that I had to pull it off and rewind it to cast again.

Now for the one that didn't get away. I was fishing the river again, but near Longview this time. I had two lines out, one a float rig and the other a large piece of cut bait fished on the bottom. I got a bite on my float rig and was letting it run (when gar fishing you let them run for a very long time) and as I was standing there holding that rod, suddenly my buddy tells me to get my other pole something is on it. So i set the hook on the fish i have in my hands, and get nothing. Reel that one in and set in boat and now I pick up the other one from its rod holder where whatever is on it is pulling line out against the drag. I set the hook on it, but it just feels like a log. I figure big turtle, because it isn't fighting me and it just feels like a big weight with a thump thump here and there. I tell my friend that I think that its just a log or a cat or something but he disagrees and says "nah that's a big gator gar, I'm sure of it. When it gets near the boat it gets angry and i see the biggest fish I have ever had on my line for the first time, at over 5'6'' long its beast, and I have it on bass tackle.(50# power pro, 6' ugly stick MH with Abu Garcia 6000). It first surfaced on the left side of the boat, and then took a dive under the boat, forcing me to stick the reel almost in the water while moving to the other side of the boat that it has now surfaced on again. When I get to the right side it makes a run for a log jam and just shy of it I was able to turn her back to the boat, and then again she made me switch sides. Now back on the left side of the boat, this 5'6'' fish jumps all of the way out of the water and gets me and my friend wet from the splash. She was only about 15' away when she did this. Finally, after all that I got her to the side of the boat and my bud got a rope around her. He handed the rope to me and put all the tackle on the front deck, and I drug here into the boat. Fish probably weighed about 80#'s, and my heart was racing almost as fast as it does when Me and the Mrs... anyway you get the idea. Sorry for the long post.

[Pond Hopper]

42" musky, 6 foot M rod with 20 lb braid, old baitcaster of my buddies, 1/4 oz jig, in canoe, and nothing but a trout net.  it was a great first fish of the year!

Not to mention it is the only musky still in that pond.

[FisherDave2]

Probably the best fight I had with a fish was last year and it was probably the biggest bass I have caught. It was at lake Alan Henry it was awsome I was realing a bass magic shad and the water clearity was about 3 ft and I could see the bait and out of the brush and hit so hard and I was yelling at the guy with me to get the net when I got this bass to the boat it was probably 6 to 8lbs man it was great, I looked around and all the people in boats around us were looking at us and laughing. I didnt realize how loud and excited I was. Last year was the first year I really got back into fishing and the first time I really had any luck catching anything.

[mrbassky]

I was fishing a end of year classic with a boat on the line. It was the second day and we were in 6th place. We were catching fish on crankbaits on laydowns. 2lbs was a big fish in this tournament and most of our fish were 1-1.5 After working the edges of a huge laydown in the back of a creek I threw a cast in the middle of the limbs next to the main trunk. Two turns of the handle and I had a fish it must of wrapped up instantly because I couldnt move it. We quickly went to the fish to get it lose. I kept steady pressure and could still feel the fish on. We got close and couldnt move it and then a huge boil came up and I knew it was a good fish. My partner grabed the line in the water and lifted the fish up enough to net it line still wrapped around the branches. The fish weighed 3.5 but it was big fish for the day. We ended up with a bag and won the boat. Not a big boat but still worth about 5,000. We sold it for 4,000 so the fish was worth about 2,000 to each of us.

[AverageJoeBass]

The most memorable fight wasn't my own it was my 9 year old son's. He started bass fishing with my nephew and I whom got me started again. We were fishing the same pond we usually fish every Saturday morning. We hadn't had much luck the whole day, I believe I caught a 1/2 pounder at the beginning of the day and my nephew had caught 1 or 2 that day but nothing over 2lbs. Then all of a sudden my son says "I got one!" I looked over and saw his rod bowed over and him giving it his all to reel it in and his eyes were just huge. He got it into the boat and I have never seen a child so proud as he was of catching that fish. We didn't have anything that day to weigh it with but I believe it was between 3-4lbs. Not soon after I got a scale. He caught it on a weightless watermelon red Senko style worm rigged wacky style. Here is a pic of the fish he caught that day.

Needless to say I believe I was more proud of him than he was of himself catching the fish!!!

[NYfishwow]

:'(

http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1226342926/0

thats alright roadwarrior, i guess there a lot people who had records in their hands and lost it. I included. :'(

[demonjd22]

If you'll let me indulge, i have 2 experiences id like to share. Not only were they memorable fishing fights, but they highlighted some of my best times with friends as well

First was catching 2 catfish over 10 lbs at my buddies pond (like 3 acres) in one night. Everyone was just hanging out on the back patio enjoying the summer night and this was the result... Light spinning gear, 6 lb test drag sizzling. No one had ever gotten one bigger than 6 lbs outta here, and they are 2 diff fish, not just diff pics lol ;D

My 2nd experience was on the Delaware River. Me and my buddies decided a 4 day canoe trip was in order. We figured pack like 2 maybe 2 and a half days worth of food and we'd eat the rest of what we caught. Except the fishing was horrible for us lol. I managed to unintentionally foulhook a 6 lb catfish in current so that thing took off!(i think he swiped at the spoon in the current and just missed it cuz the water was so fast) Needless to say that fish was probably twice as delicious as it should have been cause it kept us from going hungry that night

[hunt4]

44 pound carp on a shakey head last year. 1 and a half hours of adventure.

[Bass XL]

A 45 pound cat that bit a Lucky Craft RC 1.5. Had me and the boat going everywhere. Fought it for about 40 minutes and had a small group of boats watching. Fun stuff for sure.