What's The Biggest Fish You've Ever Caught?

I once caught a fish in Florida. I have no clue what type of fish it was, but it took forever to haul up on the rocks.

After about five minutes of struggle, I yanked the fish up as hard as I could and, in true comedic fashion, watched as the fish sailed over my head and on the rocks about 15 feet behind me.

I wandered over to it. Saw it laying on the ground on it's stomach, looking up at me. I tried to grab it, but a mouth full of little sharp teeth snapped at me.

Then I went to get a stick, and held the stick in front of the fish's mouth, it clamped down on the stick and I was able to lift it off of the ground.

I then flung it back in the water because I don't like the taste of fish.

But that was the biggest fish I ever caught. It was probably one pound at most.

:)

You? Any cool fishing stories?

... I did catch larger catfish at a catfish farm.... but that's not really fishing. It's more like plucking fish out of a water hole. They are so eager to get caught they will bite BAITLESS hooks.

-- Allen

Trolling small Kona Heads along the outside of the reef off of Anderson AFB, I caught a 35 pound Mahi Mahi. Definately the biggest I ever caught.

Earlier in the day, I spent 10 minutes with me at one end and a very excercised Pacific Blue Marlin at the other, around 250 pounds of him. Due to the fact that the First Mate had made a mistake in rigging the Kona Head, the fish was lost. But it sure was a hell of a lot of fun! ;-)

Last june, I caught a 12-pound catfish in the Kaskaskia River! Took me FOREVER to land him!

PS--- he tasted good, too! :P

Does that count?

:-)

:thumbsup:

I was about 9 or 10 at the time. For freshwater, a 3lb. Largemouth, and a 3.5 lb. Rainbow Trout. It was a DFG stocker, though.

Surf fishing on canaveral national seashore we often hook into *large* sharks. I've gone a few times with the equipment needed to actually land them and hauled in a few big guys. One hammerhead a little over 7feet (I don't know weight, I would estimate 250-300lbs). Most of what we caught was 4-5 feet and around 100 lbs, but it's actually pretty funny to see the way people react when you pull an enormous predator onto the beach. Since it's a national seashore there normally aren't that many people around, but nudity is allowed so during the fight a crowd of people, many naked, stand and watch you. It might be the definition of surreal.

...Fishing in Big Bay. It was as tall as me -- of course, I think I was 8 at the time. :) Also, before we weighed it, my dad dipped it in the water to make it weigh more!

(Edited to add): Caught on 15 lb test! Took about three hours to bring it in, in the rain....

maybe 18" is the longest from 'our' lake up north, but when with a freind on Lake Michigan, i did pull in 3 trout that all were about 20-24" trout.

Does that count?

:evilgrin:

:evilgrin:

I should say I TRIED to catch it. We sat in chairs with harnesses so we would not be pulled off the pier.. The guy next to me actually reeled it in until my parents came to my side of the pier..

We would go fishing at midnight, and fish for bait for the first few hours.. (Bait was usually 10 pounders).. Then the kids would climb down a rope ladder to a large wooden raft thing on the lagoon side of the pier and scale & gut the fish that the parents caught.. Of course it was a while before a parent saw what we were doing..

We would straddle these huge fish and the scales & goo would get all over us, so we would jump into the water to "wash off".. It never occurred to us that some nasty fishie might think that WE were there for the taking , as well as the fishy parts we were putting back into the water..

After that, (and the bait incident *) we were banished to sit in the chairs and holler when we "got a bite"..

*the bait incident.. We would release the pretty ones, and the Dads all got mad at us..:)

Nankoweep Rapid in the Grand Canyon

was a bird skull. The damn crabs kept cleaning the bait off of my hook.

.

38 pound cobia or ling
Biggest fish I ever caught by about 35 pounds.
But...
We were fishing wrecks and artificial reefs in the Gulf of Mexico and I had already lost 3 rigs by hooking onto what we were fishing over. At first I thought this cobia was #4, and then he started to move. Took 15 minutes of hard work to get him close to the boat and then he saw the landing net and took off again.

Took another 15 minutes to get him alongside again. This time the net handler was more subtle and scooped him, but the net was rotten and he went right through. Now I'm fighting him through the aluminum hoop. Finally managed to get disentangled, but the fish has looped the line 3 or 4 times around the outdrive. My buddy was striping down to his skivvies to go overboard and CAPTURE this fish. We got the line unwrapped with a boathook and landed the fish.
Good eatin'.

I've caught plenty of mahi in the 30lb range, large cudas, and tarpon to 70lbs.

lost the biggest mahi of my career this past summer right at the boat, pushing 45 lbs. cant catch 'em all I guess.

"what was the biggest fish you caught and what were the circumstances?"

Going on a charter and hauling a 400 pound bluefin out of the murky depths with a-gazillion pound test line tied to an anchor takes a little less skill than landing a 25 pound brown trout on a 5x tippet and a size 20 Adams.

My personal best was an 18# Chinook (non-spawning) on a 5-weight fly rod. I was fishing for sea-run cutthroat in British Columbia when this monster hooked on my little Clouser. Nothing like watching a frantic guy running up and down the beach trying to land this sucker.

Now, I've caught bigger fish, by far, but this one took the most skill and physical endurance.