There was a farm pond that my friends and I fished as boys, we started with nets and jam jars for stickle backs and later with rod and reel for the rudd/roach that were there.
It was a small pond in the middle of a cow field, naturally there was a monster pike that lived in the water that ate ducks, small dogs and had even bitten a boys finger off (the boy's name was never know just that he had put his hand in the water to return a fish and the pike bit off his finger (which finger was never stated).
Several of my fiends hooked the monster pike only to be broken (looking back it was most likely a log underwater) and a few claims to have seen it though always when on their own.