''The one that got away''.

Many of us at some point in our angling life will have lost a fish. That would have been a milestone, due to snags, hook pulls or tackle failure.

In my own case there are two that are imprinted in my memory. The first was a huge Pike that had grabbed a small Jack of three pounds or so that I had hooked and was just about to net, when it was nailed by a beast of a fish. Realistically there was no hope of landing the lump as the Jack had engulfed the lure, so no hooks to find a purchase. But I played the big 'un gently enough,(guided may be a better description) in order to get a better look, which I did and was gobsmacked. That fish was in excess of thirty pounds, and then it let go of the Jack, I was gutted.

Briefly, the second fish was a huge Perch that had taken a small live-bait. That fish was fairly hooked, but shed the hook when the paternoster link became snagged in some marginal rocks. How big you may ask, without hesitation I would say well over four pounds, having taken them to over four and a quarter pounds previously from the same water.

How about you?.

Two fish for me. One a huge roach nearer 3lb than 2 which I'd spent all morning trying to get a bait to on a gin clear Kennet .This fish and another of similar size were stationed to the rear of a shoal of about a dozen bream. After hours of steering the bait away from the damned bream I finally hooked "my" roach....only for a bloody pike of about 10lb to explode out of the rushes and rip it off the hook as I reached for the landing net. That just about confirmed my deep dislike [bordering on hatred] of pike.

The other [and the one that really hurt] was the massive sea trout I bounced back into the river earlier this summer. That sorry tale is on the "How did you get on" Thread so I'm not repeating it here. The roach I am over....the sea trout is still raw and I think always will be.

You were lucky Derek to have seen those fish. I have ofen been catching small stuff and had just one bite were I have felt a solid lump and just a flicker of a thump when the hook came out and wondered what could it have been and nearly always it was just the one chance. Those are the ones that get me more than anything else. Bream though, some humongous ones got to the surface and they are very good at shedding a hook when on top but its a consolation that I saw what they were and roughly there size, its the one that you don't see really disappoint.
I think of those fish seen as caught. Not many will agree with that but I think netting a fish just a formality and if they get off at that stage as having just saved me the trouble..

I have lost fish in the past but never one that I saw and knew was a very big fish, I have lost fish that have felt big but having hooked a carp of 28lbs in the anal fin and played it for quite a while I now have a different outlook on fish I loose but don't see, of course the lost fish could have been as large as it felt but on the other hand..........

Worse imo than loosing a large fish yourself is being with a friend when they loose a fish, I once saw a friend loose an extremely large Barbel from the piles swim on the royalty, the record at that time stood at 14-06 we were sure that the lost fish was as large and possibly larger although it would at that time have been difficult to gauge it as we had never seen a Barbel that large, the feeling of loss was however very real to both of us. There have been other times the latest being just the other week but that's a story for another to tell.

A two month baiting expedition on my notoriously difficult Marina lake at Billing Aquadrome earlier this year, sat down poured myself a coffee and the rod hit the rests , very close to the boat pilings, picked it up and a heavy carp kighted left on the braid, it took some line and came off, totally gutted , but thats life, tommorrows another day, ill be baack.

---------- Post added at 08:16 ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 ----------

thecrow said:

I have lost fish in the past but never one that I saw and knew was a very big fish, I have lost fish that have felt big but having hooked a carp of 28lbs in the anal fin and played it for quite a while I now have a different outlook on fish I loose but don't see, of course the lost fish could have been as large as it felt but on the other hand..........

Worse imo than loosing a large fish yourself is being with a friend when they loose a fish, I once saw a friend loose an extremely large Barbel from the piles swim on the royalty, the record at that time stood at 14-06 we were sure that the lost fish was as large and possibly larger although it would at that time have been difficult to gauge it as we had never seen a Barbel that large, the feeling of loss was however very real to both of us. There have been other times the latest being just the other week but that's a story for another to tell.

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You know when you have hooked a big carp ,, they plod around using their weight, no histrionics until they see the net or encounter shallow water, that feeling on the end tells many stories, foul hooked fish go crazy with no way of turning them, but you know when that deep thump means something special.

wanderer said:

You know when you have hooked a big carp ,, they plod around using their weight, no histrionics until they see the net or encounter shallow water, that feeling on the end tells many stories, foul hooked fish go crazy with no way of turning them, but you know when that deep thump means something

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Having caught Carp to over 46lbs in this country I have a feeling that I know what to expect from them, believe me they don't always act as you would expect them to.

The most memorable and the one which hurt the most happened very recently to me, it was the fish I've been hunting for such a long time and a schoolboy error of not strengthening the hook when I'd stepped up the rest of the gear saw a monster 5+ perch disappear back to the depths of the river after all the hard work had been done and it was in the closing moments of the scrap when the hook gave and I discovered that the gape had opened.

I'm still gutted.

