Let's hear about the one that got away!

[fodder]

One day I am out at my neighbors father's farm. They have a good size pond that has a lot of fish... bass/crappie/perch. It was early and things were really biting .. 1st cast from shore got hit by a good sized perch. Got in the kayak and it didn't take long to get 2 or 3 bass, nothing big but they were on... Then my line got hit and I knew it was bigger then anything I had caught so far.. caught a quick glimpse of it before he dived back down and it looked big... a few more seconds and then... gone... line snapped... and the thing was all I could do was sit in my kayak and laugh just thinking about telling my neighbor how the fish were biting and the "big one got away"... thing was about an hour later I hooked a good 6/7lb and landed and got a pic... it was a good day

[Pez2385]

Back in July on the New River...
My neighbor (Ethan) and I got up early and hit the New River and headed upstream of Jacksonville. We weren't really fishing for anything in particular, just whatever decided to eat what we were throwing out there. It was about 1030 or so and we noticed something moving the reeds about 20 yards away. We both agreed at that point it was probably a gator and we kept an eye on its path. It was headed toward us so we pulled in the rods as to not accidentally hook it and **** it off. As it approached I noticed the head was not of a gator-shaped head. At this point Ethan decided to cast out over top of it and started to reel in. I then saw the head go under and the back broke the surface and thought, "that's a **** hairy gator!" Then I saw the rounded, hairy tail and knew instantly it was actually a mantee. As Ethan was reeling in, he snagged the tail of the sea cow and it just kept swimming upriver. I told Ethan to cut the line as he was not going to be reeling that thing in anytime soon. He cuts the line and we continue fishing. Unfortunately for us, my phone (camera) was not within reach to get a picture in time. 15 minutes after all this happened, the skies went from super sunny to a downpour. A few minutes later lightning and thunder were to downriver toward the boat ramp. I decided we were going to head upriver to get away from the storm. The storm lasted about 30 minutes or so and we made sure we were as low as possible in the boat.
To this day, Ethan and I joke about it and call the manatee the bringer of rain and whenever it's ridiculously hot on the water, we will ask where the manatee is so we can snag it again and get some rain.

[Greensboro]

Used to fish Lake Townsend mostly. One cloudy day in the fall I was parked on the underwater island with several lines out with shad on each. One rod took off like mister hybrid had somewhere to be and all I managed to do was lift the rod which bent all the way down and watched all the line peel off.

[challenger]

Ah yes, the one that got away. I remember it so well. I was a fine strapping 16 year old boy. I knew it all or so I thought. I was just throwing some topwater from the bank. Just getting a feel for the lay of the land if you know what I mean. Everything was going great and the future looked as promising as could be. Then I hear the footsteps of the person that would soon break my heart. I didn't know it at the time but Mary would end up being the one that got away and she would.......... UM............ Oops...... I guess your talking about fish huh? Never mind then.

Galaxy S4, Slimkat
If I wasn't married I'd quit fishing

[rmhpmi]

So, about a month ago I was fishing my little home pond. I'd tied on a brand-spanking-new Lucky Craft Flat CB MR in a Mat Tiger pattern (I know how some of y'all appreciate the details). About four casts later I'd hooked into what I knew was a nice fish and after a decent fight on my Falcon 6' Medium Action rod/Ardent Apex Tournament 6.5:1 combo had tired the beast, it was time to lip it. Unfortunately, my landing technique was poor and the line was light. I'd made a critical error by bringing the slob to the left side of the boat which meant I had an awkward angle trying to reach across to grab the fish.

Combine the adrenaline rush with newb tendencies, two size #4 treble hooks and a bad angle, the line caught something on the side of the jon boat and snapped, leaving me with that all-to-familiar feeling of despair and frustration as I watched what I can now see would have definitely been a personal best LMB roll onto her side and glide away, taking my pretty new crank bait with her, never to be seen again.

But, NOT SO FAST my friends! Imagine my surprise when, yesterday, I took the kayak out to the pond for some quality time with Mother Nature and on my first lap around the water I happened to look down and see this floating beside a stump:

The fish may have escaped (for now) but at least I got my crank bait back! Maybe The Fishing Gods don't hate me after all.

