The ones that got away

What are your stories of the one that got away?

This summer I fished an overnighter at a place that had catfish in, I was woken at 2am to the alarm going, but as I was about to pick up the rod the alarm fell silent.
I picked up the rod anyway and hooked into something that felt very heavy and hugged the bottom, the fish at first did little than stay low with me gaining line , then it swam off up the swim before shedding the hook.
I'm sure it was a catfish

Lord Paul of Sheffield said:

What are your stories of the one that got away?

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Well, there was this gorgeous girl in a Scandinavian capital City, her mother was Indian and her Father was from Persia, the most beautiful lady I've ever seen . . . . . . . I should never have let her 'slip the hook'

. . . wassat? Oh, you meant fishing . . . nah, boring, much more fun to chat about the X Factor (yuk) and Strictly (WTFIATA?) and other mindless TV shows, innit?

LOL

Over twenty years ago now, one August day fishing the pier at Torquay (or Paignton), jigging for small pollack when I noticed an endless shoal of small fish coming in with the tide. It was like a ribbon about 3 foot wide and had been going past for at least ten minutes when devilment got the better of me and I switched to a bare treble and bullet weight to snag one. I though they were whitebait as the locals were using those as bait for mackerel. As it turns out they were sprats cruising about 6 feet down, and I got two.

One was properly hooked on the treble and I slipped a Fishing Gazette pike float on (remember them?) at the appropriate depth and lobbed it out. The float never settled, it just carried on going down on hitting the water as though a brick was on the end. I struck, the rod arched and my 10lb line broke like cotton. Same thing happened with my second sprat, exactly as before.

No idea what they were to this day.

p.s. If anyone in Torquay or Paignton comes across one or two Fishing Gazette floats I would appreciate their safe return.

Lure fishing a few years ago on a local ''Lido'' I hooked in to a large pike that hugged the bottom for what seemed like ages...Then the trace snapped!
I walked down the bank and stood telling this guy in a wheelchair about my loss when all of a sudden this pike launched itself into the air, must have been about 27-28lb and it had my chub pikie stuck in its jaw!!

Ps: pleased to say it was caught the week after and my lure was removed safely

Doing a week long sessionat Tiddenfoot on the Leighton Buzzard book back in about 1980 in search of Wels with a friend.

The trip was without a run. Then on the last nightI was woken by a screaming Heron (remember them), I struck into an unseen leviathan and my good old Bruce and walker SU carp rod folded double, the Mitchell reel clutch screeched as the fish tore down the lake. Then run lasted about 15 seconds, there was simply no stopping it, then the inevitable as the Maxima parted. I have never been so gutted about losing a fish, before or since. I remember it as though it was yesterday.

The week was fishless!

I was on the River Cauvery , sat in a coracle which was perched on the edge of a tiny rock , that poked out of the water in the middle of the river.I was fishing my baits on the edge of a really fast flowing section of the river . We usually fished an hour into dark , and we were in that last hour , the sky above us was filled with more stars than I had ever seen.
I had, just a few minutes before , returned a nice mahseer of nearly twenty pounds to the water and my bait was recast in the same area. I was sat there listening to the rushing water and chirping insects with this overpowering feeling I was going to catch another fish , can't explain it.
Sure enough I had a bite and struck into a good fish, that ploughed off downstream. When I was playing the fish I could feel a grating on the line and each time it took line I could feel it scraping on something , the line must have been round a rock .I managed to gradually get the fish closer and closer ,then with a massive surge it belted off again , stripping line off the reel .Then suddenly the line went slack and it was gone. My line had shredded, I was gutted!

The biggest Tope I ever saw which picked up a mackerel on my feathering rod, I got it to the boat before a final lunge saw the hook pull and it swam off.

Once hooked a huge carp on float gear I was using to catch tench. Played that carp for 70 minutes exactly without ever getting a chance to see it. Sometimes it was directly under the rod, but I couldn't pull it up to the surface. I subsequently heard Terry Hearn had a couple of thirties out a few months later, one of which was closer to forty.

I don't like to talk about it...... it felt like a bereavementmg:

I used to go down to a small, well stocked pond with my old man - it had some nice fish in there (tench over 5lb, nice perch and roach) but the older gents claimed there were some serious lumps in there too...

One day, both myself and my old fella were having a tough day... just a few small ones between us all day so my dad decided he wanted to try something new and came over to me "on the scrounge". He wanted some bread - the only thing I had was the remainder of a cheese & pickle sandwich. So thats what he tried - a bit of bread, butter, cheese and pickle wrapped around the hook using the magic ingredient... spit!

Anyway - very quickly, we discovered that these lumps did exist. He was fishing on light float tackle (4lb line, size 18 hook) and hooked into one of them. He played it for about 30 mins and it wasn't giving up - then finally it bolted unexpectedly and snapped the line. We were both gutted. We managed to catch a glimpse of it and it was a gorgeous 20lb+ common, very lean.

So that was my mission for the next few months. I up-scaled my tackle and obsessed over catching this lump.

One day, I was having a great day pulling out some really nice tench and carp in the sunshine. All of a sudden, my float "submarined" off to the right. I could tell it which fish it was before I even touched my rod. I struck and felt something huge pull back, rocket off across the pond and *snap*. My line snapped right at the hook.

I was absolutely devastated and gave up trying to catch it.

Although on the plus side, as a result of this I went away and learnt how to tie a hook knot properly and bought myself a nice reel with a much better drag system

One day I'll get the ******... one day...

chav professor said:

I don't like to talk about it...... it felt like a bereavementmg:

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Hell, I know exactly what you mean CP.