One that stands out from the distant past more than others was a very large carp at Billing in the mid 60’s. One hell of a fight in the darkness and then lost at the net, which was far too small for the fish, in torchlight. It was considerably larger than my best from there at time which was a touch over 24lbs and made the net without toooooo much trouble. Fish didn’t come easy on that venue so it was back to blanking for quite a few sessions.

Tackle used – MK1V BJ carp rod (not the SU), Mitchell 300, and a effin’ useless net.......

barbelboi said:

Tackle used – MK1V BJ carp rod (not the SU), Mitchell 300, and a effin’ useless net.......

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Did you backwind

thecrow said:

Did you backwind

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Yes, after the gears disintergrated.................

About 10 years ago I was going through a really lean patch while carp fishing, blank session after blank session. I remember it clearly, it was the last morning after yet another 3 night session, then at about 7.30am on a misty morning I had a screaming run, the carp snagged in me three weed beds and eventually I was gently guiding a really huge carp over my landing net - then the hook fell out and the carp just slowly disappeared.

Another lost big fish was a definate 2lb+ roach which was taken by a pike when it reached the surface at Penton Hook on the Thames.

Lost a very big pike many years back that I had carefully guided up and over a wide bank of Canadian pond weed only for it to dive back under it again. Of the others I've failed to capture a bronze whaler estimated at 400 lbs is memorable, but with 30lb line straight through I was never gonna boat it. Curiously it didn't bite off. By others accounts my face was a picture to behold as the side plates ripped away, having sheared the screws, and the spool launched vertically before bouncing off the deck at my feet. Skipper not pleased at all.
Afterwards he went below and came back armed with a serious set of gear, wire and big big hook. A 20 inch livey went out, got ate in seconds. he bent hard into it for a minute or two. Then he let it run hard until it nearly spooled the reel and chopped the line.
" good ****ing riddance. ****ing shark is ruining my livelihood ".

Derek Gibson said:

Many of us at some point in our angling life will have lost a fish. That would have been a milestone, due to snags, hook pulls or tackle failure.

In my own case there are two that are imprinted in my memory. The first was a huge Pike that had grabbed a small Jack of three pounds or so that I had hooked and was just about to net, when it was nailed by a beast of a fish. Realistically there was no hope of landing the lump as the Jack had engulfed the lure, so no hooks to find a purchase. But I played the big 'un gently enough,(guided may be a better description) in order to get a better look, which I did and was gobsmacked. That fish was in excess of thirty pounds, and then it let go of the Jack, I was gutted.

Briefly, the second fish was a huge Perch that had taken a small live-bait. That fish was fairly hooked, but shed the hook when the paternoster link became snagged in some marginal rocks. How big you may ask, without hesitation I would say well over four pounds, having taken them to over four and a quarter pounds previously from the same water.

How about you?.

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Oh so many Derek, in a long life time of specimen fishing, but these are the ones you remember.

Next Time !!

Bob

Bob Hornegold said:

Oh so many Derek, in a long life time of specimen fishing, but these are the ones you remember.

Next Time !!

Bob

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Oh come on Bob, surely you can single one out of the many to interest other members.

thecrow said:

Having caught Carp to over 46lbs in this country I have a feeling that I know what to expect from them, believe me they don't always act as you would expect them to.

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If you caught them from a venue not overloaded with them, you command my respect, there are a few venues at premium price around here where a sixty is very possible, they wont be seeing my money, i have 2 English 40s from very sparsely populated pits and also hold the record of 35 pounds, unofficial but witnessed for the upper Nene at 35 pounds, i still say mid doubles fight harder than bigger fish and the feel of a lump on the rod is usually the same, you may know different.

I had to spend a day thinking about this and now two fish spring to mind.

The most recent was at Britford when trying to teach a very good lady angler how to trot a stick float. We had been catching nice roach and Dace for about an hour when I was showing her how to hold back hard on the float when a jack pike around 2 pounds grabbed the double maggot bait.

The "fight" was not too difficult but just as I was about to slip the net under it a huge pike came crashing through the water and took the jack. It didn't hold on for too long but the bailiff, Stuart, was stood behind me and said that it was the largest pike in his stretch and was thought to be around 26 pounds.

The second "lost" fish was in a National Match in Norway some years ago on a venue noted for some very large Perch, and I'd already had 3 over 3 pounds in the match.

With only 5 or so minutes remaining in the match the tip flew round and I lifted into a really large Perch, so obvious from the typical fight, and from the bend and pressure I reckoned it must well over 5 pounds . . . . . at the net I saw the fish and it was the biggest Perch I'd ever seen, at least upper 4 and maybe a 5.

Just before the whistle for the all out went, so did my hook length . . . . gutted doesn't begin to describe the feeling.

I weighed in 26.450 kilo for second place, just .6 kilos behind the winner.

