What's worse?

[EMA-SON]

What's worse? Hooking into a really big fish and loosing it before you see it, or seeing it before you loose it?

Fished the river in the Warren area this weekend and lost a really big fish. I'm really curious as to what it was. It felt like a snag at first, then drug it in like a log until I got it half way in and then decided to run, pulling my drag for a few seconds and spitting the hook before I got a look. The day before I caught a 24", 4.5 lb walleye and a 26" pike with relative ease (both released). This same thing happened to me in the same spot, with the same lure last year. Any thoughts to what this fish could have been; I'm really curious. I'm ruling out a big trout because they usually fight hard from the hookset. This fish seemed to be dazed, then woke up and took off with extreme power. Any chance I lost my first musky, again...

[Stinky Finger]

Oh man, don't you just hate those moments?!
I had a similar experience many years ago fishing at night from a pier on Lake Ontario at Olcott, N.Y. Fishing for salmon at night with egg sacs for bait. I had caught many salmon there before, some well over 25 lbs. so I knew what it was like to fight and land these big kings. This time was different. My bait began to move off so I set the hook. Not the usual response from a typical salmon with the usual head shakes and ordinary fight. The instant I reared back on the rod that fish set a course for Toronto and poured on the coals. I had never felt throbbing like that before and that's all there was too it, heavy throbbing racing straight out into the lake. It almost ripped the rod from my hands, a nine foot heavy salmon/ steelhead spinning rod with 17 lb test mono. I've landed plenty from the pier and out on the lake trolling, some truly big kings but this monster dwarfed all of them, just unreal. I yelled fish on and people between me and the end of the pier tried to get out of the way but five of them still got broke off on my line. The run never stopped. My line peeled off the drag like the guide wire behind a tow missile, running right down to the knot at the spool which parted with a sharp report like a firecracker. Gone. See ya!
Who knows what that could have been. Salmon? Sturgeon? Carp? There are carp around the piers and marina there big enough to saddle up and ride in a rodeo and Lake Ontario does have sturgeon but I have no clue what it could have been. Submarine?
I never saw the fish so that's nowhere near as bad as maybe catching sight of the muskie of a lifetime, getting a real good up close look at it and then losing it. That would be soul crushing.

[Kong6799]

Sounds like a big walleye

[Ivan]

Sounds to me like you had a big fish foul hooked or snagged. Could have been anything...carp, catfish, muskie...

[muskyjerk]

Lost a big fish at moraine trolling with a scotty baitcast/ open faced rod holder. The long handle on my musky rod was pinned in the rod holder by the resistence of the fish and when the fish let up enough for me to remove the rod it was gone. I've been using a folbe ( rod comes out similar to a down east rod holder) since and not had this problem.
Whether I see the fish or not any mistake to lose a good musky just hurts.

[EMA-SON]

That's a wild salmon story. I've had that happen to me fishing from a pier in the Atlantic, but never in freshwater.

I've snagged carp before; they usually take off right away and don't really let up much. This fish hit within 2-3 rotations of my reel after the lure hit the water and I was by no means burning the bait...but, in the event I did snag this fish, I would have rather seen it; wouldn't be so let down loosing it.