Last week, I started a thread about people's best fighting fish. It was really cool to hear those stories. Now, how about weird ways you've lost a fish. Let's see how many ways there are to lose a fish. Here's my favorite lost fish story:

I hit my favorite first light hole on the Deschutes a few Octobers ago at (you guessed it) first light. On the Deschutes, it's not that the fish bite best at first light, it's more that if you're not in your fav spot at first light, someone else will be. The fish don't usually bite well until about sunrise. On this day though, Whammo! Before I could really even see, I was doubled over on a steelhead. It hit my #4 spinner on about the third cast. As I thought about where my flashlight was and how I'd try to land the fish, I saw a bat out of the corner of my eye. It flew right at, then "ting!" through my 10# mono. The damn bat broke me off a steelhead!!! In an instant, the bat was gone, but out in the water, I could barely make out a steelhead jump once, twice, three times, with the sound of the spinner clanging in its mouth each time. I just stood there in near darkness, totally stunned.

I was fighting a large salmon (40 - 50 pounds) in Canada (Barkley Sound). It was staying near the surface and not diving very deep. I was standing on the port side of the boat, near the stern and the fish was running about as hard as it could out ahead of the bow. After about five minutes, a guy in a small boat hooked a sockeye behind us. He started his motor to maneuver his boat around to fight it better (he's probably 100 yds behind us). As soon as his motor started, my fish made a U turn and swam all the way back, right into his prop and it broke my line. I just felt sick. To this day, it was the largest salmon I've ever hooked.

A few years ago, while preparing to gaff a clients silver, I had a pair of orca's come out of no where and steal the fish just as I was about to bonk it, scared the [Bleeeeep!] out of me.
I watched a guide buddy of mine chase a 50-60 lbs. king for about 45 min. before losing it to a sea lion. I lost 5-10 salmon a year to the *******s but never 1 that big.

About 7 years ago me, my younger brother and father went fishing for kings off of Biz point in Area 7. Since that day there has yet to be a fishing trip, a family get to gether or anything of the sort without mentioning this story.
The day was fairly rough and only 4 boats toughed out the 3 foot chop and swells to try and get something - up until 10:00 nobody had even a bite to show for it. At that time my fathers rod pops loose from the downrigger and line screems off the real. We kill the kicker, put the 90 horse in gear and I'm put in charge of staying with the fish and keeping the nose into the approaching waves.My younger brother who's 13 at the time but already well experienced grabs the net and patiently waits.
An hour or more later the fish surfaces and is brought to the side of the boat and ready to be netted. I'm expecting one quick move, a fish on deck and that's that. Instead I hear a 13 year old screaming "It won't fit in the net" (we have a particullarly large salmon net). For the next minute or so my father yells at him to find a way to make it fit. He tries head first but not enough of the fish will make it in, then he tries side ways but still nothing.
That's when the worst mistake in the history of fishing took place: My dad grabs hold of his flasher and tries to gill the fish. With one quick flick of the tail it snaps the 30lb line and swims into darkness. During the battle all 4 boats stopped, brought in their lines and watched what happened, all of them shook their heads in discust and slowly drove away.
I've seen alot of big salmon in my days (former commercial salmon fisherman in AK) and in all honesty that fish went 65 pounds or more and stretched from the motor mount past the downriggers - 4 feet.

We were fishing the OP two weeks ago pulling plugs. I had already caught one about nine pounds and having a great time when my pole doubles over and I'm into my second fish. The fish is ripping of line while we manuver the boat out away from the bank. The fish suprised me when it launched out of the water. This fish was clearly twenty pounds plus. The fish did a weird contorsion mid air and broke off. I reeled up and the plug was still there with a mangled O-ring minus the hook. I've never lost a fish due to a mangled O-ring. We put a new O-ring and hook back on then rowed up and over to fish the hole again. A quarter of the way through the hole my pole does the bam-bam and I'm into a nineteen pound buck. It was great to see that buck caught and released. Love the OP. PFunk

Watched a guy once on a boat I was deck handing on fighting a big king, he had a smoke in his mouth. He took the cig out it to flick it over the side. He flicked it and it flew out and hit the line "ping" fish gone, the cherry hit the line.

I just let The Kid attempt to net my fish. That seems to be the easiest way for me to lose a fish.

