the one that GOT away

[caseywise]

this evening i decided to take my 8 weight down to the lake for a nice leisurely come down off of a long day, wife in hand and she was having a blast! gills, crappies, small bass.

and then it happened.....my swimming frog pattern got HAMMERED! huge bass, at least in my books, 7+ pounder. she put a bend in my 8 weight the same that a 10 lb. silver might do in ak. and then she was gone.

anyone else experience this type of woeful fishing? lets here about it.

[damod]

It wasn't on a flyrod, but I hope you guys let me tell the story anyway as it is easily and undoubtedly my most woeful fishing tale.

I was fishing a farm pond in southern illinois. The pond was fairly large with some bends and coves and was surrounded by trees on the back section. This pond hasn't been fished in 20 years at the time (even by the property owner who was the one that told me).

I was using a lightning rod and bait caster fishing 8lb (spider wire) test and an Orange heddon sonic and an old steel row boat

I found a deeper section with some wooden debris poking slightly out of the water and I figured that if there were Bass in there, that's where they'd be.

I threw out maybe 4 or 5 casts without so much as a nibble before I decided to throw further behind my target and give the sonic just a tad more time to dive. After catching nothing I decided to throw just one more cast before moving on to the next set of debris and WHAM!!

It felt like a freight train just hit my rod. I was furiously reeling and playing while my drag was screaming (I thought the reel was going to catch fire).. I couldn't believe the pure unadulterated power behind this fish. It nearly pulled me out of the boat twice. About 4 minutes into the fight it took to the air and I got a good look at it.. A largemouth easily weighing 9 or 10 lbs (and probably the biggest I've ever seen.. even since then and probably ever will). I started getting excited fighting the fish while thinking about what this monster would look like mounted on my wall.

Well I fought it for about 20 or so and finally got it close to the boat. Thinking he was worn out I pulled his head to the surface of the water to net him... No sooner had I done this he came back to life and started thrashing furiously... Needless to say he shook so hard the hook came out....

I went back to that pond several times since then and have caught some really nice fish (all which I release).. I never got another chance at the monster though.. Probably never will

[caseywise]

me and wife recently took a 4 hour drive north to the famed driftless area in wisconsin. beautiful, wonderful area, but unfortunately for us, blown out by massive rains. the one bright spot was the HUGE brown that hit my wifes green hopper pattern on the grand coulee. only one of three strikes in three days. and it never saw the light of day.



casey

[Rip Tide]

I never lost a little fish
yes, I'm free to say
It always was the biggest fish
I caught that got away

[troutslayer]

Had a brown trout on a few weeks ago that 'felt' like the bigest brown I had ever caught. (Of course they all feel that way!) I had him almost to the net and wham, gone! Heart sank for a moment but I did realize that I did fool him and he took the fly so at least in my mind, I did 'catch' him, just didn't land him. That may be a stretch to some but I'm okay with it!

---------- Post added at 09:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:43 AM ----------

Forgot to add, sometimes I just practice "Catch and Self-Release!" lol

[mcnerney]

Casey and Damod: I feel your pain, I think we all have been there at one time or another. A few weeks ago I was into some incredible fishing on the Missouri River in Montana, but as good as it was I lost a number of really large rainbows. I was wade fishing and inside a really long run, but when the really big fish ate my fly they all did a fast downstream run followed by a hook into the fast current and then reversed heading back upstream. By then I had this huge amount of line out with a big bow in it and the drag from the water was just too much and they would eventually do a head shake and be gone. Even though I lost those big fish it was a tremendous blast to have fought them!

Larry