We often talk about the ones we catch.What about the ones we don't?

Several weeks ago I lost a very nce one right at my feet.Well it happened again to me last night.Not just once but twice.I hadn't been out in or caught in awhile so it hurts even more.

I hooked into a pretty decent fish(15-20#)around 10pm or so.He hit pretty close in and started just running.I got some line on it and got it in near me and then another run and off it came. :crying:

About 20mins later I get another fish around the same size in close again and one good run and off this one came :crying:

Fished another 1.5hrs and nada.

My drag was good.My line was certainly good as I still had my plug.I was patient and didn't try to hurry things.Sometimes I think it all comes down to luck(or lack of it).

So what about you guys?

lost 3 in a row two weeks ago.. they all pulled the knit one pearl two... on me in a boulder field with ultra high salinity, I was fishing braid.. :wall: I didnt get to see any of 'em so I'm telling myself that they were really big smart scup..... :tm: them scup bent my 1209 to the reel seat :hihi:

BW, maybe picking up a lip gripper/ boga or otherwise may help? Maybe even a small hand gaff, you just hafta be ultra cafeful if you plan on lettin em go It hurts when ya lose them.

Lost a fish that inhaled and 20 somethin' inch shad live lining :shocked: Thing came up head shakin.. I made the mistake of raising my rod... Never make that mistake again I'll tell ya :whackin:
I got to see it though.. that still haunts me....

Almost got dragged off a boulder 2 yrs ago fishing a lil outta the way cove with blackguy.... Fish hit while I was lighting a butt... :tm: :wall:

It hurts too much to talk about! :bc:

i was mosquito bit bad...and hungry and tired ....and was about to throw my
last big mackeral chunk out in the water to feed the fish....and said ahh what the hell...and threw it on the hook and heaved it way out there...i had been catchin big ole bluefish all afternoon and was thinkin one more and i'll go.
~
well i got the Jolt of my life and saw this HUGE dorsal fin exit the water and head off to deep water in a perfectly straight line......................................
with a wake you wouldn't believe....i tried everything to turn em and couldn't.

that fish spooled me and left me as.........

one of the.....................

Haunted. :vamp:

:poke: Too painful to think about....... :eek5:

I lost two large about two weeks ago. My 1201m was bent way over and then my 80# flouro leader broke. Heart broken.

Lost one Bayside that never stopped pulling drag. Spit the hook after a 100+ yard run. I was a cat's patoot from being spooled. :shocked:

Over 4th of July my boat hooked 10 and only landed 2. Since it obviously wasn't my fishing skills (ya, right!) it must have been something else. So off to the tackle store to up the ante on my lines.

I go back at them two nights later with 20 or 25 pound mono with a 40 pound flouro leader to see if that helps.....since it obviously wasn't my fishing skills (ya, right).

Well my son (age 7) landed the only fish of the night...a nice 18 pounder. And just to prove it wasn't my fishing skills, he caught it on the only rod that had ratty old 12 or 15 pound test line on it. You see, it wasn't my fishing skills. It must have been the line.

That is my story and I'm sticking to it....even if it doesn't make any sense...

id rather not say.... :::looks down in shame:::

I was fishin a cut one night with a 5in storm with a treble on the belly. Was catchin shorts and took the treble off to make for easy release with the single.
Two casts later i got a bone jarring hit that almost pulled the rod out of my hands. I panicked :err: and instead of letting the lure lay and twitch, cranked it in at lightning speed to recast.:doh::wall: If i had left the treble on i may of had her. :huh:
Fish had to be funnel feeding at about 30mph. Nadda a hit after that, all the schoolies got outta there quick.
Stupid mistake, but a great reminder of the power of these fish and a moment i won't forget.:)

3 come to mind.

Back in the mid-80s, hooked a monster on an eel from the Flats in the Canal, which I couldn't even slow down (I used a heavy white fiberglass Lami, too), and which buried itself in the bottom.

Late 80s, hooked a nice fish on bait off South Beach on MV. I had two rods out, and the Hawg Hunter man also had two rods out. I had the fish in close, saw it (long, fat sucker) and then it started running over my other line (the Hawg-man had reeled his two in). It got wrapped around, and then like a jerk I tried to horse it in on a wave and the hook pulled :(

Early 90s, Wasque Point on MV, fishing bucktails. I had a 38# already. I hooked a nice fish, had it on for about 10 seconds, then everything went slack. My first thought was that it was a big blue and it cut the leader, which lasted until I reeled the line up and my 150# snap got hung up on the tip guide. Shone my light on it and it was bent out like a cheap coat hanger. I stopped by Coop's the next morning on my way in, told him about it, and left. A few days later I stopped by Coop's again, and he tosses me a 3 oz bucktail and asks, "Did you lose this somewhere?" I look at it, see it's one of the Hawg-man's home poured, and say, "Yup, it's one of mine. Where'd you find it--did it fall out of the back of my truck when I was here a couple of days ago?" "Grab a seat before I tell you. I took that out of the throat of a 62# bass a guy weighed in here yesterday. He got it on a white Danny plug at Squib". :wall:

Now that is freaking amazing :crying:

-spence

:yak6:

fishing in rockport on sunday....put rod down to take a piss....and it leaped into the water, by the time i got to it the 30lb test ande was broken =[
rod was jammed in pretty good on a rock wedge too =[

Mike P that last one must have hurt for sure.
I'll share my latest loss from this past weekend since it is still bothering me. This fish took me by surprise a bit because we were only catching sub-legal fish before this fish hit trolling a tube and worm. When it hit it was pouring wire line out of my reel and I leave it pretty darn tight when trolling and not one of the other fish that morning had pulled any out. So once I struggle to get the pole out of the holder I'm just holding on, can't do nothing with her and she is still pouring line out and I then see all the wire go out and I'm into my dacron backing. At this point I made my first mistake (I think) and told my fishing partner to put the boat in neutral. Right after I did that the fish came up to the surface and started thrashing around, it looked huge even 100 yards behind us, then she spit the hook with a couple shakes of her head. To add a little insult to injury on my next pass I lost my lucky orange santini tube to the bottom, and we all know tubes are not created equal and this one had some good mojo or something. So in a span of 15 minutes I may have lost my biggest fish ever and I lost my lucky tube.

