What is the longest time

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA)]

For me it was something I hooked fishing from Des Taylor's peg on the River Severn in 1996. I hooked it at about 9-15 pm and lost it at exactly 12-30am. I was using an 8lb line with a 6lb hooklength, a size 12 super specialist with a bunch of maggots for bait.

I don't think it was a barbel. My feeling is that it was a large river carp that I had foulhooked in the tail. I never got a look at. It wouldn't give up and eventually the hook pulled. A few minutes prior to this I landed an 8lb barbel which I had out in about 3 minutes on the same tackle.

The other time was when I hooked a sandshark of about 150 lbs off the rocks near a town called Knysna in the Southern Cape. This took me over 2 hours before my companion, one Dave Levy managed to gaff it for me and drag it up the sand. Tackle was an 11 foot "Gully" rod and a ABU Ambassadeur 10,000C loaded with 50lbs mono. Dave wanted the fish so I decided to kill it by firing two .38 bullets into its head. Sand sharks are extremely good eating. It was dark by then and the shots couldn't be heard above the pounding of the surf. I don't like leaving fish to gasp.

We managed to drag the fish back to Dave's pick-up truck where both of us with an effort managed to get it into the back.

Next day I called at his house to find Dave in the process of cutting it up. We cooked a piece on the barbie that night and it was truly excellent.

By golly was I fit in those days?

Let's have your stories?

Big Catfish?

 

[Frank "Chubber" Curtis]

My longest fight was with a 200lb striped marlin off of Cabo San Lucas 3 years ago.
For the first 10 minutes or so it made the usual screaming runs interspersed with spectacular leaps but then it suddenly went down and just kept going until it finally stopped at about 600 feet.
What followed can only be described as a prolonged tug of war. I would pump the fish up 30 feet or so and then it would take it all back again.
It was nearly 2 hours before I managed to get it to the side of the boat and then we discovered why I'd had so little control over it even on 70lb line. In it's final leap before sounding it had spun whilst still airborne and the line had wrapped around it. All the pressure I was applying was going to it's body and not to it's head.
During the fight I drank a good 3 litres of water and had about a similar amount poured over my head. The temperature was in the 90's.

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA)]

The only marlin I ever hooked, a bluudy shark got after about 30 minutes!!!!

(

Some of the longest battles I have had with the fly rod have been with sharptooth catfish up to over 30lbs.

1 1/2 hours was the longest, using a 6lb tippet and a size 8 hook.

 

[levelspiker]

my longest fight with a fish actually boated,was back in august 1991.
we were anchored on a deep wreck in the mid channel separation zone fishing for congers aboard the guernsey charter boat midnight express, which was skippered by dougal lane.
i was using a 50lb class daiwa graphite coil boat rod with a shimano tld 20 ld reel loaded with 50lb bs single strand wire line.
i had only been fishing about ten minutes when the gentle tap tap of the rod tip signalled a bite from a conger 260 feet below.
i waited until the rod started to bend slightly as the eel started to move with the bait.
i then wound as fast as i could until i could wind no more (striking congers is a waste of time,they just shoot back into the snags).
the rod looked like it was about to snap as i bent into the fish and tried to pump it slowly to the surface.
after around 5 minutes,i probably had the eel within 50ft of the surface,when suddenly it dived almost back to the wreck.
it repeated this twice more and i was told that if the eel went down a 4th time,then it was probably a 100 plusser.
it was not to be,the eel didn`t quite have the strength to go down a 4th time and after a shattering 20 minute battle,the eel was brought aboard.my first fish of the week long charter fishing holiday.
i felt elated and shattered at the same time.my rod butt had a bent butt section and a permanent kink in the blank.
on the scales at the fish market,the mighty fish was recorded at 92lbs 11oz.
it also won me anglers mail fish of the week,a gold conger club award and a gold nfsa award.
the biggest fish that i have ever caught.
i know that i`ll never better that fish,as i am just not up to it anymore,due to my arthritis etc.
but it is a day and a fish that i will never forget.
next day,one of the dutch anglers fishing aboard the boat had a conger of 108lbs.his name is victor kroon and a picture of the fish can be seen on the british conger club website 100 plus gallery.
the longest that i ever played a conger is over half an hour in may 1991.
for some strange reason, on one wreck off guernsey,the congers took a liking to pirks fished on the drift (the then guernsey record was a 98 pounder taken two weeks before on the same wreck).
i hooked this monster when pirking for cod on a small tide and almost at slack water.
after about 30 minutes of a back breaking,mind numbing scrap,the skipper told me to slacken off the drag a bit more,as the fish would surge off when it saw the surface light,we were about 100 yds downtide of the wreck by then,so it shouldn`t get snagged if it went down.
alas,on slackening the drag,the eeel took off all the way back to the wreck(despite me tightening the drag again) snagged solid and was gone.
it certainly felt a whole lot heavier than the 92!!!!!
a classic one that got away story.

