Fish That Got Away Stories for 2022

All bass that were over 5lbs that bit me this year, if there were any, either didn’t hook up or got off before I could get a good look at them.

On June 20th, I located a spread-out school of bass in a slop bay on Platte Lake. I didn’t go back, holding it in reserve until I could get out to the area with one of my brothers. My brother came up from the cities from the 25th through the 27th, but we never got to the area. I didn’t get back to the area until the next time he came up on July 3rd, even though I fished all but one of the days in between. When we fished it on July 3rd, it was a total dud. What a disappointment. I left them alone for too long; lesson learned again. Strike when the iron is hot or run the risk of disappointment.

Much later on, in the same bay, I had a biggun come all the way out of the water just after my frog had landed, catching me slightly off guard, burying me in the junk immediately, and it got off.

About a week later, in the same bay, I had a big fish I never saw get off as I fought it through the pads. It could have been a dogfish; who knows? Several large fish of undetermined size buried me in the reeds, pads, and slop elsewhere.

So what are your tales of woe?

On August 13, I was muskie fishing a metro lake for tigers. It was a gray overcast somewhat windy day. In a span of about 90 minutes, I caught two sizable tiger muskies and he caught one. But in between the first one he caught and the first one I caught, I piled into one that was enormous – significantly bigger than the 35 inch one that he had just caught. When I hooked it a ways out, I knew it was big. But not that big. As it came closer, it was sub surface, not really fighting. Once it surfaced about 15 feet out, we got a good look at it. Then it started to jump and shake its alligator sized head, spitting the hook.

Our best guess was that this fish was about a foot longer than the 35 incher he had just caught. I honestly didn’t think they were that big in this lake either. My personal best pure strain is 44 inches. This appeared bigger, as a tiger.

As it turns out, we did boat three nice fish that day, but the series of events that played out losing that giant has recurred in my head many times since. I did mark it on my GPS so I’ll be going back there again. But that was the fish that got away from me in 2022.

Had a very nice pike on but barely lip hooked went to grab the net and the wife’s purse was in it. Attempted to spill it out got the net to the pike and yep hook went in the net and bye bye fishy. Purses do not belong in boats. Just would have liked to measure it.

Last weekend early ice got on a good walleye bite had a giant on battled it for what seemed like 5 minutes finally seen it confirmed giant walleye got it’s head coming up the 8” hole it hardly fit then it did a shake broke the line off and fell
Back down so fast I hardly
Had a chance to grab it . Would’ve loved to put a tape on that fish it was a pig . Lost my lucky Swedish pimple too

waiting for iowaboys version!!

It will likely have had a skirt attached to it Glenn!!

Mine was while on our spring trip to Canada. We found a bay that was just loaded with both pike and walleyes. I hooked what I thought as first was a bigger pike. Once I got it closer to the boat I realized it was a monster walleye. We had already caught a fair amount of walleye In The 26-28” range and I knew right away this fish was a lot bigger than those. We rarely net any fish while in Canada, but I was going to make a exception for this one. Just as I was about to say to my buddy to get the net, he set the hook on a rather large fish of his own. I told him to land his as quick as possible and grab the net to net my fish. I told him it was a monster walleye and I wanted to measure it and get a few pictures. Well the landing and unhooking of his 38” or so pike took longer than normal. Just as he grabbed the net my fish made one last run and pulled off. In hindsight I should have just hand landed it like most all the other fish. My guess is this fish was easily a 32” fish and possibly even longer. It would have be by far my biggest walleye. That one hurt for awhile. Would have loved to get a measurement and a few pictures of it.

The fish that got away.
Well, Sparkles and I were on a lake near Bemidji MN this year and I hooked into something that spooled me three times.
I couldnt get to my Terrova and she had never deployed it before so I chased it down with my mighty Merc 75 at just above idle speed as I didnt want to lose it
due to too much slack.
Wouldnt you know it, there in about six feet of gin clear water I could see a musky heading deep for the weeds so it could roll in them and spit the hook.
I reeled as fast as I could and was leaning into my less than IDO quality ugly stick that I bought at wallymal for nine bucks on clearance.
The drag was flat out screaming on my Diawa reel that I bought second hand at a garage sale five years ago, the gal selling it said it was her deceased husbands
reel that he took a lot of pride in as he had traded her Cracker Jack super secret decoder wedding ring for it.

She must have been a loving soul to give it up so he could have this reel, I mean, she traded her wedding ring for it!!
I gave her fifteen cents over the asking price of a nickel and told her I would treasure it for the rest of my life and use it to chase down trophy fish.
I spooled it with 80 pound braid, well, honestly it came off of the same spool of black thread my mom used to patch my jeans back in the sixties as it was the same line that dad used on his 12 foot cane pole and I remember dad saying that you could haul in three cases of Olympia beer upstream during a spring thunderstorm on the Mississippi, so, in my mind, that much beer against that kind of current would be right at 80 pounds.

Anyhow, back to this fish, I had it dang neart to the boat and Sparkles was reeling in a perch and I was asking/yelling to her to get the net as I had a whopper on!
She wasnt reacting as quickly as I was expecting and I yelled an exsplicitive to the tune of something on the lines of having a rather large, uh, er, ahem, lets just say if the lid was up she didnt have to worry about falling in and it went to hell from there.
Honestly folks, she has the cutest little, uh,, ah,,, how do I say?, never mind, you know what I mean.

So she gets the net and neither one of us knew the anchor was in it holding it down, and with a herculean effort she raises it over her head and gives it a mighty swing, the anchor came out of the net and hits me right on top of my head!!! ( see picture of that wound ).
The anchor bounced off of my head and went overboard, little did I know that the anchor rope was wrapped around my bare foot, ( see strangulation bruises of my foot ).
There I was, hobbling on one foot, bleeding so badly I couldnt see and I am trying to reel in this danged musky and it happened, that musky had sympathy for me and let go of my
blue and chrome rattle trap as it instinctively knew I was going to drown if I went overboard.

Once I was healed up I mixed two Jack and Pepsi’s and headed back out to the spot I lost that musky, I asked the musky gods to tell it I came in peace and to tell it I was grateful for what it did for me, sure enough here it came and greeted me boat side, I poured the drink down its throat which it drank down in one swallow.
It belched rather loudly and in a flash it was gone, no worries, I knew right where it was as I could follow the bubbles each time it burped.
I circled that spot for an hour chasing other fisherman away and my reward was several nice walleye.

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That’s even deeper then I woulda thunk it

Now that’s a story !

Sheez iowaboys, you sure killed this thread.

my wife would leave me if my foot looked like that.

dirtywater wrote:

my wife would leave me if my foot looked like that.

Bummer.