I was fishing today at a nearby river, when all of the sudden I hooked a good 10" Smallmouth Bass.  I started to reel the fish in, but all of the sudden, I felt this really hard tug on the line.  I continued to reel whatever I had in until it was close enough to see.  Turns out it was a good sized pike (28").  At that point in time, I was pretty excited, as I have never caught a pike before.  Then, when I was about to hand land it, it took off and I felt the line slack.  The pike was gone, but to my surprise, I still had the Smallmouth and it was still very much alive.  It only had a few teeth marks around its anal fin and tail.  After that, I caught a few more fish (no pike, though), including my first Creek Chub.

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

Yep! same story, but different players....for me it was a largemouth grabbing a bluegill.

Wow, thats crazy, I've definitely heard of the secondary bite, but never of the first fish being let go alive, thats awesome!

I watched a youtube video of some guys salmon fishing near the San Juan Islands in WA. The predator that kept eating their salmon was a little bigger. Orca.

Every Spring, while crappie fishing, I usually catch two or three Muskie off of crappie that were on my line.

Posted By skewl on 09 Oct 2011 09:30 PM
Wow, thats crazy, I've definitely heard of the secondary bite, but never of the first fish being let go alive, thats awesome!

Yeah, it wasn't even bleeding.  The pike's teeth only removed some scales around it's anal fin, but other than that, the Smallmouth seemed uninjured.  I was even able to release it afterwards.