Your Best "One that got away" story

[MrPatrick]

Ok, now photos from '98 are being posted...... Granted a great photo.
Inspired by Wiredantz story, what is your best or more accurately your worst lost fish story.

Mine was really two large Halibut lost on successive trips a few years ago. Both were farmed terribaly in the big bay. The second one occurred near Jim Sammons and some clients. I should have asked Jim if he could spare a moment to advise me, but I didn't. And it went under the yak and cut the line. I let out a huge yell of frustration and Jim was surprised by my scream. And gave some good natured greif on my mistake.

What's your story.............

[deepdvr]

Ok...I'll bite. I was fishing alone this past summer in an area known to hold large YT.

I had the place entirely to myself and after trying unsuccessfully for 4 hours to hook into something, I mentally gave up and shifted my focus towards making more bait before I moved on to another area.

As I was making bait, I noticed the bait balls were moving very fast and as soon as I marked them and dropped they would often be gone. (First sign there are predatory fish on the prowl)

On one of my sabiki drops I ended up reeling in my spectra main line on my bait rod. It was odd that my bait had moved 180 degrees from behind my stern to the front of my bow. Oh well, guess I'll put my sabiki away and tend to my bait rod.

The moment I place the sabiki in the rod holder all hell breaks loose. That rod is hooked up to an angry yellow. The line is pulling against all of the other rods in my rod holders and I'm trying to figure this out very quickly.

Somehow the line got wrapped up around my Hobie rudder. My heart sank. Next thing I know I'm getting towed backwards at a pretty good clip while sitting side saddle in my revo. This goes on for awhile and every scenario is running through my head. Do I jump in the water and try to untangle it? The fish starts changing directions so now I'm getting towed all over the place. I get on my radio and try to hail Dorado50 who is in his skiff a good 500 meters away. He was the only person in the general area.

I had to ride it out until eventually my leader couldn't handle this fish and snap-o. That one really hurt. But after I stopped crying like a little girl I went over to area 2 and landed a solid .

I guess the moral of the story is.....pay attention.

[Aaron&Julie]

...okay, let's open up old wounds.
First, there are many not mentioned here. The first...
...30 years ago, while on a PB off of Rocky Point, after my mother (non-fisherfolk) had caught a 12lb halibut, already making our day this trip, I decided to cast a plastic since our quality bait was diminished. We were about 100 yards from shoreline, when something sucked up my plastic, ran to the boat, and then ran lickety-split towards the stern. My experience since, leads me to believe it was a huge WSB, or quality yellow. He busted me off, probably at one of backlashes where I had weakened the line. I wasn't a great conventional reel caster at that time.
...on a 3/4 day run to the Coronados, many quality yellows had been caught previous days. We were fishing the outside of South Coronado where many rock pinnacles reside. On this day, some yellows already had been caught, none less than 20+lbs, some in their 30's. I hook up with a yellow that wouldn't quit running until he hit one of those pinnacles. Snap...gone! He was definitely one of the big ones.
...on vacation in Cabo San Lucas, chartered a ponga, with good results. Except when I hooked into a Roosterfish on 15lb (my own gear) line. After wonderful runs he blows up my squider junior and the mate and I splice to another outfit of mine with 20lb line. One hour later, we have him at deep color and he is big, like 80lbs+ big. Back and forth we go, almost within gaff range, the mate wants to grab the line to pull him in for a gaff shot. I yell out no, which he obliges. I should have gone with his instincts, the fish unbuttons within 5 seconds after that.
...the year Julie caught her world record, we lost 3 halibuts off of La Jolla, me one, her two. Mine would have been in the 20lb+ range, hers, 30lb+ and 50lb+. Needless to say, you really do want to gaff a halibut in the sweet spot, as all were lost, for not doing so. Her monster, I can gauge this, since I gaffed her record, was over 50lbs. Horrible to see such a wonderful fish come up, and then lose it while so close. It was on the gaff, but went too ballistic and I blew it, and kept us from keeping it. She would have finished either 2nd or 3rd in the BWE whoppers, if I'd kept it on. This is probably the most painful of all the lost fishes.