Sometimes fishing is a truly harsh mistress!

A few months later on the same venue, and just as ice was forming around the edges, I hit a Perch that weighed 4 pounds 12 ounces on a spinner.

I like to think it might have been the Perch that lost me that match . . . .

As with others there are many, but these 4 come to mind:-
1. Mid late 70s when a friend and I spent a wfishing pits in the Leighton Buzzard area for cats, which at that time were still rare and shrouded in some mystery. A fruitless session until the last night when I was woken by my Heron belting out non stop for the mother of all runs. I hooked this thing and my MK1V SU had nil impact on it. The rod hooped over and the fish just carried on running. It was the closest thing to being spooled that I have ever had, then predictably the 10lb Maxima (yes 10lb crazy eh), snapped and the air was rather blue.
2. Late 90's fishing a favourite weir pool when my lobworms were taken by something that I never saw. It plodded about the pool for several minute, the JW Avon rod had little effect as I held on, until it decided to go downstream - goodnight Vienna!
3. Around 2010 fishing freelined smelts, jigging and sink and drawing on a local clear river when a real croc shot out from under my feet and took the bait. I could see everything perfectly in the first part of the fight, then off it went downstream, before changing tack and going upstream. Just as I thought I was getting the better of it that empty feeling happened when everything goes slack and I wound in a set of straightened Partridge double hooks. That was the biggest pike that I had ever hooked at that time and just may have been the elusive 30!
4. Finally, and strangely enough a few months ago fishing the same weir pool as 2 above with a large Creek Chub Pikie lure when suddenly I am attached to an unseen creature that stayed low and the slow determined head shakes told me this was a serious fish. Alas after a couple of minutes the slack feeling arrived and the hooks on the retrieved lure were badly flared outwards.

The common theme is always being unable to make much of an impression on the fish, and secondly after the loss wanting to use the rod as a javelin and launch it into the depths!!

I've lost plenty of fish that have cost me places in matches (as have all match anglers) ..... but only two spring to mind:

1. back in 1986 - in my first National Champs (div 3) on the leeds-liverpool canal, I had 5 bars of soap tench around a pound each ...... but lost a larger one (only about 3 pounds) late on that buried in the soft weed in the middle. In ended up just outside the individual medals ..... but would have been 3rd or 4th with that fish! closest I ever came in a National.

2. 3 or 4 years ago on the Trent at Shardlow. I was struggling for odd roach on the waggler when I hit in to a much bigger fish - clearly a chub - on light gear (0.09 hooklength and a 20 tubertini T2). It was really weedy, but somehow I coaxed it gently between the weedbeds and pokers and it popped up to the surface ...... absolutely Huge!!!!!! I've had chub over 6 and I'm confident that this was a 7 pounder. Sadly it had popped up just out of reach of my landing net and I couldn't apply enough pressure to draw it towards me on such light gear. After a few moments of wallowing it swam off and the ***** hook pulled out!!! that would have been a fish of a lifetime for me ....

Last year I had 2 takes on feeder rods that delivered instant snap offs - poor angling (inappropriate knots combined with poor techniques).
Overall it was a porbeagle shark in my own boat just off Alderney. Mark Harding (Alderney Angling) had told me where they were, and when on the tidal cycle, fully rigged up with all the gear and, I thought, the right trace...everything went as planed and I'm hooked up, harness on and the boat's being towed at a steady 3 knots or so - then it's gone. Bitten straight through 100lb stranded wire. Not happy as it's so rare that such things go anything like to plan ever and it's normally the unexpected/unplanned that leads to such failures.

On a boat or a bank - if possible

Derek Gibson said:

Oh come on Bob, surely you can single one out of the many to interest other members.

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Nope, a near 40lb Mirror Carp that I played in an extremely difficult Lea Valley pit for an hour that had gone around a branch the opposite of a small bay, I stripped off to the boxers and swam out to the branch to free the Carp, but when I had got there it had already freed itself and had gone around an island !!

A huge Chub as big as the 9 I caught that got caught on a set line and every time I pulled it to the top it was just out of landing net reach !!

A Perch nearer 5lbs than 4lbs, that threw the hook at the net as I lifted it up ?

A 30plus Pike that took a small Jack, I played it to the bank, my mate lifted the net and the Pike jumped out ?

A Pike I hooked at the King George, whilst spinning for Perch in the late 1950tys, every member of the West Essex Specimen hunters and some of the London Specimen Hunters had a go at playing that Pike, until it went around the Tower and I could not follow it, which resulted in a broken line.

First trip to a syndicate water after my Triple Bypass operation, a water that had had a big fish kill, I hooked a huge carp that night and played it the net, but my left arm was still weak from the operation, so I put the rod down and picked up the landing net handle with both hands to see the landing net get caught on the bottom and this huge carp flip out and swim away.

There are other, but it's too painful ?

Bob