Ah... fishing stories.
Since im an inshore saltwater kinda guy, ill tell ya about my experiences at the Edisto Marina.
My family owns a beach house at Edisto Beach, SC. We go there every summer for a week. My sisters ex-boyfriend worked at the Edisto Marina, and he gave me awesome connections at that place. He pay for my drinks and hooks, or id give him the money at the cash register and hed pretend to "make change" and he'd give me back the money i just gave him. Since i knew him, the owner of the marina would let me fish off of the walk ways beside the boats and parking spaces. The marina was about 10 foot above the water, and you could drop your rig right beside the pilings. One afternoon at around low tide, I decided to try my luck. The dock was noisy because the local band was playing and there was a huge crowd for the sunset grille, which was right on top of the marina. I had caught a couple of spottail in about an hour. The tide was turning, and the bite was beginning to slack off. My mind drifted into lala land, when out of nowhere my rod was almost yanked out of my hands. I gripped tighter with my cat-like reflexes and held on for dear life. My drag wasn't set for a fish of this size, so it just kept on taking out line. Before i could adjust the drag, he wrapped around one of the pilings and cut my line. I was so upset. I cussed and cussed, and the people above me stared. I looked up at them and they quickly turned their heads.
I rigged up again as fast as I could, and dropped the mud minnow beside the piling one more time. I turned my drag so that no man alive could pull line out. Almost as soon as I dropped it in, my line took off again. I was completely in utter shock. It was impossible that this thing was pulling out drag. Thinking of only one thing to do, I grabbed the line with my hand and wrapped it around my arm. Big mistake. The line began to cut my arms and the pain was intense. But, I pulled whatever it was slowly up to the surface. I saw a golden shadow begin to appear, and before long I was staring at a redfish head literally the size of a football. I could see my other hook in his mouth. His head was on the surface for a good 3 or 4 seconds, and with a shake of his head, he snapped the line. "The one that got away."