Fish On!

[challenger]

I've found a topwater that a fish stole too. It was about two weeks later. It didn't look anything like that beauty. I'd miss that lure.
Why does that happen? It HAD TO BE the biggest fish that gets away? Why couldn't it have been just a big one and not THE biggest?

Galaxy S4, Slimkat
If I wasn't married I'd quit fishing

[dbeam]

Glad you got the Crankbait back. especially since you know it works.

Darrell

[DMYankee15]

A few years ago when I lived in SC and had a kayak, I planned out my trips with much greater detail. I found a nice little sand bar a little over a mile from one of the boat ramps near by. I launched early one morning against the tide and paddled 35 minutes or so up river. I was soaked in sweat from the SC humidity and determined that my effort would be rewarded. As I got closer to the sand bar, I grabbed my favorite rod which still had the same spinning reel I put on it when I was a teenager 15 or so years earlier. This day I had it rigged with a gold spoon. I had yet to catch anything on the spoon and wanted to give it a try. I pulled up to the edge of the bar and positioned myself to work the lure with the tide just right so the spoon would appear to be moving with the current. On my first cast the lure hit the water and a few seconds into my retrieve something hit the lure and took off. The drag on my reel was screaming and jerking as my rod bent over. As the line left on the spool got diminished I got nervous and started applying pressure with my finger to the little braid that remained and suddenly experienced the dreaded pop of a break off. Terrible losing a huge fish.......but I still remember that fight like it was yesterday and I am a believer in the gold spoon.....

On a different trip I had to that spot, I had set out two lines with live bait while I worked a lure. One on bottom and another on a popping cork. Got a fish on the cork that took the line around the kayak and had me wrapped up all over the place before I could get the rod tight. The line broke above the cork and the fish got away. Some 10 min later I saw the cork swim by below the surface near my kayak. Never saw the fish.

[bearpaw]

I live in Washington State and fish the Columbia River quite often. There are white sturgeon that inhabit the river, some stay in the river, others move back and forth from the salt. The upper river above coulee dam where I live has not had sturgeon season for many years due to over harvest years ago and that portion of the river is blocked by coulee dam which prevents fish from migrating upstream, so F&G has been letting sturgeon recover, it takes many years to grow big sturgeon.

But, you can still fish for sturgeon in the the lower river, there is a size slot around 5 feet that you can keep fish, oversized or undersized fish must be released. Last summer I went fishing with a buddy for oversized fish. We used 12" shad for bait, and we were on the water on a good day, the fish were really hitting. At first we were using two poles but stopped that after each of us had to reel in a 7 to 8 footer and needed a rest. So we fished one pole and swapped off. I don't think we ever had more than 15 minutes without a fish on. After reeling in 4 fish each ranging from 7' to 9'8" we were too sore and called it quits.

The two largest fish were 9'1" and 9'8", probably weighed 400-500 each. We got in the water with those fish for photos, then released them. The amazing thing to me, we lost two fish that we couldn't stop, they were spooling our reels which had 100# braided, we broke the line trying to stop them, I guess we should have went faster following them! I would like to have seen those fish! Here are photos of the two big ones that we caught.

[NCangler]

Wow! Those are monsters.

[ncangling]

This actually happened earlier this summer, at a creek in central North Carolina. I had been tipped off to a secret spot by a fellow fisherman on Instagram who told me of this short section of creek absolutely loaded with gar. I had never caught a gar, and hearing of a spot this good in central North Carolina was enticing as most reports of Longnose come from the coastal plain or intercoastal areas.

I broke down and made the hour or so trip to the place, loaded with some nightcrawlers and a handful of small minnows hoping to alternate between cut and live bait. I got there and fished a small beaver dam for some bait, ended up catching a small white perch and bluegill which would become cutbait. I spotted a couple small gars here and there but they were skittish at first. I walked through some thick woods for a while and found a couple holes in some massive logjams, and saw massive groups of gar. Small ones and some real monsters.

