Oh bugger... there's always next time!

Well to date mine only 'ass kicking' I've ever recieved from a fish was last summer at Ammo Jetty. Was using a cheapo 12" Shakespeare/Uglystick combo spooled with 25lb mono. Rigged up a scallie on a snelled 8/0 gamatsu circle and on 100lb leader. Casted it out about 60m, barely a minute gone by and I had a massive bite it began taking line. I quickly tightened the drag a bit and striked and I was on! This thing was not stopping it just kept on pulling line of even though I tightened the drag bit by bit. When I realised I was going to be spooled I quickly tightened the drag ALL THE WAY. And finally this thing stopped. All this happened with a sand spike from the rod a couple inches from my crotch... Damn it hurt especially without the gimbal belt. I was able to gain some line back before it took of again and stopped. 45mins later of playing tug of war I decided to stop and take a breather. Thats when two other fisho's next to me decided to cast out their line, one of them crossed my line and decided to reel it in and I could clearly see his gang hooks sliding up my line and I thought to myself this isn't going to be good. Then SNAPPED.... and all the excitement died. I just wished I could know what it was that took it.

was probably a ray at pinaroo point. 2 of us holding the rod and one person reeling in, got obliterated. would have been spooled if it didnt snap hahah.

 was bottom bashing in jurien bay. hooked up to a blacktip reef shark. (now when your 12 its the coolest ahahaha) anyway did well to get it to the top only for the decky of the charter to cut the line with the gaff (or so he says)

On my first trip to Quobba in the very early seventies, first three casts, spooled on each and snapping off at the reel, back to the tackle box, wind new 30lb Speed king line on, have another can [steel those days and Emu Export], cast out iron coffin lure and Bang, smoke up the Abu 10.000 reel and watch the line disappear again, repeat process x 3.

Both of us were from down south and thought all mackeral were the same as blue macks down south and chucked them back untill after a trip in to town to freeze our huge trevs and pinkies. The bloke there said to bring anything in with teeth and scales.Best mackie was 68lb gilled and gutted and mates was a 64lb turrum. All caught of Whistling rock.

Have been spooled many times since but never as quick.

Looking forward to this thread, should be a good read.

Will think of mine in the meantime.

i got my arse handed to me by a 15kg GT while fishing with a squid jig on a 4kg cheapy combo, must say i wasn't expecting it and i didn't stand a chance in 4m of water and 1kg drag

In my very early days of marlin fishing (boutime) and I were out bottom bouncing the back of Peak and decided to come around the rons to troll back in.  It was a glorious day and it was about 3pm when we put out the marlin lines, we had a couple of tyrnos's out and we hooked 2 marlin within 10 minutes, only small little guys but the drag played up on one and we ended up losing both fish for one reason or another.  I changed one of the rods out for my bottom bouncing reel, a tld25 with 50lb braid on it.  Pretty much before the whole spread had been put out a SSSoooolid marlin went my lure and proceeded to absolutely shralp it to bits, spooling  my reel in less than 45 seconds and melting all components inside it.  We then hooked two more fish and got told by the marlin that we were playing in the big league and we shouldn't be bringing kiddies toys.  We then headed back in severly demoralised.  We were still bloody excited about the hour of power we had just had at a new spot called the sea mounts.

Besides the smoothhounds sharks that recently pulled me from the reefs ( 3 x times) face forward - off the reefs - into the the water; I would say the I got my ass kicked by a few rays in South Africa. I had takes on that would last 2 minutes and some up to 30 min before something gives - either my braid parts, my knots slip or break or he runs low through reefs and the line get cut off.

The most memorable was a Black Ray up at Keurboom Strand, Plettenberg Bay; South Africa. Monster - I had no chance and I dont think any other tackle would have made a difference.

(Cuthbad - my gear arrives in 14 days - we should do another sharky get-to-gether stint!)

Cheers

A sailfish I hooked in Gamex 1990 on an 8 foot ugly stik and penn 850ss and 8 kilo. George King was near us in The Gun and saw it jump  and called it for 70 kilos, we only saw the splash. Saw the fish a couple of other times and it was definately a horse sail. I weighed a 40 kilo one the day before and this thing was huge . Bloody thing was foul hooked and 4 hours on a long rod in an 18 foot c/c south of tantabiddi on a lovely windy November arvo and had to break it off when the sun went down . . . Didnt leap out of bed the next morning with my usual youthfull vigour thats for sure . .  

alvey winches.  But remember this so real, we both caught two whiskery sharks, first one came on board, kicking as they do, my feet are up, old fart gets out the rubber mallet, bang bang, ^%$#@ much swearing in the air, next minute my line goes off, bring up another whiskery and the same ^%$# thing happening, the sinker was whacking old fart in the ankle, then the shins, so you can image the &^%$ going on, glad no one came over to ping us as the language would have been enough for them to p...s off hahaha wish I had a video camera that day, needless to say we moved and caught a nice dhuie about 9kgs, decided that was enough for the day.  Next day old farts ankles and shins were blue.  But the whiskery tasted nice about a month later after beening in the freezer.