My second most favorite way to lose a fish is to just drop it while cleaning it from a boat. Nothing like watching your prize gutted and cleaned salmon slowly sink to the endless bottom. Sorry Cigar. It only happened *once*.

D'oh!

Fishing up in Canada on the west side of the Queen Charletts when I hooked it a rather large Hali while fishing for salmon with a mooching rod and single action reel. After about a hour and a half we finally get it to the surface and my buddy grabbs the harpoon and slamms it through the head of the hali, pulls the harpoon back and shure as Sh@t the tip is still on the poon. Man can a 150-180lb Hali make a reel sing, it runs about 100 yards out and then back down 250'. Another 45 minutes and here he is again, I told, well yelled, at my buddy to make sure he gets it all the way through and pull it back slowly so the tip comes off. He does it and HOLLY CRAP the tip is once again on the poon. Now im madd as all heck and the hali runs straight down. I pump him up as hard as I can, with 17 pound test, to the suface had the pole to my budd and gaff the thing with a 4' gaff tied to the boat. What a ride, I felt like a cowboy on a wild bull. Held on as long as I could before the dowel broke, I reach down and grabbed the sharp pointed end and tried to hang on and it swamm off to the end of the rope and sudden jerk of the boat, i pulled up the rope to find a large sized chunk of it's cheek. We told the deck hand back at the lodge what happened and he said we should have cutt the 3 cent o-ring off and it would have worked fine.
Glad I know that now

I've seen a similar thing happen. This guy was fighting a big king while smoking a cigar. The cigar was in his mouth as he was pumping the fish with the rod. He pulled the rod back and pulled the line right into the end of his cigar. Bye bye fishy.

Several years ago, I was fishing in a king mackerel tournament with my brother off Moorehead City, N.C. We were out on one of the wrecks. Lots of mackerel were being caught, but there were lots of barracuda around also. Five or six times I watched guys fighting their fish and in the middle of the fight, WHAP, a huge pull, then dead weight. They would reel in half a king mackerel. Pesky, like sea lions, but alot quicker and they leave you half of your fish. You just reel in the head and bloody half of your mackerel. Wonder what provision of the Boldt decision affects that 50/50 allocation?

And then one time, at band camp, I was fishing with my brother-in-law for halibut out of Deep Creek, Alaska. He gets one on and it's like he's pulling a garage door off the bottom. But five minutes into the fight, his line just snaps. Heavy sigh. While he's getting re-rigged, I pulled up and rebaited. The skipper told me to go to where my brother-in-law had been, which was "upstream" of the other fishers in the line along the rail, so I wouldn't let down on top of the other anglers' lines. I did this and five minutes later, I've got a big one on.

The long and the short of it is, we get the fish up, shoot it, harpoon it, lasso it and it takes three of us to get it up and into the boat. The halibut not only had my gear in its mouth, but my brother-in-law's gear, weight and all, was still hanging out of its mouth also. 201 pounds (without my brother-in-law's gear). I split the meat with my brother-in-law.

My favorite way to lose a fish is mooching at Point Defiance, when there are maybe 200 boats all mooching between Owens Beach and Crab Point and maybe three clueless trollers just plowing through all the moochers with their downriggers running about 150 to 200 feet of line. The ones I'm talking about are those that would never even consider trolling outside the moochers, don't look left or right, have no clue (or care) which way the moochers' lines are running with the current, etc. I love to finally hook a fish and then have Mr. Clueless just plow right over my line. I really love that.

And one more way I love to lose a fish. This is at the Puyallup River mouth in August. There's maybe 100 boats, mostly trolling around. Then there's Mr. Considerate who decides to combine his fishing excursion with a crabbing excursion and simply drops his pots right in the middle of where everybody's trolling. I just love to hook one of those big hogs and then have it run around Mr. Considerate's bouy line. I love that. It has made my day not just once, but twice. I also question the judgment of anyone who would eat a crab that has been foraging around one of the most polluted spots in the United States.

i hooked a nice silver this year 14-15lbs and right as it started running someone casted over me and tangled their rig about 20 feet up from my swivel. so i get the tangled line up to my top eyelet and a guy offers to cut it with his clippers. i see that he was about to cut my line in the mess with it and right as im saying no.....pop he cuts it. i couldnt get too mad tho he was just trying to help. ive had many seals take my fish and barracuda that would just swim by hit my bait and cut the line without me knowing it.
Tyler

