Couple years ago kayak fishing on Lady Bird Lake. Overall a good day. Put in at Austin HS around 6 am (have to get there early to get a parking spot by the boat ramp). Since the sun wouldn't be up for another hour decided to head down the lake, I'd never fished the boardwalk. Fished the brush and branches in the water and bridge pilings. Caught 3 LMB (all under 3 lbs) and about a dozen blue gill and sunfish, all on a small ( 9/32 oz ) crankbait, including a Bluegill that measured 9 1/4" . Would have been a great day...except.

Fishing the south bank behind some apartments something BIG hit my crank. I was fishing with a light action rod and 8 lb test mono. I knew I couldn't just horse this fish in. The first time it jumped I realized how big it was. My PB large mouth is 7 lb, 14 oz. Caught it in 2005 in Kansas. This fish was bigger. I don't know if it was 10, I've never seen a 10lb bass in person, but it was big. Was just concentrating on keeping the line tight, her head up, and letting her take line when she ran so I didn't break her off. Of course, I'm also thinking...is this a Sharelunker? How do I keep her alive until a game warden shows up? Maybe I just release her and take enough pictures to have a mount made hmmm.

Got her to within six feet of the kayak, she saw the boat, decided oh hell no, and ran again. Kept her head up, she's jumping, two Austin Bike Cops are on the jogging trail watching, all is right with the world. Get her close to the kayak again. I realize I can't boat flip her, I think she weighs more than my line can hold. Decide I'm going to net her. The net is behind my seat. As I reach behind the seat...she goes under the kayak. No problem as long as she doesn't.........wrap herself around the Yak Blade Transducer mount. So of course...she does. I reach in, hoping to slip the line off the transducer arm...and snap.

I yelled something like.... oh fudge. One of the bike cops at the same time yelled something like... oh fudge. We looked at each other. He said, "Brother if you're not going to cry, I'm gonna cry for ya."

This one literally caused me nightmares. Wife and I fishing at Fork right before place was sold date was 17-March-2000. Fishing in our cove I grabbed a rod with a big spinnerbait and hooked a huge bass did not have a net with me got him close to the boat once was trying to grab it and it just came unbuttoned and I watched it sink into the deeper water and nearly went in after it. My biggest at Fork was 12# this was significantly bigger. I later learned a couple of share-a-lunkers were caught same day. No way to tell for sure but fairly confident this one would have made the weight for a SAL. Like I say I had nightmares from that one.

serious thread --- biggest fish----got away..

Short and sweet - El Salto - buddy just caught a 9+ (nothing to the guide of course). I hooked into one that started taking drag, guide went nuts saying "Muy grande" over and over. Took my time with her and then got caught in a brushpile in 12' of water. Played see saw with it and its nose with a "V" in that brushpile until the hook finally tore out. Guide said 14+. And I still have never caught a DD despite having maybe 10,000 caught in my life

Lake Anderson , Morgan Hill Calif . October 2018 , close to sunset . I had just dropped off my grandson to his mom --- decided to walk the bank for a hour or so . The lake was super low and closed to all boats .
I hook a 15" , 2lber on a Senko , long rocky point , deep water on both sides . Water was clear , 4 foot vis , no wind -- as I am reeling it in , right in front on me --I see a giant mouth completely swallow the entire bass , my natural reaction was to set the hook , this giant bass is sideways in front of me in about 2 foot of water , it spits out the bass , flex's it's mouth a couple times and slowly swims off . I stood there in disbelief for about 5 seconds . Reeled up the 2lber , not a mark on it .
I estimated this bass at approx 32-33 inches long , it had a Giant head , massive tail and probably went about 14lbs
Made me wonder how many times a Giant bass will eat a 2lber

Fishing a tournament on Rayburn with my son in 2021. We are sitting on a point throwing C-rigs. I throw mine up shallow right off the point. I never felt a bite, but instead thought that i was hung up. I thumbed the reel and pulled, expecting the line to break. Instead of breaking, it felt like i was pulling a small log not quite heavy enough to break my line, so i kept pulling it toward the boat. Once it was about 20 yards from us i noticed that it wasn't coming directly at the boat but was moving more parallel to us and toward the main body of the lake. At that point i figured that i had a big catfish or carp, maybe just snagged. I pulled hard, turning the fish toward us and gaining some ground. My son said, "Don't horse it!". At that point i had already said out loud that it couldn't be a bass. about 10 yards from the boat, the largest bass that i have ever seen in person, it looked like a microwave, jumped and spit my bait. I had to sit down for 15-20 minutes. My hands were shaking and i was devastated. I don't know what that fish weighed, but my son swears that it was also by far the biggest he has ever seen. Ive had one just ander 10 and one around 11, and this one was significantly bigger than either of those. That fish would have probably been enough to win the tournament and for sure get big bass. He said I let out a whimper when it happened.