So, there you have it. Thanks for letting me re-live painful memories.

[yakety-yak]

Something huge nabbed my sabiki last summer off la jolla and towed me for a few minutes last summer...until it straightened the hook out!

Also I lost my first halibut in alaska when the guide couldn't gaff it properly...

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by sarcastic

Ok, now photos from '98 are being posted...... Granted a great photo.Inspired by Wiredantz story, what is your best or more accurately your worst lost fish story......

Well I've lost a few that I will always remember.

Most relevant for this board was a halibut I lost at La Jollla this last year. I hooked it on a Spanish fishing a dropper and thought it was a big leopard shark till I got it right to the yak. It was just barely hooked, with the hook in a little chunk of skin outside the mouth. It was hanging vertical, a sleeper, white side in, with it's eyes facing away from the yak.

I had several choices: I could of taken my time and tried to lay it out on it's side, but it had not yet seen the yak and when it did it would likely take off, and possibly pull the hook. I could try an over the head shot which would allow it to see the gaff and possibly spook it as well, or underneath which was awkward since it was straight up and down, but at least that way it would not see it coming.

I went for underneath and hit it hard but the gaff glanced right off it's gillplate. Andy got it on film...

Naturally it took off and the hook pulled.

It was a really really really big fish, most likely forty plus. I've taken them in the thirties but that fish looked bigger than anything I've got up close. It was simply huge. In hindsight If I had to do it over again I'd pass on the headshot and would come in deep and low well below it's eyes around the belly and gaffed it there where it was soft. Haven't lost one at the gaff since, but I lost that one and it was a nice fish..

Another one that I'll remember was in MDR harbor. I used to run a big sportfisher out of there and when working on the boat at night I'd turn on the underwater lights on the stern and it would raw up huge clouds of bait. Occasionally small seabass would come in for them and every once in a while a legal would show up. You could see them in the lights and every once in a while I'd take breaks from work and fish these fish with little raplala floating minnows on four pound. Only ten feet deep so I'd catch and release them. Caught more then I could count several fish numerous times. One night I was working a little rapala in the lights trying to get a 26 incher to go, and a big four to five foot fish came up out of nowhere and ate it right in front of me right in the lights. Saw it clearly no doubt what it was or as to it's size.

So here I am with a thirty to forty pound class seabass on my little spinning rod with four pound. Oddly it never took a long run but just kind of dogged it like it wasn't even concerned. Never even got it even close to the gaff though and finally after a good thirty minutes it wrapped me on one of the dock pilings. Can't say too much it's not like I ever had a chance, but after that I went to eight pound

For me though the granddaddy of them all is a freshwater fish, a flathead catfish I hooked on the Brazos bellow Granbury dam.

It was back when they still et you wade right up to the dam.

I hooked four of them in some unusual conditions that one night on big 12 inch live gizzard shad I caught with my throw net. All huge fish and I lost them all.

This particular one I had on for 45 minutes on twenty pound. He wrapped me on a concrete structure (baffle) of the dam so I waded in after him into to chest deep flowing water. It was dark but when I got him around the baffle he came up to the top, right in front of my face and he was just huge maybe 18+ inches across eye to eye at the head and well over sixty pounds. He could of been in the seventy to eighty pound range for all I know. The biggest one I have ever seen, and he was right there in chest deep water right in front of my face. I should of just grabbed his gills and drug him the sixty semi odd feet to the rocks but the footing was bad, with heavy current, and he was so big I was a little afraid to grab him because he might of pulled me off my feet and then out of my hands. I honestly figured I had him anyway. I was laughing about it. Talking out loud saying things like: "I got your @$$ beat now Mother F#####r" I mean I knew the other ones were huge, and I had caught several of them in the thirty pound range there before but this fish was in a class by itself. I was completely blown away by his size and just beside myself with pure joy at finally getting one of them after loosing the three others before him.