Fishing the Murray mouth years ago (SA), we had the whole school of mulloway to ourselves. We were using abu 7000's with 10kg line and hooking big mutha mulloway. Throughout the night we landed 4 piddly fish to about 40 pounds, but lost at least 15 monsters. The fish would get in the outgoing current and head for Antarctica. When the reel had only a few metres of line left, we would clamp down and try to turn the fish. Impossible, as the stretch in 300+ metres of mono is a lot. In the end we busted off heaps of fish, ran out of lures and returned to the campsite for a rest.

I got hit in the face by a stray flying fish couple weeks back, bloody thing flew into the boat while we were doin 30knots and slapped me square on the forehead. Talk about OWNED!!!!!!!!!

Dampier bilfish shootout a few years back, one of the baits got belted by a fish. I switched a livie into the spread and next thing had the biggest marlin I've ever seen heading for Wandoo. The marlin was 100kg+ and was never gonna come in on 10kg spin gear. After a furious greyhounding run, the fishes tail sliced through the double.
Weren't expecting fish 10 feet long!!

While fishing for bream in the kalbarri river when I was younger. I always had a bigger outfit out for mulloway as I frequently caught them. Had The big gear out with a mullet fillet and the small 6kg gear out for black bream. Needless to say I hooked something big on the small gear (prawn bait). After s#!^&ing myself and some how reeling in the big gear, I had to untie myself from the mooring and chase this fish around the river in the dingy. After nearly getting spooled a number of times, the fish b-lined straight for a mooring and pinged me off. Have landed other mulloway in the river in the dingy on the 6kg gear up to 11kg, and this was nothing like it. Would have to say 20kg. Presuming it was a mulloway. Although I hadnt heard of anything else big being caught in the river back in the day.

As a 10 year old kid my dad had a yacht in the Old Geraldton Marina, i used to fish while he worked on it. After an Abrolhos trip i had a 100lb handline laying around, and threw out a yakka i'd caught on a huge set of gangs off the little beach there, shortly after the line started to run, so i held on, and proceeded to get dragged of the beach into the water, only let go after getting pulled under and almost drowned.... To the embarrasment of me in front of all my mates, mum dived off the boat and tried to rescue me.

Another time at the Abrolhos as a 12 yr old kid, i made my own gidgee, and wandered around the island looking for something to spear. On an old jetty on Leo's Old Camp (i think) i saw a huge baldy and let rip, unfortunatley i didnt want to lose my awesome home made gidgee, and had tied it to my wrist, the baldy bolted, and pulled me off the jetty, mum to the rescue again....

down south for blue gropers with a handline - everyone said go heavy so there I was with 100lb on a massive hand reel with a handle in the middle with which to hold. I'd burleyed up the area for a week previous with fresh caught crabs and sent down my very first baited hook - I'll admit I was a bit blasé and didn't think I'd actually catch anything but BANG! Hooked up almost straight away and I wasn't really expecting it. So I'm trying to hold this thing from going back into the rocks but it was a case of good luck as I palmed this hand reel and it burnt 2 lines through my glove and into my hand from the edges of the spool. At one stage I thought I was going in, but luckily I managed to get a foot hold in the hole I had dug or it was gonna be a 20m+ swan dive if I didn't manage to let go in time. At this point my arms were shaking and my left hand was bleeding with what looked like 2 knife cuts and the big blue had nestled himself nicely in some reef. I tried in vain for the next hour or so to drag that bastard out, but to no avail. Knackered, dejected, bleeding and sore I had to cut the line cos it was so bloody thick I couldn't even bust it off. New found respect for the humble old blue groper.....

My old bloke and mum were fishing at point culver cliffs 1993 on the beach and he put a balloon out on his shark rod and something huge grabbed it while mum n dad was holding the rod in the rod holder as much as they could and i spooled 800m of 50lb of line unstoppable!!!!

Mine has to be when i hooked a 48 pound YTK off steep point when i was 17. Dirty fighter is an understatement. Went left and right and under the cliff ledge then lucky for me went out deep.

Landed it a short time later but i was hurting for days after....