Hooked one on Falcon that just ate my lunch. Was absolutely the most magical day I'll ever have. Best 5 went 47 on cull-m-rite scale. I hooked one on a DD22 that came up and jumped and then proceeded to beat me like a pinata. I literally couldn't do anything with her. She came off after 3 jumps by straightening out 2 of the trebles. An hour later I caught an 27.3/4" long 11.23 and it looked small compared to the previous said fish. Buddy and I still talk that fish and that entire day. Hard to be so thrilled with a high 40s bag and devastated by loosing a fish you can't even estimate in weight.

2018
Quepos, Costa Rica

Fishing for Marlin. Got hooked up and the fight was on! After about 15 min it got closer to the boat and the Captain & crew were going nuts, 5 min later it came off. Captain said that was the largest marlin he had ever seen and had been fishing those waters for 15 years.

WOW! You even got a same day comparison. Sounds like an amazing day that had one little sour note.

How about the one that didn’t get away.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1364148334427392?mibextid=kdkkhi&fs=e&s=TIeQ9V

2013 Fork, January, jig in 12' of water.

I've netted two over 10 lbs and caught many 8-9 pound fish. This was the strongest bass I've ever felt and only got a short glimpse but it was bigger than anything I'd ever seen. Surely 11-12 range.

Guide on my Dobyns champion was cracked and cut my braid...this became a frequent issue on my dobyns rods with fuji guides. [censored] quality cost me my biggest fish. I'd already had this happen before and checked all my guides that morning before going out. Still the only DD I've ever had on the hook myself.

I'm the one that needs therapy Doc! The 15 pounder I caught at CB was the Lake Record for TWO WHOLE MONTHS until you broke it with a 15.50!!! I've gotta go get an Advil...

First time fishing a private lake in Alabama. My son was about 10 at the time and we were bank fishing. We had caught a couple decent bass when my son said he had something big on his spinnerbait. He had already hooked about 10 underwater trees so needless to say I didn't walk over too quickly. I get there and he's still fighting it when I was able to confirm that he actually had a fish. The lake had a little ledge that dropped down about two feet to a muddy bank. He was standing on the ledge and drags the bass onto the muddy bank. At the time, that was the biggest bass I had ever seen in person. I would guess it was somewhere around 8lbs. We didn't have a net and before I could climb down the little ledge, the bait came loose. The fish just slowly slid backwards back into the pond. This was over 10 years ago and every time we hook a decent fish, my son reminds me about the time I was too slow to catch his big bass.

Mine wasn't a bass but it was a big fish..a tarpon. I'm fishing Biscayne Bay, Miami for sea trout with StCroix Avid bass rod. Its the weekend and around 1 a.m. and I'm paddling my kayak back to Crandon Park Marina ramp. Never got a bite all night and as I paddled past the Miami Seaquarium, on Bear Cut, where they have the seals and dolphin show, I'm making a few more casts around the place as its like a big aquarium with water from the huge tanks being circulated and discharged back into bay. Set the hook on a massive tarpon that came out of the water 20 feet in front of me and I could see the biggest belly I've ever seen on a tarpon... It had to be in the 150 lb range. Get camera out (disposable throwaway and proceed to try to take pictures as it jumped twice before going down and dragging me around. I couldn't put enough pressure on it with 15 lb mono and 40 lb leader so I just held on knowing it would take a while to land it. Fish pulled me for 3.5 hours at about 2 miles an hour. Had rod butt in my stomach, arms aching so much I'd have to rest and fish would recover faster than me. Fish dragged me across the cut to the bridge and back around behind and into where the sailboats are anchored.. it pulls me under the anchor lines, I'm knocking on the hulls of sailboats trying to let anyone that might be sleeping on board, know what I'm doing there. Pulls me right past the boat ramp and then back out across the cut and then another couple mile circle back.. The tide changes during the fight and its headed down current towards the big bridge across the cut. its nearly 4:30 a.m. A charter sportfishing boat is leaving the marina and sees me in the middle of the Cut and comes over to see what's going on. I tell him the story, he climbs up in his tuna tower and shines a spot light onto the water and starts laughing. He guarantees I won't land the fish before daylight. He stayed with me for 10 minutes and has to go catch bait for his charter group.

To make a long story shorter, that tarpon was headed under the bridge and out into the Atlantic Ocean.. it wouldn't go under the bridge earlier because I think it knew the hammerhead sharks hang underneath the bridge on outgoing tide. I gave it one last try to get it up in the water column but ended up busting it off above the leader. Never got a picture of the fish as it was too far away on the second jump, the last three jumps were out of flash range as well. Took a whole roll of pictures and not a single one had the fish in it... flash from camera straight down got camera flash only in picture. Have pictures somewhere of my stomach with welts like bee stings all the way around from having butt of rod dug in.

the first video in my signature below has one picture at the 3.09 mark where I was fighting the fish and tide had changed to outgoing and water muddied up.

Now that ^^^ is one helluva “big fish that got away” story. Big Tarpon is my ultimate bucketlist fish!