As I walked him over to shore dragging him to the rocks I was laughing and shouting, and then he rolled on his side and spit the hook maybe ten feet from the waters edge in four feet of water. I literally dove on top of him trying get a grip on him but I could not and he was gone.

It's like I got hit with a sledgehammer in the back of the head. I hooked that fish in probably 1977, and I was just a teen but I still remember it like it was yesterday. It's like burned into my head. I fished the rest of the night but did not hook another one. I never saw those big shad or the conditions in there like that again and though I got a lot more big fatheads out of there I never hooked anything even remotely that size again. I still occasionally dream about that fish and would give almost anything to get another shot at him. The old farts probably dead by now but it still kills me to think about it. Hell of a fish and I was so close to landing it.

Oddly one of the most memorable lost fish for me was not a giant like the one above but just a little fish. It's certainly my oldest memory of one that got away. I was very little maybe five or six or so, and my dad took me out in a boat fishing for the first time at I think Eagle Mountain lake, with a family friend Uncle Len. There was a run of white bass or sand bass as we called them in Texas, in the winter and the fish were by a powerplant outlet in warmer water. There was a fence at the outlet made of half inch cable and we tied up to that, but though we fished for hours we did not catch anything. Finally we decided to head in and my dad tied on a little lure a "Pico Perch" to my line for me to troll on the way back. So there I was I was holding a little solid glass rod with some old level wind with dacron on it when a sandbass hit the lure. I was so excited and reeled it in like a reel pro for a kid but then right at the boat when we could even see the fish the rod butt slipped in between the two haves of the little orange kids coast guard pfd I was wearing, and the reel handle snagged and twisted up in the tie straps to the preserver making it so I could not turn it. My Dad kept saying: "Reel it in Jim" "Reel it in", but I could not get that damn handle to turn. eventually the fish got off and then my Dad realized what was wrong and untangled me. We ended catching a bunch of them trolling lures up and down the cove that day but the only one a remember clearly is that first one flopping around when I just could not turn the handle. Man I hated those vests after that. For a while I got mad every time they made me put it on

Well there you have it. Recent and old. There's only a handfull but I have lost a few I'm not likely to forget.

Jim

[jorluivil]

One that got away

She was 22 & came from a rich family

[bus kid]

I call BS on everyone without pics

[mtnbykr2]

Originally Posted by bus kid

I call BS on everyone without pics

but then it would not be a "story" then would it?
this outta be a good long thread ...lol

[JoeBeck]

I have a few memories of losing some good fish . The worst fish I lost actually was not mine, it was my wifes, 2 years ago in the Steve moyer tournament. She hooked a good size halibut, her fist legal halibut, not a tournament winning fish but would have won her the female division. She could not figure out how to gaff it, the fish looked completely wiped out from the battle. So I paddled up, I knew it was not a 20 pound fish, she had 30 pound line, I grabbed the line brought the fish to my boat grabbed it and put it between my lap. It went nuts!!!!!!!!!!! Jumped off the boat, still hooked, grabbed it again and it jumped off the other side coming undone and being free. She was crushed, I was crushed more losing her fish.

The good news is my wife didn't weigh a bigger fish than me . Actually I didn't weigh a fish either.

[GregAndrew]

I would not know where to start. Let's just say that most of the contestants for the honor were due to user error.

[Aaron&Julie]

Jim,
You're my kind of fisherman. I liked your stories, and I can relate. Besides the fact, you fish out of my original stomping grounds, Redondo and such.
Gotta say though per Joe Beck's post, Julie's lost halibut, was my greatest loss.
Aaron

[Matt]

As for mine ask Gary Sullivan hahaha j/k Gary

[steveooo]

[deepdvr]

Originally Posted by steveooo

I think that one got hit by a boat prop

[T Bone]

I think we all have more than one of these stories.This is going to be a great thread for sure...