 

[Colin Brett]

46 minutes to beach a 200lb [estimated] White Sturgeon

Colin

 

[captain carrott]

45 minutes, it was a 22 lb carp and i was roach fishing at the time.an i landed and weighed the bugger

 

[Matt Brown]

3 hours to land a 6lb 1oz carp on a wand type bomb rod, 22 fine wire hook and 1lb double strength hooklength, when I was about 14 or so.

The pond was shallow, so the carp would run more, rather than wallow about as they often do in deeper water.

 

[Wendy Perry 2]

mine was 15 mins to land a 16lb pike on 4lb line i was scared to death of losing it... i wasn't expecting something that size in a canal!

 

[blankety blank]

50 LB Tope for me, June 2005, 8 miles off the Norfolk coast at Brancaster.

It probably only took about 10 minutes but felt much longer as I had to keep throwing up over the side of the boat. It was a very choppy day.

I will never forget its initial run though, or the moment that its dorsal first broke the surface.

 

[Steaker de Lurker]

Wendy, pass the crisps and you can tell us all about it once again ..........

........... hehehehehehehe!

 

[yoggy]

My Pb Pike of 25lb.12oz.It took 45 minutes to land.It took off like a steam train and my line accidently wrapped around a wooden stump.Lucky for me this happened in the summer.So I stripped off and slipped down the bank of the 20ft drain I was fishing to untangle the line,all this whilst playing the Pike!!!.I was extremely lucky to land this Fish especially as it turned out to be my PB.I`ll always remember that day!!

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA)]

Come on guys, we need more stories.

I am sure they make fascinating reading.

Graham?

 

[Steve Handley]

A record breaking tench!
Whilst fishing caster on a local water for roach with 2lb line, the float dipped under and on striking into what I thought was another 10oz roach, the match rod took on an alarming curve as that fish powered away. The swim was weed and snag free, so it was a question of playing that fish out in what I thought would be under 5 minutes as I've caught good sized fish on that tackle before and I knew the fish would soon tire. 40+ minutes later, I thinking, record breaking tench as that fish continued to power away. Eventually, I got the upperhand and brought that fish towards the landing net. But it could'nt be the same fish,this was a tench of only about 4lb+. Somehow, I reckoned that tench had changed places with the original fish!!!!!

Mind you, it was a male tench with huge spoon like pelvic fins.

 

[Stevie 12345]

I was on holiday (i mean a break) in Yorkshire (how can you have a holiday in Yorks... silly me)

I was only around 15 at the time and was absolutely hooked on angling, I used to go all day, everyday and the opportunity to go somewhere new was extremely exciting.

The place was a medium size lake surrounded by a decent 9 hole gold course. The owner came around and explained that there were quite a few carp around the 1-3lb mark but they were quite hard to catch because the water was quite always quite clear with it being stream fed. Oh and there was one fish that was stocked around a number of years ago which was estimated at around 27-30lb.

