Losing The “Big One”

Randy Wieland wrote:

The most expensive fish I have lost was on a tournament on Erie. On day 1, I had a 5-6# smallie slam a rapala bait as well was lifting it out of the water. Rear treb broke off a brand new bait and fish was gone. Unfortunately I never had another opportunity on that day to cull a 2# out of the live well. On the final day 3, I ended up 6th place and a check for around 4500. I was 11 ounces short of first place. That 3 to 4 pound upgrade was the difference of over $50,000 package.

So I got a $45,000 lesson on why not to trust cheap azz alloy hooks.

Well in this day and age Randy the Rapala hook wouldn’t break, the WHOLE lure would be gone. You would only have the split ring and plastic bill left on the end of your line. Most Rapala hard baits have turned to EXPENSIVE junk!
JMO

I agree on the Rapalas Sorry Randy that had to hurt bad. I could not imagine

mxskeeter wrote:

Well in this day and age Randy the Rapala hook wouldn’t break, the WHOLE lure would be gone. You would only have the split ring and plastic bill left on the end of your line. Most Rapala hard baits have turned to EXPENSIVE junk!
JMO

I was fishing the Brainerd ice tourney some years ago and it was one of the coldest days recorded during the tourney. Within 20 minutes, the guy next to me dead sticking a sucker minnow had his bobber go down (and the sucker he put on was huge…he told me he was going all in!). Well, he was a little to slow grabbing is rod and down the hole she went. But, he went in after it! he reached down the hole as far as he could hoping to grab his rob, with no luck.

The poor guy stood there with his buddies, his coat arm completely rock solid for the remainder of the tourney….thought he was going to die LOL. Kicker was, first place, which was a choice of truck, was won by a small pike. This poor man lost a pole, probably his arm, and a new truck.