I began fishing, using a size 8 or so treble hook and a minnow about 6-8 inches under a float. The banks were nearly vertical and there were overhanging branches and underwater snags everywhere, so casting to the gar was a chore in and of itself. But thankfully these fish were not picky at all. All you had to do was get the bait relatively in front of them and they would be on it like flies on honey. I saw a massive one, so I casted to it. I was using about 20 pound test on surfcasting gear, so at first was not worried at all. The massive gar slurped my bait and soon the fish and bobber disappeared as I loosened the drag and let him eat. But with all the snags I had to be ultra-cognizant of his position because one wrong movement and he would have me tied up. Thankfully he found some open water and I let him eat for a good minute and a half and when I was ready yanked hard and set the hook. In an instant the fish started yanking out drag and my finger resting on the line was burned from the sheer force. After a careful 10 minute fight, alternating between letting him run and horsing him around obstacles, he took a nosedive right for the bank at my feet, about 5 feet down. I reached for my net, a pretty small one, and right as I was about to get it, the apparently tired out fish it thrashed wildly and shook the hook and just like that it was over. It was probably at least 40" (trophy size for longnose is right around 50") and probably between 15-20 pounds. I lost several more that day but none as big or as close as that one. I went back later on to find the spot flooded, hopefully when I get back one day the gar will still be there to catch.

TL;DR: Hooked a massive gar fishing and after a stressful, tedious fight it thrashes off the hook at the shore.

[The Mad Duck]

We were fishing Million Dollar month in the Cayman Islands about 20 years ago. That is a month long billfish tournament,with a tournament every weekend as well. We were fishing the South Sound area and had gotten a radio message from some folks we knew that they had seen a massive fish (Marlin) . About 10 minutes later this huge shadow appeared under the port outrigger. The line snapped and we got about a 3 second zzzzzzzz, then the starboard outrigger went off for a few seconds. In the next 15 seconds, every line we had went off. The fish finally came up and took a slap at the teaser we had running really short. When the fish came up, I got a really good look at it. It was, and still is, the largest billfish I have ever seen. I dropped a pitch bait in and dropped it back. The fish came off of the teaser and went to the pitch bait and stuck a few feet behind the bait. The captain was screaming pull it away, pull it away..Pizz it off!!! I looked up and the captain and he was white as a sheet. I pulled the bait away and the fish would rush it, then drop back. I dropped the bait right in its face and the fish whacked it, then dropped back again. We played that game for at least an hour (really only a couple of minutes) and then the fish just slowly dropped back and disappeared. The captain came off of the bridge and was literally shaking. He had been billfishing for over 30 years and said it was the biggest fish he had ever seen. He estimated close to a thousand. My heart still starts pounding when I think about that encounter.

[h2ohhh]

Great reading these stories and glad the original thread lives on. I posted a story on this thread 8 years ago!

Anyway a couple of late springs ago I solo camped on Bear Island for 3 days. The wind was stout, blowing over 20 out of the SE which was right in my face as Bear faces South and my 6 decade old body struggled a bit on the 3 mile paddle with a couple of hundred extra pounds of gear in a Nucanoe. Hoping to find some early live bait I used that as an excuse to stop often and rest. The beauty of a solo trip is that an agenda doesn't exist.

Turned out bait was sparse though I did cast net a few each day but outside of catching some blues and small sharks in the surf in front of camp I did not hook a Red on this trip. Until the last day. I was in the lagoon behind camp, maybe 5 feet off the bank and lobbed a finger mullet off a clump of grass out ahead of the kayak to which a fine fish grabbed it immediately and the circle hook did its job. It was a heavy, powerful fish and it's first run was out to the middle of the lagoon which took him maybe 3 seconds to do. I felt I had a good shot at him though with quality gear and the drag on the Ci4 set very firm yet fully functional which would wear the fish down. Then he turned and ran straight at the kayak. Reeling furiously he blew past the kayak and I got a good look at the over slot fish. A solid 30 incher. The line came tight at close range behind the yak and my 7 foot rod is doing a 180 with this green as a cucumber and ticked off red, making me wish my drag was a bit looser. The line parted at the fluoro leader which I had not retied in a couple of days due to little action. Lesson learned. All I wanted was his photo to cap off what was an awesome 3 days of nature.

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