I've had Fish Jesus steal 2 fish from me while fighting them.....course...he says I was about to lose them anyways

Oh my ... I could use up just about all my available server space if I started listing everything I've seen over the years. I don't want to point many of them out as it would sorta be making fun of the "loser". BUt I still smile everytime I think about the fella I had in the Hoh one time who was 0 for 5 at one point in the day. We pulled into a fave slot and we put plugs out ... no sooner does he click the reel over the rod buries in his hands. I yell "fish", but rather than setting the hook and playing the fish, he struggles to put the rod in the holder, bot even for a moment realizing that it's hard becuz he's got a mid-teens hen flopping on top of the water and tugging away on the other end. Finally, he manages to get the rod in the holder (I'm still yelling "fish") only to look downstream at the jumping fish ... before he gets it back out of the holder, she's gone

PS ... the very same thing happens in the next hole ... rod goes over just as he clicks the reel. This time he remembers what happen just a few minutes earlier ... skunk for him finally off, ends the day 1 for 7

I've lost many a fish to all kinds of "accidents" but at least they weren't the fish of a lifetime like many of you are describing...OUCH...that's gotta' hurt.

I had a steelhead this year run downstream on me one morning in January. It was cold and windy and everyone was pretty bundled up. Anyways, I yell at this guy that I'm coming down, he doesn't respond. I yell again but I guess he can't hear with his hood over his head? He is standing thigh deep in the water as my fish goes between his legs and about dumps him in the river. When he began to fall backwards he broke my 10lb test off. He was pretty shocked...kinda' funny to see.

I have always found that one of the easiest ways to lose a fish is when your "buddy" says "What a chromer!!! That %$#@ is gonna be great eating!! Man, what a fish-- I mean that is a "POP!!!!" Oh.............er.............bummer dude.

Rocklizard has told me of a few surface releasers lately! :p

FJ...out.

This happened to my brother while we were fishing on the chehalis for salmon we were maybe ten or eleven at the time. My brother never fishes but it was a family thing so my dad set him up with a little spoon moore suitable for trout. Well we fish for a while and all of a sudden my brother starts saying he has a fish on. I look over to see his line slicing back and forth through the hole he is just holding on. Suddenly his line goes limp and he reels in his line to find that the fish has crushed one of the hooks against the other and straightend out the third. It was like the fish just chewed his lure up and spit it out.

Bobber fishing fall chinook in tidewater of the Wilson with my Dad in the mid-80s. A boat was anchored just above us in the Milk Hole. The bite was finally starting to turn on when one of the guys in the other boat hooked a monster.

This fish was right along the brush line about twenty feet from their boat and the guy was using an old 6' solid fiberglass rod with a Penn reel and really putting the pressure to the fish to try to keep it out of the sticks. The fish was fighting back like mad and raising a boil about 6" above the surrounding water and three feet across!

About then, we got a glimpse of the fish's tail and it had to be a foot wide. The fish put on a powerful run for the brush when the guys reel came loose from the real seat and, with drag screaming, fell into the bottom of the boat.

Dad turned to me and said, "This won't take long!" The reel came flying up the rod and hit the first guide with the dude grabbing for it the whole way. It would hit the guide which would break the drag loose and down it would go to the bottom of the boat again.

This happened two or three times when the guy finally got a hold of the reel and tried to reattach it to the reel seat. He buried his thumb in it and was holding on for all he was worth when KAPOW!! It sounded like a rifle had gone off.

Needless to say, the air was a little blue around the Milk Hole for awhile.

The one that I get reminded the most of happened a couple years ago when my boys were 6 and 8 years old. We were at a local lake crappie fishing with lightweight gear and 6# line. We were catching a bunch of crappie, up to 14 inches long when my 6 year old says he has a big one and his rod is bent double. I'm thinking he probably has a large carp, but when he gets it up it turns out to be a catfish, flathead I think, about 3 feet long. Of course I didn't bring a net, and my hand was not big enough to fit around the head and grab it behind the gills. Before I had the chance to grab the tail, the fish had enough fun and headed straight down, breaking the line. My boys now always remind me to bring the net, even for crappie fishing, so I don't lose any more of their fish.