2 years ago we were anchored off the side of bernier island (carnarvon) and after a day of huge spaniards and reds and pinkies just on dusk i threw out my last snook bait as a floater(caught at hillarys before the trip) this snook was at least 50 cm long!, anyway i made up a snelled rig on singlestrand with 5x8/0 hooks and heaved it out and within 2 minutes my 20,000 stella howled and kept on howling until 600m of 50lb braid was gone!! clean spooled!! not long after we saw in the fading light as we turfed all the bait in off the bait board, 4 huge 70/90kg yellowfin hoover the bait chunks in the water, we didn't try to hook anymore as we had no gear bigger than the stella with no line on it!! 

 i would say my biggest loss would have to have been a big sambo fishing in shallow water in Shark Bay. the fight went on for about 20 minutes untill we saw it was a sambo that was roughly about the 6 foot long, it had wrapped itself around another line at some stage and when we got it close to the surface my son decided to try and unwrap the line, only to give it another wrap around and of cause the line with the tention on it went ping in a big way. not too happy about it but thats fishing for you.

Another was a short lived fight from what we know was a huge shark, what type we could only guess. this happened in exxy 2 years ago at the exxy comp. line went down and shortly got picked up and with a short but aggresive fight the Xzoga rod went crack and the line went ping. not a good feeling when you snap a rod that was less than a week old 

While fishing at rowley shoals flicking poppers over the reef on high tide i got hammered on 80lb braid with a mitchell orca and live fibre 24kg spinning rod the popper got dragged over the reef with plenty of interest but no hook up once it got into the deeper water i had this leviathan of a dogtooth come through and smash my lure it was heading for the horizon so i locked up the drag to as much as i could get any way not long before i got spooled the whole spool ,bailarm every thing got ripped from my reel then ping gone but this fish was easy 50-60kg and made my gear and me look pretty stupid  haha oh well another reel donated to the bottom.

Standing on a cliff at DHI (approx 5m) I was casting lures for around 20mins without much success. A mate walked over for a chat just after I had launch another cast. I continued to wind in while turning my back to the the ocean. The lure got smashed straightaway, line was flying off the reel. I was caught completely off guard/balance and was about to go over the edge. I was lucky pinged on the reef. To say I shat myself was an understandment, was happy to loose that one! Dont know what it was, guessing a decent size aquarium GT.

at a school of large Tuna back in the early 80s. The Henchman got hit at warp factor 5 by what I assume was a very big YFT and I was almost pulled in the water by the force of the strike. The spool on my Penn threadline was a blur for about three or so seconds in which a lot of line disappeared off it and then the behemoth attached luckily spat the hooks

Also copped a beating from a big shark in a pro mackeral boat off Whistling Rock in 1985. Four blokes took turns on this Whaler that must have been 11-12 foot long and it finally snapped the line fortunately, as the skipper wanted us to gaff the bloody thing for the jaws.

Been done by some thumper Black Bream at Canning Bridge as a kid back in the 70s - no chance of stopping them from running round the pylons.

  mine was a epic fight with a marlin,i couldnt find a decky and went solo,i went past Ads and lucky Tim and they where on there way home, it wasnt to pretty out there

  so out went 2 big baits a queeny and a good size school mac , 10 mins late a marlin had a look it was a small one so a kept on going, 10 mins after that up she came,swallowed the mac and was going for the horizon i pulled the other rod in and teaser in i was off ,trying to drive and get line back it was a mission ,i managed to get photos for proof and 2 hours later up she came , i was  that stuffed i couldnt let the rod go to cut the line at the leader ,she went under and around the boat 3 times and on the last under pass she hit the prop and snapped the leader {thank god} and off she went nice and slow

  i showed the pics to alot of people and it was between 180 and 240kg i think it was about 200 myself

    jeff

  "Old Man and the Sea " stuff . cheers Pete

I was fishing on the swan river just recently going for flatties, when i hooked onto a monster, no idea what it was, took line for around 2 minutes, only took back around 5 metres on line when my 9kg braid snapped

My arse was handed back to me by a manta ray and his mate.

Was mucking around out off one of the islands near Karratha and it was pure glass out there. Hadn't lived here long and saw our first Manta, kids were transfixed at the time as were we. As it cruised past the boat we were all on one side doing the awwww thing. I couldn't believe how big this thing was and then saw a few big cobia swimming underneath. The only rod that was rigged and ready was one of the kids' K mart xmas specials that might have had 10-15lb mono if it was lucky and a squidgy fish on it. I swung into crazy mode and flung the plastic out there and began the wind in, saw the follow and the strike....something I will never forget. What happened next was crazy. The cobe took the placcy and pulled like a train back to the manta maybe 20 or so metres away by this stage and then they all headed for the bottom in a hurry. All of a sudden I thought I was busted off as the line went slack. Bugger me if the manta didn't come flying 3 metres clear of the water right in front of us and splashed down only to do it all over again. I was glad when the line did snap and worried for days that the thing was okay. My addiction to bigger gear started right there and then. Awesome memory etched into my brain for life.