My Dad is (Was) a bigtime longranger Cow tuna/Wahoo guy(He is now retired in Lapaz B C S Mexico with a house 300ft from the water and has a 19' robalo and 14' valco to play with.I will finally get to go down there now that things are getting better with my boy)anyways I wanted to finally get some bigger model tuna and wanted to do a 5 day to the 'lupe but he wanted to do at least a 10 day.I told him that The wife would never boil on that chum,so we picked a 7 day Alijos trip on the RR3.
In the mean time my Dad and I become aqainted with a guy named Rex who was friends with the Owners of Avet reels,two Armenian immigrants named Harry and Sarkis who's love for saltwater fishing led them to begin making reels.Rex told them about the trip we were going on which is Ultra prime time August 2006(what is known as a "Hurricane risk"trip)and were offered to demo a new reel the "SX 2pd" Harry just caught a 600+ black marlin on a JX2 and was convinced this new little gem could take 100# YFT and asked if we would do some tuna fishing with them.If we caught a "Good" tuna with them and got pictures we could keep the reels.I thought this was a win-win so what the hell.The little reel seemed at the time like the coolest thing I had ever seen.300yds of 50# spectra with short flouro topshot and away we went...
Alijos is an unbelievable sight.It is comprised of 3 big rock pinnacles that are taller than they are wide and is nick-named "Neptunes Castle" The fishing there is amazing.After catching my first of two big wahoo for the trip we settled into some tuna fishing.There were two grades of fish being caught,25-35#YFT were stupid thick with skippies mixed in.The bigger models were 60-90# and the JP fish was over 100# for the trip.I had the sx2 on my 800M and through out a dine,which was bit in seconds by a 30#YFT which was tackled in a reasonable amount of time and the lower gear was sweet.I re-rigged with a balloon and fished opposite the current because the wind was blowing the other way.The stern was a cluster "FISH" of guys hooked up and 2 kites were going too in the direction I was fishing and they were getting the bigger models out away from the boat.It wasnt long before I was a good distance away from the boat,probably 80yds when the balloon goes down and pops.When I put the reel in gear it was like pulling the pin on a grenade! There was no doubt this was the right kind and it was on!The fish took another 50yds in about 5 seconds and then slowed a bit.I began to draw some attention by deckhands and passengers since everyone new what we were using.I was down to 1/2 spool and slid the drag past strike but not completely to full.There was a lot of back and forth,but mostly forth.I made gains only to lose them and more.I had about 100YDS left when I put it in full and put the wood to him.I got back to a half spool and by this time I had Capt. Andy and my Dad both beside me coaching me.I felt pretty good until the fish really showed me what he was all about and went into overdrive.The spool was rapidly diminishing and I was actually asked If I wanted a backup rod.With only about 25 yrds left I just high sticked it straight in front of me.I have never been spooled before so was quite unaware that I was in trouble by my position.The fish spooled me and popped the knot without missing a beat,The fully bent rod cracked me right between the eyes and I actually saw stars.I thought my Dad was going to literally die laughing as it took him minutes to collect himself and wipe the tears from his eyes.I was bought a few rounds of beer that night for my stand up comedy act.My dad got a 64#er so we got to keep the reels anyways.I lost it in the surf at LJ after pearling in the dark because I had 60+#WSB between my legs(See Ultimate Yardsale)my avatar fish.

Anyways I ended up getting several nice tuna on that trip but switced over to the LX2 with 50# and a more appropriate Graphite USA SW70hp that I also lost in that yardsale.Lesson learned,IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET SPOOLED HAVE THE ROD AWAY FROM YOUR FACE!

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by deepdvr

I think that one got hit by a boat prop

Classic Mantis Shrimp marks. Notice how clean the forward mark is, it's not tooth scrape but a slice like it was made with a knife. Hit it towards the head to stun it then tried to chew the tail off. Seen those marks many times fishing halibut.