MikeP that's the best fish story I ever heard.

OMG Mike P. Im sorry for your loss..

Couple a guyz i work with told me they were feeding fish at lunch yesterday. So, today I grab one of the teasers i tied at my desk, tie it onto a small spool of flouro I had at my desk and walked over. Sure enough, i get there and they are feeding stripers :shocked: 3 of them whacking down bagels :hihi: so I take my yellow teasers and toss it out, maybe 10' in 2 1/2 feet of water. Wham, a 33" plus stripers grabs it top water, erupts when he reliezes I have him hooked, starts crazy head shaking and wraps the line around him/herself- snap...........cut my finger pretty damn good too.........Back tomorrow with a rod :vamp:
Shoulda seen all the Boston tourist looking at me like i was some obsessed freak :huh:

was hopin The Specialist was around with another hook :eyes: didn't see him anywhere

was hopin The Specialist was around with another hook :eyes: didn't see him anywhere
and Bait was there as a witness :tooth:

Now, ask me when I stopped using snaps on bucktails :D

When?
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somebody was gonna ask... :rollem:

I was there.. It's true.. :uhuh: He cut his finger pretty good too.. :doh: Now he wants to go back tomorrow with a rod.. All he kept saying was "I should bring in my 2 piece." and " I'm going to bring more teasers tomorrow.." etc.. They were some nice looking, hungry , fish.. They sure liked bagels and muffins..

ive only lost 1 good one this season, he just simply got the hook out of his mouth. after the run he took, he deserved to get away.

other than that back in april i hooked a salmon. never had an adrenilin rush like that before. fish jumped , and turned , fowled the line on the plug so pressure on the line pulled the hook. o well. i cant blame myself for either.

it would be nice to catch a big fish though.

Every year, I seem to go thru a stretch where I lose a few fish. My uncle and I dropped four straight good sized fish when he was up a couple weeks ago. It was freaky. Fish were hooked solid, fought for a couple minutes and just came undone. He had already caught a fish a hair under 20#, and these fish were in that range.

The next weekend, I nailed a 23#er and then lost the next fish, again, was in the same size range. Lost another fish a bit later... it was smaller, but mid-30 inch range is still one you want to land.

It gets frustrating when you know you aren't doing anything wrong. I'm not breaking them off with bad line... I'm not horsing them in, and I'm not babying them either. Sometimes you just go thru some bad luck.

As for the one that got away... last season on a live pollock. Towards the end of my day, this fish made a run towards a boulder field and I couldn't stop him, or her I guess. Burned the heck out of my thumb too. Finally had the fish turned and the line broke above the water line. Sounded like a fire cracker. I was so pissed. I just had that feeling in the pit of my stomach... that was a big fish, I'm sure my biggest. The line was fresh, but I must have had a nick or bad spot. I still would've liked to just see the fish.

that I lost that one........... Went back at break and pulled him in :hihi: 2nd cast ah, toss :p

BW, maybe picking up a lip gripper/ boga or otherwise may help? Maybe even a small hand gaff, you just hafta be ultra cafeful if you plan on lettin em go It hurts when ya lose them.

Both these fish never got within arm's length.The 1st was close though.

Every year, I seem to go thru a stretch where I lose a few fish. My uncle and I dropped four straight good sized fish when he was up a couple weeks ago. It was freaky. Fish were hooked solid, fought for a couple minutes and just came undone. He had already caught a fish a hair under 20#, and these fish were in that range.

The 1st fish was on for several mins.It never even occurred to me it would come off.

This slump is really bringing me down.More poor fishing days than good ones these last few weeks.I'm gonna head out again later tonight for the high tide and be into work draggin a$$ again.

It was last year ( haven't had any good fish this year yet ) , and I was pluggin' with another guy.....fishing was slow so, I was chewing the fat as I fished, I wasn't looking at my popper, when all of a sudden I hear this huge splash...I look and my popper is gone, make a crank on the reel, set the hook, and I'm on with the heaviest fish I have ever had on.....after a min or two..the fish comes to the top and all I could see was the dorsal and the top of her tail....had to be 36-40" apart...( may not be big compared to some of the ones you guys catch, but this was big for me ) fish goes back down, comes back to the top..couple of head shakes, and spits my popper back at me. Fish was probably 10 feet from me at the time....haven't had another fish like that since....still think of her from time to time....going to go cry at my desk now....thanks alot guys, now I feel sick again. :yak:


PS....MikeP...That's an insane story.

I lost afew that were pretty darn nice this year already. One was the biggest one I've ever had on at the river. Maybe the biggest one I've had on ever. That was the last fish I hooked onto @ my parts this year. Now the big ones are gone and I have to wait til next May to hook another lunker in Western, MA. :realmad: :realmad: :realmad:

Lost what I believe was a 60, only because I'd already beached several in the mid to upper 40's and this fish made them look average, hit right at my feet and I got a good look as she turned with the plug.

I've lost several that damn near spooled me and this is in a boat, with the ability to follow them with a very powerful trolling motor, each time I received straightened hooks for my trouble. I'd estimate these fish all to be minimum of upper 40's probably larger, but one never knows when you don't see them.

Those are the things which keep you coming back for more:).