The One That Got Away

[Althing]

What's your one that got away? What's your biggest fish story or stories? My first trip out to go pike fishing at Navajo Lake had a very fun end. My brother and I borrowed a very small jonboat and went fishing for the day for whatever we could catch. My brother continuously caught hold of some very large catfish (or what we thought were catfish) but could never land one. One even towed the tiny boat a good 3/4 of a mile down the Pine arm of the lake. Towards the end of the day and after a good chunk of line missing after a nasty backlash on my first round baitcasting reel, I tossed a firetiger Mepp's Musky Marabou into a sunken tree off the side of a cliff and immediately got a violent strike. The pike stripped my line in no time and I was forced to throw all my drag on him. When the drag was tightened to its limit I heard the PowerPro 65lb. test superbraid go tink-tink-tink-tink..tink......tink......SNAP. He took off and the line hardly phased him at all. Anybody wanna wager what size fish can snap 65lb. test braid at a full run?

[the dan]

Wow, always sucks when it takes the line... and then it snaps.

Might not have been the biggest one that got away, but the one I remember best: I was offshore fishing in SoCal, got a bite and then fought with it for 25-30 min, my brother was watching over the side of the boat and was like "I see it.... now I don't." right as it got really easy. Pulled up a bunch of rock fish and barred sand bass that day though.

[Althing]

Wow sounds like a great fight you had, Dan. Never been saltwater fishing but I will when we go see my wife's family out in Florida one of these days. I want to catch a redfish bad. What do you think you had on the end of your line?

[the dan]

Most likely a small halibut or larger sea bass. There were a couple halibut caught that day and those guys had similar fights to the one that got away.

[geterdun]

The one(s) that got away. I was trout fishing in Southern Colorado July 2009. I had never spent alot of time fishing running water, so I wasn't good at it. I spent most of the day playing around camp with the kids, then around 1500 hrs, I decided to head up the road to a place I spied driving in. I loaded my fishing pole and a few sinkers and hooks and headed out. About 2 miles from camp I pulled onto the shoulder and walked out onto a beaver dam. I put a couple trusty fireballs on the hook and cast it across the rapidly running water. My rig hit the water near the other bank and began traveling with the current. Before I knew what happened my pole was nearly jerked from my hands. I began reeling and watched a large rainbow fly out of the water, twisting from side to side. My heart started racing and I continued reeling it in. I got it onto the bank and grabbed onto it. It was around 24 inches long and probably over 4 pounds. By far the biggest rainbow I had ever landed. I laid my pole down and wrapped both hands around my prized catch. With one strong wiggle the fish had slipped from my grasp hit the water and "snap" the line broke and it was gone. After a few profanities were uttered, or more like shouted, I replaced my tackle and climbed back onto the dam. The same thing happened two other time on successive casts. The next time a replaced my tackle, this was the last of it that I had taken with me. I cast across the running water again, this time no excitement. repeated this at least a dozen times and no strikes. Then just as I was about to throw in the towel "bam" another hard strike. It felt like another good one. I reeled and watched as a nice rainbow surged from the water. This time when I got him to the bank I laid my pole down, grabbed the fish and threw it as far up the bank as I could. I took it back to camp and showed the family and told them about the other three that got away. The one I made it back with was 24 1/2 inches and just under 5 lbs. I don't think they believed me about the others...but I had fun.

[Dozer]

Now THATS a fish story! Any photos? I remember fly fishing a beaver pond in the Jemez a few years back and had a blast! I don't know how many fish were in it, but my cousin and I caught and released about 20 of them. The largest was maybe 15". We didn't keep any because we wanted to come back the next day and do it again. Unfortunately, we didn't make it back to the pond until mid afternoon, and on the way there we saw a kid with a full stringer walking back to his camp. We tried to 2 hours and got absolutly nothing. The next few years after that, the beavers didn't dam it up, so it was just a small creek with no good places to fish.