Great stories, interesting thread too!
I'm sure we all have many "one that got away" stories but the one that sticks in my head happened on my first day of flyfishing ever. I knew very little (read next to nothing) about specific techniques other than the basics. Must say I was fair to middlin' with the casting as I had practiced a ton. Any way I went out to this creek I knew off the trunk road. It had a few beaver ponds which I proceeded to thrash the life out of. Fished for hours with nary a bite, nothing, zilch, not even a hint that fish might have been there. Gettin pretty frustrated by this point! SCREW THIS!! I'm done, this fly thing ain't workin out. So I decided to pack up and hit the road. My line (with some kind of nymph on the end by the way) was out about as far as I could cast so I started to reel in as fast as I could (you know where this is goin'), sure enough about 6 feet from the end of my rod a huge something swallowed my nymph, bent my rod almost double and was off the line in about 2 seconds. I stood in dumbfounded shock, slack line in the water. I remember picking up the rod tip and BAM it happened again! With the exact same result I should add, slack line and dumb looking farm kid on the bank. Heart beating like crazy I fished until dark with not a sniff, and drove home.