I'm with the guys who feel that lost fish are the most exciting, not that I'll downplay landed fish. I hooked a big something off Catalina that hit like a bluegill but spooled several hundred yards of 20-lb. test like it wasn't even there.

Then there was a pair of really large steehead on the Klick one September day, one of which I saw, that likely topped 20.

And there was the big halibut that grabbed on to a 25-lb. ling and held on to it for nearly two hours off Dungeness before letting go.

The most exciting fish, though, since the thread is about superltives, was the upper teens steelhead I hooked in a small OP river on a cast Hotshot. Had her up on the beach for a bit and then broke her off when she flipped back in and ran for a stump. I can still see the little puff of moisture when the line broke and curled back toward me. While that fish was the first big steelhead I hooked, the real excitement was the next day when I went back to same pool. Fished it hard with no luck when I decided to climb out on an alder to look down into the pool. Saw that fish with the Hotshot in the corner of its mouth and swimming next to it was a steelhead that dwarfed the one I hooked. That sight inspired a lot of fishing...until the pool filled on the next flood.

Keith