Cheers

Mullows 

 hooked the local denham cod off the fishing boat jetty,swam off at a rate of knots,making my baitrunner get a massive birds and it,swam around the abrolas explorer supply boat,and i had tangled my left hand between my rod and reel,had to grab the post at the end of the jetty,and was calling out to my 10 year old son to pass me my knife,and i managed to cut my line before i went into the drink,thank god for the post at end of jetty,gee i almost s--t myself,this was back in 2005 over the christmas break

In the late 80s I was fortunate enough to work on Koolan Island (north of Derby) for about 12 months.  What a great place.  Anyway the word was some sizeable cod / Queensland groper frequented the wharf (as well as a croc).  It was time to check these out.  Heavy mono handline and a live queenie as bait set not too deep so I could see what was coming.  It came, (VW size) absolutely smoked, no chance.  Funny as.

hooked a decent bream on my 4lb gear in exy marina and as it surfaced, a huge cod arround the meter mark came up and completely engulfed it. the fight only lasted about 5 seconds!!!

flicking a little gunfish stickbait on exy flats on my light gear again when somthing hit it and there was a huge splash as it did so, then it peeled line of at a matter of knots as it headed for the horison.

hooked a unknown on a saltiga game 3500 on a SP, fought it for about 10 minutes on locked drag, then it decided to go and wouldn't stop I couldnt stop it.

went for a drive to the local jetty after getting dinner (chicken treat), saw some gardies, being the obsessed fisherman that i am, had a couple of handlines in the car, used some chicken nugget to catch a gar for bait, pinned it on and cast out, barely 10min passed when i hooked up to something huge, 100m of 300lb line has never left a spool so fast, being a stout kind of bloke i did the best i could do and locked her up, i wasn't giving an inch then got slammed into the handrail, lucky the line busted on a pylon, mrs thought it was funny but i was left there trembling, big shark, big ray?, who knows!

must have been late 1970's fishing with the old man from a 14 foot wooden dinghy with hand lines. We where looking for Cape Snoek, they normaly go to max 9kg down there, but as they have razor teeth, locals tend to use 200lb mono handlines.

We hooked a mother of ray on the hand line and being a weedy young teenager got me butt kicked for about two hours. would get it right up to almost gaff reaching distance for it to just flap off with ease and then start hauling it in over again. Hands got so sore, we used a oar as a winch to even try get the brute in.

As night fall started to creep in and having only an old Seagull outboard and oars in those days, we finaly cut the line with the bugger about 20m from us and gave up to sulk all the way home. No snoek, no skin on fingers and cold&wet...yip I'd say the ray won

here is Aussie land, I better tell the story before some of you that saw it will and make me blush lol...

up in Exmouth about 5 years back with Honsu and a few others, we went to the jetty to try for GT's.

Well after flogging lures for an hour or more, I finaly got my hit and was dragged into the water by a fish heading back to the pylons like nothing was going to stop it.

Yes a lot of you that where there laughed and yes I did get my @ss whoooped by that GT, until it straightened the hook.  lesson learnt! get fatter before I go GT fishing again..lol..

Was in my little 11 foot tinnie with the missus when we came across a manta ray. I let the missus have a cast and the cobia came out and grabbed the 90mm scorpion. Using her cheap kmart diawa reel with a sticky yet loose drag, the cobia flew straight back to his manta and somehow got one of the trebles lodged in the belly of the manta. Well that really stuffed up her $40 reel. The manta took of at 30 knots and the sticky drag nearly pulled her out of the boat. 30 pound braid snapped (thankfully) and to this day she is no longer interested in catching cobia.

But standout for being busted up:

1. Just looking around dampier and thought we would go to the Pond Zero wall (I would LOVE to go on the other side of this wall).

Spotted some plate and fun brassies and small GT (small they all look the same). Threw some lures and metals and had a blast pulling in 1-5kg Trevs. Then suddenly I had a brainwave. "The fly rod", I tied on a rather large blue and white clouser in my haste to get a fly out there, and on the wt Forward sinking tip 8wt blasted a sadish cast towards the trevors. Well, a large bait = large fish, and a monster trev came up, in full view scoffed the clouser, and proceeded to burn the living shit out of the Okuma Fly reel (and my hand trying to apply some resistance). This fish was no Monsters like Jay etc catch, but I gestimate 15-20kg by the size, and needles to say the fight was on, brief and brutal, until that dreaded sound of over pressured graphite starting to part!! Now with a 2 part fly rod, the front end rapidly dissappearing along the line towards the fish, me hanging on to the butt end thinking WTF do I do now. Just about then "ping" and gooon. Leader parted, didnt loose any fly line and somehow even wound back the broken front half off the rod, because the GT tied a lovely Fig 8 knot in the flyline.