I had tackled up on a light feeder rod, my trusty tri-cast trophy and Mitchell 300 reel, fishing casters over a bed of hemp, on a pound and a half bottom. I had a couple of fish but nothing to shout home about the owner was obviously right about it being hard, when the rod was practically wrenched out of my hands. After playing the fish for a few minutes I knew it was big. My dad was just about to tee off at the golf course which was adjacent to the lake and he shouted to me asking whether I was doing any good, I replied OK I think, I was too busy engaged in battle to have a chat.

To cut a long story short he finished his game of golf and come over to see how I was getting on, he was surprised when I told him that I still had the same fish on that I had hooked before he had teed off on the first hole.

A short while later banked a 28lb 15oz carp, (with the help of another anglers net) all on 1.5lb bottom.

Time taken to land just over 9 holes of golf.... still a PB for me now

 

[Nigel Connor(ACA ,SAA)]

Stevie, great story and a great fish.

Good to see your Dad not letting anything get in the way of his round!

 

[Stevie 12345]

Cheers Nigel, and with regard to my Dad- some things never change- he plays more Golf than Tiger Woods

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA)]

That is a great story Stevie, I loved it.

Now let's hear more.

MacWallet??? Cakey??? Monk??? Moneyba.... Sorry Peter Jacobs???

Any angler of some experience has a tale to tell.

 

[Peter Bishop]

Fishing for roach on the pole one frosty winter's day at a lake in Cheshire, they went quiet for 15 minutes, a sure sign the carp had moved in on the chopped worm and caster feed.
Right, that's it I thought. I'll change my rig (size 20, 0.10 hooklink to 0.12 line) and use a heavier elastic( I think I was using a dual elastic arrangement 4 to 8) and went to lift my pole.
At first I thought I was snagged, then I quickly realised I had lifted into a proper lump which moved off slowly but determinly down the lake with me in pursuit.
Fortunatly, there were few people around the water so as the 4 elastic bottomed out and the 8 took over, I kept adding sections until I had a full 14.5 m out, and kept chasing it.
Effectively, I had just one section with 8 elastic in it.
After a heart in my mouth battle for fully one hour, five minutes I eventually got it's head up and slid the net under a 12lbs 12 ozs mirror carp, hooked in the barbule!
What made it all the more difficult was that as the light faded, and the temperature plummeted, so slivers of ice started to form on the contracting elastic, preventing it from operating properly. My hands were frozen too.
If the poor carp was knackered by the time I unhooked and returned him to the freezing water it cannot have been any less exhausted than me. The tension alone was almost unbearable.
To this day I will never know how I managed to land such a fish, with very light tackle in atrocious conditions.

 

[Mark Hodson]

Aged 12 fishing the West Mids Junior Champs on the Grand Union at Hatton. Hooked a 6 lb bream on a 2 mtr whip, size 24 hook to 12oz bottom and two squatts intended for gudgeon. I don't know how long I played it for but it felt like my arm was going to drop off, it just swam round and round and i couldn't lift its head up. When I netted it i heard all this applause from behind me and to my astonishment a group of 20 had watched the whole lot. I got all cocky, piled in the bait thinking i was going bag up on bream and didn't get another bite for the rest of the match, came 4th with the bream and few bits.

 

[Sean Meeghan]

About 15 minutes. I hooked a large Chinook salmon on Lake Huron in the late 80s. It nearly spooled me, but fortunately it ran into the opposite break water of the harbout I was fishing in about 150 yards away. It jumped, causing a classic "oh shit" moment to me and the gallery of spectators as we saw the size of it, then proceded to head at top speed back towards me. Just before it hit the breakwater I was fishing from it jumped again, spat out a mangled Big S and swam off. I wouldn't like to guess how big it was, but it was certainly well over 30lb. I had a 24 lber a couple of days later and the first fish was about a foot longer than it!

I was using my Shakespeare telescopic spinning rod with 8lb line. I still have the Big S, but I had to replace the hooks as they were totally mangled - I've got a photo of it somewhere.

Incidentally I went straight to a local tackle shop and bought a spool of 12lb Big Game, which did the job on subsequent fish.