Hey, Eben, don't torture yourself, bro, stuff happens. Of course, you're still gonna be doing the 'what ifs' for a while to come. It comes with the territory.
There's a lot of very good points here from guys who have had it happen to them or witnessed the same sort of thing.
"...he grabs the 20 lb leader holding the high 40 easy 50 lb fish. And proceeds to try and jerk left this beast out of the water with one hand with his rod in his other hand. This was all in one split second, what I remember the most is me screaming to him NOooooooo. You know that NOOOOooooooo when everything slows down like slow motion. Then silence....for a good 5 minutes" - Throwing Timber
Ya gotta avoid the operator errors, but that's how ya learn, like Redlite says:
"I have lost a lot of good fish over the years (all 50 lbers, of course), mostly to user error and learning inexperience (too tight drag, bad line, bad knots, trying to horse fish in.)" - Redlite
So if you remember anything start with this:
"...I tightned down the drag a little bit... - Eben 
Try setting your drag with a scale and then keep your hands off the drag once it's set . That's how I lost the biggest bass I never caught, so I never readjust my drag mid-battle now. That's my #1 rule (for me, anyway. Everybody has their own).
My #2 rule is never use a snell knot - that was part 2 of losing that same fish - I screwed the drag down too tight readjusting it and the snell let go.
As for the hook straightening part, I got 3/0 and 4/0 straightened VMC's on the shelf right above my workbench in my tackle bunker. Just a note to self to make sure my drag washers are new and rinsed of any salt deposits before I go out - Rules #3 and 4.
"Eben, how fast were the runs? truly large fish usually won't make lightning runs, but more of a steady sickening run. - t. lapinski."
And about the size of the one that got away, the late Roy (Leroy) Addison - who was one of the best on the island - told me years ago that a 25-30 lb. fish will almost always give you a better fight than a 40 or 50. I told Roy as soon as I got my 50 I'd let him know if that was true - he laughed his a$$ off at that. Roy was one of the greats that people outside this immediate area probably wouldn't know and Roy
really knew his stuff. Wish he was still around.
t. lap hit it right on the head. The butterflies in your gut, shaking like a schoolgirl when it's over, sometimes that sickening feeling when you drop one - it's why we all keep on going back, right?