Man that was a blast!!!

2. I am coming to get you!!!!. On one of our favourite spot there must be a resident spinning Whaler. He has busted me up 4 times now and to say the least seeing 5-6ft of sharp 6 ft up in the air spinning wildly then pinging the line is awesome. Now geared right up. Broomstick, Saltiga OH, big braid, 150lb 15m windon leader, 2ft metal trace (I think rated 300lb) and a Big 12/0 (not finalised the decision on the hook) I am out to get him. Just have to get the harness out, because we only take the gimbles on the boat thus far. Will keep this one posted if success or failure!!!

Neels

On a trip to Quobba there was an old ding bloke who muscled his way out on to Whistling rock when there was already four of us there. Well he had an old rangoon cane rod and a very big early daiwa reel with what looked like about 80lb plus line on it. We had got into a few spaniards and trevors when this old bloke hooked in to something wicked, it took off at mach two in speed and all we could see was smoke coming from the reel, he ran out of line then the reel seat snapped off and starts tearing the runners off the rod as he's trying his best to hold on to it. Lucky for him the line finally broke because there was no way he was going to let what was left of his gear go swimming.

We were cacking ourselves laughing while he looked liked he'd had a heart attack. Right from the time he turned up he looked like an accident looking for somewhere to happen and it certainly did. Just that one cast is all he had and he picked up the rest of his junk and was gone. 

Mine was at the Mandurah Bridge when we thought we would just try for some bream, caught some small Tarwhine and trumpeter. (And Blowies of course), so what  happened is I dropped a prawn down and felt a bite so I set the hook and I didn't have time to do anything then, BANG it snapped me off. Was calling it for a big Bream.

The other time was at Kalbarri mucking around with the tiny Bream on the Jetty. We weren't expecting to catch anything big by the way. My big brother dropped a bait down he got a bite, he didn't have time to set the hook because it was straight under the jetty. Called it for a Mangrove Jack.

when i was about 10-12 i hooked a 5ft+ spaniard off learmonth jetty and eventually got it along side on maybe 10lb line without a leader lol and my old boy snapped it at the hooks trying to lift the fish which would have been a lot heavier than the line.

i watched it sink to the bottom and was very temped to dive in after it until dad told me it was not a good idea with sharks around. dammit that fish was taller than me :) ill never forget it...sooo close....

Fishing at quobba with John and Liam, everyone was casting heavy gear into the sunset and I got bored and decided to have fun with my 2500R and 0.8pe casting into the white wash with 5g and 10g metals. I was getting quite a few bonito that day which was great fun on the light gear when I got hit by a good sized yellowfin, which had smoke coming from the spool. Busted off at the backing knot, tied a knew lure on and casted again only to be smoked. I didn't cast after that. Sometimes they won't touch the bigger metals as they are fixated on the tiny baitfish. I managed to turn the second fish and gain some line after about 250m was out, got the fish back about 30 pumps and winds and then got sharked.

Had been fishing the creeks near what was then Leslie or Cargill (?) salt back in Hedland in the mid 90's as a young fella. Had nothing all day and the old man and my brother were packing up, so i walked over to another section of creek and for a joke threw in a piece of mulie attached to a puny rod with 2kg line. A large shovel nose ray materialised, grabbed it, took off at all speed. Leant back to try and stop it (yeah right!) only for it to predictably snap and me end up on my arse rather heavily.

Not long after I was fishing off the harbour side of the spoil bank and had casted out my dads old red and white cigar lure. Hadn't been in the drink longer than ten seconds give or take when the water went nuts and what was a good sized GT swallowed it and then speed off into the deep, lure and line trailing in its wake. The very last time I fished with such light line. I learnt my lesson!

Got made bitch by about a 20kg GT on a squid jig off cocos island jetty at night. there were thousands of them all milling around in the shallows and they were unstoppable, especially on 8lb squidding outfit

had a 30 to 40 kg gt hooked in the asshole

took a mile of 40lb line then just sat sideways in the water under the cliffs couldnt get the boat in close to follow him because of the swell on the island

he just sat there couldnt pull him sideways through the water at all snapped the line trying to do so didnt quite get spooled but had to respool anyway.