I've seen four. One was my fault. Set the hook and lost the whole scheissearee. Rod and reel went down 50 ft but got it back. And the fish. One was jerked out of a fellow fisher person's hands by a jack. Gone. Another was a Garcia 7000 that fell over in the surf. Gone. Another was this weekend. Took a friend who got knocked over by a wave. Gone. You lost any?

never. almost though. good thing cork handles float.

Broken, yes. Lost in any of the ways you describe, no, thankfully.

Fishing offshore one time with 6 ounce weight and caught a big amberjack. Got it in the boat and the weight was swaying so I reached down and flipped the bail. Weight dropped outside the boat and caused the whole damn thing to flip out and drop 100' to the bottom. Still had the hook in the fish in the boat luckily.
Unluckily though, since the bail was open, I had to pull up about 600' of line before getting to the end and pulling my pole up. Man, there was line freaking everywhere in the boat. lol

Bought a used heavy rod and reel to donate to davey's locker, for fishing offshore from a kayak with straight 50 lb mono. Headed out of Haulover Inlet on a bad day, yes that one in south florida... it was so bad there was hardly anyone fishing. After making it out the inlet in 6 foot standing waves at the start of outgoing tide and 15 mph winds from coming in from the east, things calmed a bit. Couldn't come back in because current was too strong to paddle against. Had to stay out. Made it past the rough stuff and started fishing. Hook an amberjack that comes up quick in about 40' of water. When it sees me it turns tail and goes straight down pulling drag on reel that was coughing it out in spurts then locking up. Closest I've ever been to getting pulled over. I was leaning so far on the opposite side of kayak that had fish come off, I'd have dumped kayak on the opposite side of fish. Should have just let go of the rod but hung on and ended up landing fish. I've got picture of the amberjack somewhere... it wasn't that big, maybe 20 lbs. Have picture of that day... worst I've ever been in.


Last picture before stowing camera away.. coming out inlet. Picture does no justice to how far down it was to the trough of next wave. This before ever even getting to the end of jetty. One of the reasons I quit fishing offshore in a kayak. I was lucky this day. That was a cruise ship in background.

I was a teenager, we were crabbing/fishing at the North Jetty Bolivar. I had a piece of cut bait on the shallow/beach side of the jetty catching crabs. i set my rod down to check a crab net. I heard a noise and when i looked over my rod was gone. my aunt threw her line out and after a few cast was able to snag my rod. I reeled it in and a large 12" hardhead had taken the cutbait. i cut her up and caught more crabs.