Fishing Gear Fails

[jgp12000]

Do you have a fishing story where your reel or rod failed while fishing?

Please share what gear broke & fish species/size was involved.If
human error was a factor add that too,maybe we can all learn what not to do

I hope to hear some tall fish tales!

[Brewcrafter]

I see this thread quickly outgrowing Benni's "Luck" thread.   
Best one I have demonstrates how tough our reels actually are.  Bone stock 113H, 1970's model, original brake lining type drags.  Hooked a 7' Mako on the troll, but he came unpinned and then my Rapala ended up buried in the dorsal fin.  Proceeded to get my #### handed to me.  Severely.  Did get the fish to the boat.  Afterwards (when upgrading the to a modern drag) you could see clear definition on the brass sleeve where it was hot and got "blued" when the drags got smoked. - john

[quang tran]

Early day when I start in fishing , I make lots of mistake . One of the worst on Mitchell reel is not lock the spool in complete to shaft so when fish bite spool turn free and fell in water

[oc1]

I had the same thing happen with my Mitchell 300 QT.  But there wasn't really a fish involved.  I was leaning over the rail of a pier trying to get a spadefish bait right up against the piling and the spool just fell into the water.

I tend to tear up more equipment on snags than fish.

[Maxed Out]

 At a fishing lodge in Haida Gwaii and we had a guide on our boat. We got to the good spot and the guide put out the downriggers, and on my side he clipped on a 2nd line about 25' up from the first line. Meaning I now have 2 rods clipped to one downrigger line. My buddy had just a single rod on his side of the boat. Just a few minutes into trolling, the top rod on my side gets smacked hard and the salmon did 3 quick downward line rips, and I told our guide I was likely tangled with the other rod that was clipped on the same downrigger. Right then my buddy hooks up with a line ripper, and his fish then turned back towards our boat, so the guide grabbed the net and turned his back on me, so I cranked up the downrigger and came to a basketball size wad of tangled mono line. About then my buddies fish ran from the boat and the guide turned around and saw the mess and said we'll hafta cut the line where it comes outta the mess, so he cuts the line, and right then my buddy yells he needs the net, so the guide hands me the line he just cut off of the tangled mess, and I realized it was fouled on something on the stern of the boat, so I laid down next to the outbaord motor and seen it was around the transducer, and I could see where the line pointed away, so I reached into the water and grabbed that line and now  the line was finally freed from all the mess, but I only had about 8: of line, and still had a salmon on it, but thankfully it wasnt pulling. Then I noticed my salmon was about 100' off my side and only a few feet down. It was swimming away from me, so I did a light little tug and now it was swimming across the stern, about that time the guide came back to my side and said there was enough line for him to string it thru the rod guides and tie it back to the reel, but I declined and said if it gets away Ill just catch another. He was not happy and turned his back to me to tend to my buddy that was still fighting his salmon. My salmon was going towards the other side of the boat and still about 100feet out, and I didnt want to tangle with my buddy and his fish, so I gave the line a light tug to turn the fish, and now its lined up to swim right at me, Im just hand over hand keeping up the slack. Oh crap, its now about 20' aeay and gonna swim right by the boat on my side, so I hollered at the guide to get over here with the net. There it was, swimming along about 5-6' down, so at the very moment it was basically swimming along sude the boat, I gave a good pull up and the guide scooped it up, tossed it outta the net into the boat, and said "you dont deserve that fish". My buddy was still fighting his, so at this point my adrenaline was sky high, and I went over behind my buddy and gave him a firm open hand smack in the back and said " just cut your line and bring it in by hand", his reply is mine is bigger than yours. His fish musta made a dozen big runs. I ended up laying in the boat next to my king salmon histerically laughing. His salmon finally hit the net and both looked exactly the same size. Mine had a dent in the nose from when I excitedly bonked it with the mini bat. We got back to the floating lodge and weighed the 2 kings. Mine was 36#, and his was 34#, so mine was actually bigger. Yep, a 36# king on a handline of 30# mono. It likely never knew it was hooked. That day I learned never to stack 2 lines onto 1 downrigger. I still remember that day like it happened yesterday, but it was 2002, so 24 years later, and still recall every detail of that morning. My buddy too. We've fished together for over 35 years at many canadian coastal lodges, and couple decades chasing salmon locally on my boat. Lotta good memories of some epic fishing

[Gfish]

Early Spring 1989. Klamath Lake. My first baitcaster, a Shimano Bantam Black Mag. Was trying to figure-out how to cast it using a 3/8ths oz sliding sinker and a nightcrawler. I remember thinking "man this sucks, is what guys call a backlash?, why do people like baitcasters?" Eventually I got it out there. Put the rig down but sticking-up in the rocks to use the outdoor bathroom. Yeah, a big trout bites, the rig falls over, I start cranking but the fish is keeps going with no pressure on it,...? What's wrong?
Turns-out the drag star hit a rock and bent inward. So every time I turned the handle, the star would loosen-up by smacking the side-plate. I lost the fish. Then my cast control cap fell off and into the water, gone!
 Put the Bantam away and went back to using a spinner.