Stuff like this can happen... I know I get excited about seeing big bass eating my bait :)

Some things to consider for the future that might help...

- The time to get excited about big bass is after they are in your hand. Getting excited before that is seldom good. Even Ike doesn't scream when he hooks them, he waits until they're in the boat.

- Big bass are equipment breakers. It takes a long time to realize this for a lot of people because it takes a long time to get a lot of bites from big bass. Sounds stupid but it's very true. What kind of equpiment were you using? Rod, reel, line, knot?

- Big bass make you lose your form because you get excited. No one talks about form but form is really important in fishing. I see people fishing swimbaits when I'm on the lake and one look can tell you if a guy knows what he's doing or not.

Your rod should always be under you armpit, always. If your rod butt isn't long enough to go under your armpit, its not a good rod for swimbaiting. Big bass can pull your rod tip down faster that you can blink and that's a missed bite when that happens most times. You said one of your bites almost got the rod out of your hands. That should never happen. The fish should hit and the butt of the rod should already be wedged under your armpit where it can't be pulled up so that you have immediate positive hooksetting action the second the fish strikes.

With baits that have the hook on the top (like ROF12 or 16 hudd) your line should be below your rod tip and you should have the rod just about pointed at the bait at all times. When I say that the line should be below the rod tip, I mean that if you look at the rod tip, the tip of the rod and the line coming out the tip of the rod should form an upside down V shape. If your line is above your rod tip forming a right side up V shape, you're out of position for a good hookset. Your set with a top hook bait should be about 2 to 3 o'clock. Watch the Butch Brown videos on www.huddlestondeluxe.com if you need to see it in actoin.

For baits with the hooks on the bottom (like Slammer or ROF 5 hudd) you should have the rod out to the side ready to sweep set like with a rattletrap. Setting upward with baits like that just knocks the fish's mouth open.

Anyway, these are just things to think about. Losing big ones sucks but losing them over and over again by making the same mistakes sucks worse.