Jim

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by Aaron&Julie

Jim,
You're my kind of fisherman. I liked your stories, and I can relate. Besides the fact, you fish out of my original stomping grounds, Redondo and such.
Gotta say though per Joe Beck's post, Julie's lost halibut, was my greatest loss.
Aaron

Thanks Aaron. Yours really hit home as well. It's a drag to loose your own fish but I really hate loosing a fish like that if it's someone else's. My old Redondo fishing buddy Mike hooked a huge dorado off SBI during the late 90's El Nino~ maybe five feet long. He hooked it on ten pound as there were some small line shy yellows on the paddies. So he had it on for a good while, and we eventually tried to chase it down. I had to gaff it off the bow while the boat was in gear, and I gaffed in the gut and there was no-where to drop it. So I tried to walk it back to the stern deck, it went ballistic and it then ripped out shaking off the gaff by tearing it's own guts out before I could flop it on board. So it not only broke off in the end but with the hole in the belly I killed the fish as well. Still haunts me to this day when I think about it.

Jim

[WahooUSMA]

Ask Kent and Premo

[mtnbykr2]

as most have said,
probably too many to count, and without a pic I will add mine, with only witnesses and a failed Go Pro film attempt...
Most recent one I let get away....a couple months ago I took a fishin partner up to Santa Barbara, four of us launched at the landing, sunrise...calm water easy bait, anchovies everywhere, but the gang had decided we all had to leave early so we cheated and bought bait at the barge a couple of the guys headed out to 1 mile or there abouts...a couple of us decided to fish the beach and drift for buts...I had a 15 lb rig out on the drift with a anchovie pinned on, we had a few calicos around the pier, and the bass bite was pretty good, however we were after dinner...we paddled underneath the pier to get to the sand on the other side and as I went under the pier I decided I would drift with squid on another rod, I left the one rod in, while I was setting up the other rod.
I had the clicker on the Corvallus and set it in the holder, just as I came out from under the pier, I had finished the squid rig, and started to drop it down. I took a quick look around and up at the rod tip that was in the holder, and I noticed the line was slack, I was facing the beach at the time so the horse shoe end of the pier was to my stern and I was moving in a forward drift, I thought that's funny that line is in the wrong place according to my drift, adrenaline level rose I quickly set the squid rig in a rod holder and picked up the Corvallus and reeled up the slack paying attention to the end of the line, I felt a couple of shakes and knew this was not a snag.
Now I have the slack tightened up and the line is going out and back to the stern, I set the hook and the sliegh ride was on...when I set the hook, this fish turned my yak around like I was hooked to a train, after the 180 degree turn I was headed straight for the back of the pier approx 150 yard away, I yelled over to my partner and he heard the echo of my voice
"turn on your camera" I said, now I am settled in on the fight and ride. Now unknown to me my friend had fired up the Go Pro and looked in my direction and I was gone...he thought to himself that's rude he's not there anymore...I was headed toward the back of the pier at a rapid pace. though the that got away was not taking large amounts of line off it was
still taking out some line, I realized it was either I stop the fish now or my yak and I will be slamming into the pilings in a very short time, you can get through on the sides of the pier but the pilings at the end of the pier
are in such a way that there would not be enough room for my kayak to fit through especially being towed at about 2-3 mph, I thumbed the spool.
the line started to come up like the fish was going to go airborn, by this time I knew I was going to be the loser here, I was running out of real estate as they say...I was about ten yards off the pilings, by this time my friend caught up to me only to see the line coming up, I had to put the binders on and tighten the drag, thumb was getting hot and "click" it was all over, but the adrenaline rush was awesome, I couldn't tie a hook on without shaking for a good half an hour after that...it was definately a wonderful feeling even though "it" got away

[Nic D]

I don't really know what to say.... other than its never happened to me. I've seen other guys get fish right up to the gaff only to be bit off by the tax man, I've seen guys fall out of boats, I've seen lotsa other stuff, but just don't have a great "the one that got away" story.

knocking on wood, cause now it will happen to me.