Sometimes they get away, sometimes they don't

[zimmy]

Two occasions where they got me up against the Bourne are seared in my nightmares. Twenty years ago now and both are clear as day. Makes the ones who don't get away more special maybe? Then there is the one that, after a near fatal fall on the rocks and legitimate 20+ minute fight with a big girl, I almost jumped into a river at high flood stage in late October, with a 1 month old son at home, to try to get to it. That one I am not proud of and consider myself lucky it broke off just as I took my flip phone out of my pocket and laid it on a rock in prep for a swim. I know for sure that one was 2005 and I am glad I didn't mess up the past 17 years with that boy.

[Rmarsh]

Was over twenty years ago....out in my kayak...lobbed a live eel a short cast away with the intent of drifting over a rocky area 100 yards from shore.....tried to put the rod in its holder but something was already on.....something large. I was fishing with a rather light setup better suited for schoolies and was struggling just to hold onto it.
Well that turned into a very long sleighride while i just tried to regain a little line....but mostly just held on tight while being towed a long way from where i started. The fish eventually got closer to shore while i held on, and when we got into about fifteen feet deep water I could see it was a massive striper. It made the thirty something #ers I had taken from shore the previous fall look puny.
Every attempt by me to raise her off the bottom failed....with the kayak tipping dangerously everytime I tried to pull her up to the surface.
With the shoreline not too far away now, I started hand paddling with my free hand, intending to exit the kayak and finish landing the fish by pulling it ashore.

When i got out of the yak, in three feet of water, I had to watch it it drift away....but i was gaining line using the wave action and now could see the fish was in the wash....when it spit the hook and was flopping around...I ran over and tried to grab it but the waves were making it difficult to get good hold of the thrashing fish....I jumped in and tried to tackle her and get a hold again, trying for the mouth or gills but all i could manage was the torso, with us now wrestling each other for control...but with the slime she escaped my grasp and my lame attempt at digging my nails into her tail failed. I didnt get much sleep that night.